Ask HN: Is there a remote desktop program as good (and cheap) as Dropbox?

Posted by staunch on Monday March 28, 2011 @07:21PM
from the ask-hn dept.

I know there are dozens of remote desktop apps. I've used many of them including GoToMeeting, VNC, etc. It's been a while but I can't find any that seems super great. They all seem to be complicated or sucky.

Is there any cross-platform, cheap, secure, trusthworthy Dropbox-like program that does remote desktop?

I want to just install a tiny little program on all my computers and very quickly be able to see the desktop of any of them from any of them.

I imagine a little taskbar icon that I click and there's a list of all available computers. I select one and it opens a window with the desktop visible.

My primary machine is Linux (Ubuntu), but I have Windows and Mac computers as well.

If this doesn't exist I would definitely use and promote the hell out of it. I'd even be willing to pay some smallish yearly fee for it. If it doesn't exist I highly suggest someone on HN get to work making it.

The remote desktop industry seems to be very similar to remote storage was pre-Dropbox.

Then again, I'm hoping I'm wrong and this already exists, so I don't have to wait :-)

( 13 comments | 5 points | on HN )

Re:Ask HN: Is there a remote desktop program as good (and ch... by maxbrown on Monday March 28, 2011 @07:54PM (#2380680)

Have you looked at http://www.logmein.com? They have a free version, and it's a solid in-browser remote desktop program that just runs a small background program on any computer you want to connect to. Only issue is I'm not sure they have support for Linux... could be a deal-breaker for you.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Is there a remote desktop program as good (and ch... by staunch on Monday March 28, 2011 @08:05PM (#2380714)

It seems the closest, but it reminds me of the predecessors to Dropbox a lot. I couldn't even figure out which of their 7 products I should choose.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Is there a remote desktop program as good (and ch... by runjake on Tuesday March 29, 2011 @12:11PM (#2383184)

Start off the with free version. When you need another feature, see what the lowest tier is that has your desired features, get that. Repeat as needed.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Is there a remote desktop program as good (and ch... by HerraBRE on Monday March 28, 2011 @07:49PM (#2380654)

Are you a developer?

Most of the pieces exist as open source (assuming VNC is good enough for you), wrapping a nice GUI around them using something like wxPython might not be to hard.

It's an interesting idea for sure. I've been fiddling around with tunneling VNC over PageKite (my project) a bit, but it hadn't yet resulted in anything I'd call a "product vision". This post brings me quite a few steps closer to that. Too bad my TODO list is already rather long...

If you are interested and able to do some coding, I could probably be talked into helping out and providing some infrastructure. ;-)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Is there a remote desktop program as good (and ch... by staunch on Monday March 28, 2011 @08:02PM (#2380705)

I am. I have my own startup to worry about though!

It's very tempting because I think it's the kind of thing that could see Dropbox-like success and there is a bunch of open source code to borrow from.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Is there a remote desktop program as good (and ch... by bricestacey on Monday March 28, 2011 @07:46PM (#2380647)

I'm confused. Dropbox does file-sharing, not remote desktop. Also, your requirements seem to want your computers to not be synced, hoever Dropbox syncs across all clients - so differentiating between computers (e.g. "a list of all available computers") is not necessary.

Unfortunately I do not know of any out of the box solutions. You could setup samba shares on each computer and if you want to access them anywhere then proxy through Amazon. Otheriwse, I'm hoping this might help you better phrase your request.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Is there a remote desktop program as good (and ch... by staunch on Monday March 28, 2011 @08:03PM (#2380710)

I just mean the simplicity and quality of Dropbox, not synchronizing anything.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Is there a remote desktop program as good (and ch... by spicyj on Monday March 28, 2011 @07:57PM (#2380689)

Have you seen https://www.copilot.com/? Looks pretty close to what you want.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Is there a remote desktop program as good (and ch... by staunch on Monday March 28, 2011 @08:00PM (#2380697)

Yeah. That's more of a transactional style help desk tool.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Is there a remote desktop program as good (and ch... by macca321 on Tuesday March 29, 2011 @10:01AM (#2382614)

GBridge is pretty decent if you use windows http://www.gbridge.com/

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Is there a remote desktop program as good (and ch... by maushu on Tuesday March 29, 2011 @12:20PM (#2383227)

http://teamviewer.com You don't even need to install it to run.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Is there a remote desktop program as good (and ch... by flignats on Monday March 28, 2011 @08:44PM (#2380828)

Teamviewer is another nice remote desktop tool that has a bunch of neat features. It is also... free.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Is there a remote desktop program as good (and ch... by BenWGarton on Monday March 28, 2011 @09:16PM (#2380915)

I like jump desktop for my iOSneeds

[ Parent | on HN ]