I am looking for a replacement for TeamViewer that is free, for personal use. I currently manage around 6 family members PC'S and couple of phones remotely whenever they need assistance.
It has been great software in the past, however the TeamViewer software think I am using it for COMMERCIAL USE all the time and kicks me off after a few minutes.
Any similar, yet free software in the market that anyone can receommend?
+1 for Chrome Remote Desktop.
I appreciate the fact (after moving from Windows RDP years ago) that it works through the UAC popups as well as whilst not logged in.
For any 'public' PCs, like our work till PC, I have a password-protected admin Microsoft account separate to the main shared user, and THEN login to Chrome on that user account. I still get access to everything for troubleshooting, but don't have to worry about snooping by staff into my bookmarks and saved passwords.
Chrome has remote access
I was having the same problem as you with TV kicking me off. I have been using Chrome Remote Desktop for over a year now and works mostly smoothly. Sometime it does have an issue where it can't access the clipboard. Overall its very good for free.
I use both Teamviewer and Anydesk on my personal PCs.
I prefer Teamviewer - when using Anydesk I find right clicking painful and Teamvewier has features I use often such as WOL.
just email them and explain that this is a private use, they will then whitelist your IPs…. I did that and it worked for me.
Yeah, not that easy, I sent them an email and sent this back.
"Thank you for your request regarding being unblocked from using the free version of TeamViewer. After reviewing the information provided to us, we were unable to confirm that the submitted ID is being used privately.
To continue using TeamViewer, there are two options for you to consider:
1) We encourage you to purchase a license that fits your needs: https://www.teamviewer.com/pricing
2) THIS FORM is a declaration of private use that needs to be printed, signed personally and sent back to us replying to this email.
When you return this to us, we will review your response confirming your declaration of private use and use this to determine whether we can re-enable your use of TeamViewer."
So way too hard/intrusive and I went to ANYdesk instead. Don't get me wrong I'd be happy to buy a license if the costs was proportionate to the amount of time I actually use the program to help people out, but from what I could see their plans start at $49.95 USD per month!
Sorry, I ddidn't mean to neg your comment - , but part 2 you stated above doesn't seem too onerous if you are genuinely not using the software commercially?
No worries. I explained all that in my initial email to them and was not comfortable signing a legal document when they do not say how they determine what constitutes 'commercial use' (I have never made any money from using teamviewer) or what conditions they might change in the future. Much easier (for me) to use a different product. Cheers
@EightImmortals: I went to Anydesk after Teamviewer kept on stuffing me around with this. Was only helping my relatives interstate, no commercial use whatsoever. Jumpted through hoops to clear the "commerical use" message and then they activated the message again. They said it was a mistake, but still, got sick of it.
Only tricky thing with Anydesk is training relatives to allow remote access after I've requested it - differs to Teamviewer in that aspect so took a little while for them to get used to that.
If you click on "votes" underneath their comment you can remove your vote by clicking the red "-" circle next to your vote in the list of votes.
I had the same experience, filled in the form, and then never heard back from them anyway. Seems like once they've decided you're doing commercial use, they won't reconsider.
Oh I had this exact same problem last week, TV thinks I am a commercial operator. Went to ANYDESK instead, so far so good.
I've been using the free TeamViewer for years and remoting into my mum's machine. I didn't know there is a connection time limit???
If you appear to be commercial by TV there is.
Anydesk is developed by some programmers who left TeamViewer, and it is solid (and free).
NoMachine is a really good option, but you need a static IP to connect to. Shouldn't be a problem for your use case
I got flagged last night as commercial, Only logged in from my phone to home PC within the house.
Wondering what caused the commercial flagging
Wondering what caused the commercial flagging
Teamviewer want more money :(
Yes but why they flag me the session as commercial,
If i was on a domain enrolled PC, Used it many time this month i would understand, but was just mobile to home pc and first time i had connected in months.
Honestly if they had a low usage option i would pay for it, Im not willing to pay $600 a year.
Yes I was flagged as "commercial" use yesterday and like others above am not using it that way - just helping out friends/family remotely. I submitted the form to remove the flag and they got back to me this morning saying they'd cleared it.
And another option for remote access: https://www.ammyy.com/en/index.html
I used to use teamviewer and got that message, they had cleared it several times already and I had filled out their form before too. But I just got sick of it (I log on remotely from my phone to play a game on my desk top at home, anytime anywhere sort of thing). I switched over to anydesk. Haven't had a problem, coming up to 2 years now.
@kawinuyo
This is what I want to do, not to play games as such but you access my PC at home from my phone. I'm a noob with this stuff but I'll have to look into it, You don't need someone on the PC end to click accept? I've always thought you did with remote software.
You can set a password then you don't need someone to click accept! You actually have to install it though, anydesk is really good and you can run it even without installing but to do unattended access need to install. Once installed there is a "set password for unattended access" on the upper left corner.
Thank you, appreciate the reply. I'll definitely look into it then
This was opportune… I've looked more into Chrome remote desktop and they allow headless control as well (you don't even need chrome installed, just install a program). This works a treat for my use case at work needing to maintain a few surface go's.
DuckDNS + port forwarding + Native RDP.
Port forwarding RDP is a really easy way to get pwned. RDGW is a must if you need RDP publicly accessible.
This is a terrible idea, unless your goal is to get hacked… RDP over the internet is not considered secure.
I've been running this setup for few years with zero issues. I guess having them on non standard port plus Duo for multifactor solved a lot of security problems.
The issue I have with other solution is software update. RDP is part of windows so updating them is trivial. It's so widely used so if there any vulnerability it will get patched fast.
Other user can't see what you are doing when using RDP, so not helpful trying to educate the other user.
AnyDesk is great. And free.
MeshCentral is like an Open Source TeamViewer - you can install it on computers and have it show up in your portal for connection whenever, or people can download an agent based on an invite code you send them.
https://www.meshcommander.com/meshcentral2
There's a public instance https://meshcentral.com/ that is free to use, or you can run your own server.
Just note that TeamViewer are one of the more litigious software vendors out there.
I've been advised to be extremely careful with it in a business environment as they have been engaging auditors over the last few years OP seems to be using it for non-commercial purposes but they are a **** of a vendor and will make things annoying for you (I've had advice from an external organisation in relation to this).
Are you alluding to parties who are using it for commercial purposes and are paying for the appropriate commercial license getting audited and experiencing hell, or parties who are using it for commercial purposes and not paying for a commercial license getting audited and experiencing hell?
I can see how folk would feel hard done by in the former case, but less so in the latter. I'm not familiar with any instances of the former but would be interested to hear about them.
Both. They have been aggressively auditing both legit and non-legit customers (similar levels of aggression as Oracle, who are also a very aggressive software vendor).
VNC Connect Home is free and doesn't require port forwarding, though I think may only allow 5 machines.
Can confirm, I use it and the max for free licences is 5 users, no port forwarding is needed but you have to log on to your account on all the machines you install the sharing cloud service on for it to work of course.
Works flawlessly for me on Windows 10 and Debian based distros
Was looking through the comments for VNC. Any reason it's not more popular? From what I've seen I got the feeling it's the de-facto remote desktop for Linux.
If you have multiple devices, multiple registrations and a VPN you’d be able to get around the problem I would think. I have desktop and laptop for example. Not an issue for me but if I struck this problem the first thing I would do is try this. I use TV from all my devices from time to time including my phone which isn’t ideal but works.
TeamViewer cleared my commercial flags twice but I got flagged again and just gave up on it. Switched to AnyDesk instead, works perfectly fine.
Anyone use a self-hosted web-based solution (e.g. RDGW, Guacamole or Myrtille) to access your home network from the office? Looking to use something that is purely browser-based to avoid port forwards or client installation.
Meshcentral is great for this.
Anydesk is best TeamViewer alt
If you're all on Windows 10 I recommend Quick Assist.
Do you know how to make it full screen? It's a bit laggy too I find
Ctrl+Alt+Break swaps between Window and Full Screen. I haven't had lag issues, that would usually be dependant on the upload speed at the client end.
Ha! I didnt know that key combo, thanks!
When in full screen though, if I click the - button at the top (to minimise), the screen will then become white and I cannot see the remote screen anymore.
Do you have the same issue?
I have to Stop and Reconnect to get the remote screen back.
@OzFrugie: Click the Quick Assist icon on your Taskbar, the window is hiding there, no reconnections necessary.
Parsec anyone?
vnc ?
Anydesk is the best.
This.
Drop teamviewer. They are garbage. Only interested in site licenses. Why would they respond at all to free users?
I moved to anydesk as well as TV kept coming back and forth with the commercial user issue. I will fill out the form, and after a couple of weeks i will be able to use it till several months later it will happen again.
I have the same issue lately. Saying it's for commercial use while I just want to connect from work laptop to personal desktop (so I dont need to switch keyboard and mouse and toggle screen input).
I went to their website to tell them it's not for commercial use, then they replied in full German (wth)!
Maybe it's their trick so that people dont bother chasing up (?)
Anyway, thanks for the suggestions above for the alternatives.
I tried Splashtop, Anydesk, ConnectWise, but unfortunately none of them working if I am on corporate VPN.
For some reasons, when I use TeamViewer, the connection also stops working once I am on corp VPN, but if I restart TeamViewer, the connection can then be established.
No idea how/why..(?)
The only alt that is working for now is Windows Quick Assist, but feel very clunky and does not seem to support full screen (?).
I can perhaps RDP to my home PC, but my work laptop is connected to home wifi with no intranet access.
Bit paranoid here, but if I connect to wifi with intranet access, then I connect to corp VPN, technically can anyone in corp IT access my stuff in my home network??
If anyone can point out, what I can do or check to enable the apps mentioned above establish connection while on corp VPN, that will be appreciated.
Thanks
When you reply to them, just don't mention the war and they'll let you off, I'm sure.
Teamviewer is the best. I really like the VPN feature where you don't have to take control of the desktop if I only need to access a web server on the same PC.
You could try Google's offering: https://remotedesktop.google.com/
I've only used it on Mac and PC, pretty sure you'd need to sign into the device with your Google account though.