Free Remote PC Support for Your Relatives – Netviewer
A few months ago, we posted an article on ShowMyPC, a free software package that helps you to control someone else’s PC remotely from your own chair at home. Ideal for helping relatives and friends when they're stuck with their computer. But when I’d been using ShowMyPC for some time, I noticed that it didn’t work in every situation. When either myself or the other person was working from behind a strict company firewall, connection wasn’t possible. In that kind of situation, Netviewer Support can help out.
Why It’s Clever
Remote PC control is ideal for helping out friends and relatives who have relatively limited PC knowledge, in contrast with your genius. And you like to help, of course, but you dread spending half an hour in the car for two minutes of actual work – who wouldn’t? I’ve tried several free software packages for remote help, but I always got stuck when one of the PCs was behind a strict company firewall – with simpler home firewalls, it tends to work.
On the other hand, I’ve been using Netviewer for almost a year now, for business web conferencing with online meetings and screen sharing, and it’s always performed just fine, even with several participants working behind company firewalls. But Netviewer did have a rather expensive subscription model for occasional users.
Now the good news: For private users, it’s free! I don’t know when they introduced this, but I noticed it yesterday on their website. You can simply download it from the Netviewer website and start using it as often as you like.
When you need to connect with someone, simply start the client on your PC. Click “invite”, enter the other person’s email address, and an invitation is immediately sent. The receiver clicks on the link in the email, and a session is established. You don’t even need to enter passwords, session IDs or whatever. Don't worry, it's secure, the other user still has to accept the connection.
It’s a very user-friendly, powerful and versatile solution, and I haven’t found a configuration yet where I haven’t gotten a connection.
Here you can see a short video that will make things clearer. I don’t know why Dad still has to type in his access code, because you can use Netviewer Support without typing in any codes, like I described above.
Summary
- Remote PC support or online meetings
- Full control of remote PC
- No technical knowledge required
- No user ID required
- Works through secure firewalls
- Free for private use
- Paid versions available for business web conferencing, including audio.
Tips
When you want to work together on a common project with one or more remote users - the yearly party of the volleyball club, maybe - you can work together on the same documents with several remote users. Or you can do an on-line presentation of your brilliant plan to someone a thousand miles away.
There are different Netviewer packages available:
- Netviewer Support for remote PC control
- Netviewer Meet for business web conferencing, with screen sharing and online discussion, including voice and video
- Netviewer Admin for remote access without the remote presence of a person
- Netviewer Present for online presentations.
Other Clever PC Solutions on Clever & Easy | |||
Where to buy
You can download the various versions for free from the Netviewer website.
Approx. price: Free for private use (December 2009)
Categories: space-saving, home organizing, simply original
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I can see how this would come in handy, especially if you have someone in the family who is constantly having problems with their computer. The question is would they pay for it as it's really for them? Wouldn't work if they were a stingy so and so.
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|2010-01-06 01:42:16 Clever & EasyThe good thing is that it's free, for private users. You still have to invest your time, so it'll still depend on how much you like them in the first place
