GoToMyPC review

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Verdict:

Review Date: 19 Aug 2005

Price when reviewed: (around £11) per month; $179 (around £100) per year

Reviewed By: Matt Chapman

Our Rating 4 stars out of 5

Review
Specs

Remote-access software is nothing new.

Technical support staff have been using it over company networks for years so that they don't have to visit users' PCs when something goes wrong. Now the same principle has been applied over the internet to allow users to log in to each other's PCs.

So is it safe? Well, it's as safe as anything can be on the internet. The system uses AES encryption with 128-bit keys and a personal user code for each PC, so anyone who doesn't have these can't access your PC. When you invite someone to view your PC, you're asked for your password before they can connect, and you can't save this to make it automatic. Typing in your username and password every time can get annoying, but at least you know that no-one else is giving away access to your PC in your absence. You can also set up extra levels of one-off passwords for extra security.

Inviting someone to work on your PC is easy. Simply right-click the MYPC logo in the System Tray and choose that option from the list. The person you invite has to download the GoToMyPC viewer when they first connect, but from then on they can browse your PC as if they were sitting at the keyboard. Even Linux and Mac users can open your files using the Universal Viewer.

If you don't like emailing work home, you can use GoToMyPC to copy files from one computer to another. You can even work on files between PCs, cutting and pasting between documents on separate PCs, for example.

GoToMyPC is a decent product and is very fast. However, it is beaten on value for money by LogMeIn. This has a free version providing excellent remote control. LogMeIn's Pro service is cheaper than GoToMyPC and has a wider range of options, including the ability to send someone a link to download a file from your PC.

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