Lately I have been on a quest to try out the leading remote control software programs. I need something that helps me remotely control my PC, performs well and can let me invite people to watch me demonstrate something on my PC. I've narrows my search down to a few products including:
- LogMeIn
- GoToMyPC
- WebEx
- I often want to show a customer some progress I have made without having to post the code to a web site.
- It also comes in handy to be able to invite another developer in to help me debug a situation.
- I can remotely control my PC when I am on the road (this includes full access to email, my file system, and printers).
While there are other products out there, hey, this is my blog and these are my choices :-)
The first product I looked at is LogMeIn. Mostly because this product is the only one of the 3 that still has a free version. You can get a free version of LogMeIn that has some scaled down features which basically let you remotely control your PC (sans file transfers). If that suffices for you, then you can stop looking right now as its free, performs fairly well and allows remote control.
The LogMeIn Pro version adds a few more features including file transfers and guest invitations. The former allows you to pass files back and forth and the latter allows you to invite another person to either come watch you demonstrate something on your PC or to remotely control your PC while you watch. This latter feature is great for me for a few situations right away:
I've used this product for a few days so far and haven;t hit all of the features yet, but so far I have been impressed with its feature set. (All of my remote control tests were done over the Internet.) How does it perform? Well, I was skeptical of this tool mostly because of 2 reasons: I had never heard of it before and its free. Most of the time those 2 combinations add up to a sloppy product. But I have been pleasantly surprised by the features included in LogMeIn as well as the performance. It far out shines the old style remote control programs that repaint screen shots on the screen and kept up fairly well with all of the movements and screen changes I tested.
On the downside, I certainly wish I could invite more than 1 person to watch me demonstrate something. As far as I can see they do not offer an upgrade to be able to invite more than 1 person to view my PC at a time. If I am missing something, I will revise this review later.
I cannot compare this to the performance of GoToMyPc and WebEx yet as I have not tried them yet. But when I do, I will offer a more extensive comparative analysis. But so far, I have to say that if you look no further than LogMeIn with its free version or even its Pro version of $70/year subscription, IMO you are getting a good value. Even with the cost of its Pro version, LogMeIn is still cheaper than the subscriptions to GoToMyPc and WebEx.
