Lee's Favorite Apps: Teamviewer
Yes, Teamviewer is completely free for personal use - and if you're doing the "friend that knows about computers" thing for people, you need this app. Here's why.
1) It's portable. Drop it on your flash drive, and you can fire it up and help a buddy out no matter where you are or who's computer you need to run it from.
2) It's small. The QuickSupport module is a 1.3mb download, and telling someone where and how to get it is dead simple.
3) It runs on Windows and Mac. Linux support would be nice, but it's kind of a non-issue - most of the people you offer personal support probably aren't running Linux anyway.
4) It's fast, and secure. Teamviewer runs 256-bit encryption based on RSA key exchange and AES. Their code - including your own custom designed QuickSupport modules - are signed by Verisign.
5) It autoscales by default and handles multiple monitors without a hitch. I've used UltraVNC and Radmin, but TeamViewer is just better both tasks in my opinion.
6) The TeamViewer Manager. I've got dozens of hosts saved in my install for quick connections, and it even keeps tabs on all my support sessions for billing purposes. That means one less thing I have to track in our horrible, useless poit-of-sale system.
7) It runs as a service. I can reboot to my heart's content while removing malware from a remote machine or performing maintenance on a server, and I've got control back as soon as I hit the login screen (even in safe mode with networking).
8) Bonus features. Though I don't use them often, the VPN, chat, and file transfer all work very well and can be real lifesavers. Using the chat to ask someone to check their printer for a test page is way easier than calling, and it's free. The file transfer is a huge when I can't find a certain app on the web - I can browse for it on my fileserver and zip it over to my host.
9) It just works. This is the most important feature of TeamViewer, in my opinion. Firewalls, routers, annoying Internet Security software, you name it and TeamViewer works through it.
Maybe you like another remote support app, but I'm sticking with TeamViewer - unless you can convince me otherwise!
