For anyone who finds themselves in need of the services that a product like GoToMyPC can provide (namely accessing a computer on one network from one on another network, both behind firewalls which restrict direct connection attempts) but don’t want to pay $20 per month (or whatever it is now), I would like to recommend sslexplorer, an excellent replacement for such needs.
There are a lot of reasons why I like this, even though I personally already do most of this kind of thing using SSH tunneling. One is that this is way easier for the average user to setup, and they can run it on pretty much any computer (doesn’t require you to run an SSH server at home). The other is that if you’re working behind an extremely secured network and trying to connect back to another computer (at home for example), the network administrators could potentially restrict your ability to use SSH if they really wanted to do so, but chances are that if they want to allow any secure browsing at all, they will probably have to allow outbound HTTPS connections, which is all this product needs in order to make the connection.
I found this especially interesting since the company behind GoToMyPC / GoToMeeting has been heavily pushing their products lately, sponsoring pretty much every tech podcast that takes sponsorships. It will be interesting to see if those shows will avoid mentioning sslexplorer to avoid conflicts with their sponsors.
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Have you tried LogMeIn? http://www.logmein.com. Their basic version is totally free. I would be interested to hear a knowledgeable comparison of GoToMyPC, LogMeIn and sslexplorer.
I haven’t actually tried logmein before; it looks pretty similar to GoToMyPC, and the free version may be a good option for people who aren’t familiar with adding a port forwarding rule to their home router (which you need for sslexplorer).
One of the things I prefer about sshexplorer is that it doesn’t require an external server in the middle of the connection; whereas GoToMyPC and logmein require you to make the connection through their servers. This is good for easy configuration but not so good if the network you are connecting from decides to block traffic to those sites.
This is something they could (and probably should) easily do, whereas they will probably not block HTTPS access to your random home IP address, unless they are blocking all traffic and only allowing HTTPS traffic to a whitelist of selected pre-approved sites. This is also possible, but it would be very rare that a network would be that locked down.
The other advantage to sslexplorer is that it is open source, and will probably always be free, whereas the service from these other providers is closed and proprietary, and the current free offers will probably not last, unless it is supported by heavy ads, which is just annoying.
I haven’t tried GoToMyPc, but I use this remote access application called RemotePC.
It works well and has faster refresh rates. The good thing about this product is that you really don’t have to break your head with your firewalls or the routers, it will get through automatically. Further the entire communication between the Host machine and the Viewer machine is also encrypted using 128-bit RC4/SSL to ensure security during online remote access.
For more information, check the product website at http://www.remotepc.com
I’m trying to decide whether this one is spam advertising or just a product recommendation from an enthusiastic fan.
I’m leaning towards the latter (for a couple reasons), so I’ll leave it in, but perhaps Emily can respond to confirm.
Other than the refresh rate comparison (which I’m not sure about), the other things mentioned (no firewall config, encryption, etc.) are probably the same with both products.
The pricing for RemotePC looks quite a bit cheaper than GoToMyPC, though, so that’s good.
While I do like Open Source, I feel the true GoToMyPC killer is http://www.LogMeIn.com. I’ve been comparing the two for the last two years and I’ve found Logmein kills everything else I’ve tried in terms of speed (Including remote polling ability). That’s also just the free version. They have also added more features recently that nobody else has. Like the ability to Reboot the system into Safemode and maintain control and when you login to a server, you can control the console or any of the Terminal Services Sessions (Except that Logmein is faster and has more features than Terminal Services Alone). I don’t know what protocol is under the hood, but I hope they keep up the good work!
The install instructions for sslexplorer alone are enough to frighten anyone away. The flash videos are nice, but jeez, I just want to connect to grandma’s PC to help her get back on AOL. Too complicated.
I guess you won’t mind paying for a commercial service and having a third party involved in your secure communication then.
sslexplorer certainly isn’t for everyone, but I’ve been using it for a while now (the free community edition) and I find it to be excellent; especially the latest versions that have come out since I originally posted this article several years ago.