Free Remote Support Software

At my first I.T. gig, we had users in the field all of the time. remote sales folks, and also remote service agents which required them to travel an awful lot. They worked out of their homes, airports, Starbucks, and hotels. Though they weren't on our network, they still needed support.

Among other tools for remote support, we would use WebEx which costs a lot of dough, and in my opinions really, really sucks! The delay on it is ridiculous, and the picture quality is second only to the drawings of my 2 year old daughter. (Okay, maybe not that bad, but you get my point).

Anyhoo, my buddy at work showed me a cool website that offers a free, open source remote support tool that uses VNC over SSH. The SSH server is hosted by ShowMyPC.com, but the software also gives you an option to use your own SSH server if you have one.

Another cool feature is that for each session, the person that needs support generates a random password and gives it to the person they want to share their PC with, so the person sharing retains control of their own PC, and you don't get unauthorized access attempts.

If you own your own consulting business, or are looking for something for remote support for your company, they also offer a customized plan for only $10 a month where they will give you a dedicated server, and a customized application:



For Medium to large businesses, you can contact them about other features.


If you are just a small one man band, or you just need to help your 'Grammy' remove some spyware from her computer from across the United States, the free version will work very well for you.

The one problem I have with it though, is that since it is VNC, the picture quality still isn't as good as say, remote desktop or remote assistance, but since it's free, you can hardly complain about that.