Remote login software

wijcc · 13 May 2013 at 21:44

Hello all,

Need some advice is there any advantage of using teamviwer instead of realvnc enterprise version for a small company. When there is only need to log into one machine, by one person at a time. Both have 256-bit AES encryption.. so is it worth paying extra for Teamviwer instead of realvnc enterprise edition? The software will run on one machine (windows server 2003) and be used to login into the server everynow and then.

Thanks in advance guys

KIA · 14 May 2013 at 09:39

TeamViewer would be my choice because it works without a direct connection to the Internet. No need to worry about brute-force, etc.

wijcc · 14 May 2013 at 09:44

thanks.. but is it worth the extra £400 over realvnc?

tom_e · 14 May 2013 at 09:51

What about logmein? You could probably get away with the free version.

joelk2 · 14 May 2013 at 09:52

yeah logmein or teamviewer will do what you want.

wijcc · 14 May 2013 at 11:06

it is for commercial use, a small company. So would need to buy software: Teamviewer is £439~ and realvnc enterprise edition is £34~

Antar Bolaeisk · 14 May 2013 at 11:12

The free version of teamviewer won't install on a server though will it? Why don't you just use remote desktop?

tom_e · 14 May 2013 at 11:17

wijcc said:
it is for commercial use, a small company. So would need to buy software: Teamviewer is £439~ and realvnc enterprise edition is £34~

I'm pretty sure logmein free is still free even for commercial use.

Antar Bolaeisk · 14 May 2013 at 11:18

tom_e said:
I'm pretty sure logmein free is still free even for commercial use.

It is, so long as you have less than ten computers on the account.

HecFam · 14 May 2013 at 11:22

The company i work for uses logmein as its primary remote software.

I think you get a free trial nowdays, but we have been prompted recently to pay for the service or we will be limited to 10 computers (mainly client servers.)

I cannot remember the price.

Engram · 14 May 2013 at 11:24

wijcc said:
Both have 256-bit AES encryption..

That doesn't mean much.

It seems that TeamViewer isn't quite as secure as they'd have you believe.

Conclusion from the blog post:

It is my recommendation that TeamViewer not be used on an untrusted network, or with the default password settings. TeamViewer does support increasing the password strength to a configurable length, and using alphanumeric passcodes, but it’s unlikely that casual users will have changed this setting.

Keep in mind that there is a substantial attack surface in TeamViewer that needs more analysis such as the unauthenticated, plaintext communication between client to server (over 100 commands are supported and parsed on the client side), as well as many peer-to-peer commands, routed through the gateway server. Despite the danger to this much exposed attack surface, the risk is somewhat mitigated by an extensive use of std::string and std::vector instead of C-style strings and arrays.

If all of your remote sessions will occur within a single secure network, why not just use TightVNC? It's free!

Dano · 14 May 2013 at 11:28

Antar Bolaeisk said:
Why don't you just use remote desktop?

Indeed, seems silly to pay money for something they already have.

monkeyspank · 14 May 2013 at 11:38

VPN and remote desktop (win) or cord (mac)

Admiral Huddy · 14 May 2013 at 11:42

Doesn't windows 7 come with it's own VPN tools?

nightmare99 · 14 May 2013 at 11:48

I think you get a free trial nowdays, but we have been prompted recently to pay for the service or we will be limited to 10 computers (mainly client servers.)

I cannot remember the price.

£177 +vat per year for central but if you get in touch they will do a deal, I have just been quoted £117 + Vat

Antar Bolaeisk · 14 May 2013 at 12:14

Central is only needed if you're going above the 10 user limit though, the basic account is still free.

wijcc · 14 May 2013 at 12:14

nightmare99 said:
£177 +vat per year for central but if you get in touch they will do a deal, I have just been quoted £117 + Vat

is that a one-off price or an annual licence/subscription fee?

Antar Bolaeisk said:
Central is only needed if you're going above the 10 user limit though, the basic account is still free.

what i want is something similiar to vnc, as the free version of realvnc is currently being used. Just want to replace it with something that is more secure

thewanted · 14 May 2013 at 12:20

Dano said:
Indeed, seems silly to pay money for something they already have.

From what I can remember, you can edit the registry to force RDP to connect over SSL 3.0/TLS 1.0 instead of the insecure SSL 2.0.

Paying for an alternative to RDP is just daft, unless there's a compelling reason which hasn't been described in this thread.

Engram · 14 May 2013 at 12:23

wijcc said:
what i want is something similiar to vnc, as the free version of realvnc is currently being used. Just want to replace it with something that is more secure

In what way is RealVNC not secure?

To anyone suggesting Remote Desktop: it's not very useful for desktop support as you can't share the console session with the current user (i.e. you can't see what they're trying to do).

EDIT: I've just read OP's post again.

When there is only need to log into one machine, by one person at a time.

Yeah... just use Remote Desktop please.

wijcc · 14 May 2013 at 12:49

being able to see what the remote user is doing to whoever is in the office is nice too.
But the bulk of the time remote use would be outside office hours.
Not sure if the current firewall allows/supports VPN.