Citrix Online GoToMyPC 6 review

Your home or work PC is probably full of important files and applications. Rather than doing without them when you're away, you can use Citrix Online's GoToMyPC 6 to access your PC remotely from any online PC.

As with previous versions, you have to install a small server application on the PC you want to control. This can configure itself automatically to deal with most firewalls. You can then log into your account from any remote computer with a web browser and control your PC remotely. The full desktop is replicated, and you can control it with your keyboard and mouse to perform almost any job you'd normally do in front of your computer. There are practical limits, though, as you won't have enough bandwidth to stream video or games.

For accessing standard office applications and documents, GoToMyPC 6 is fine. We found the remote control to be very quick over our broadband connection, with only a slight delay.

The file-transfer application is largely unchanged from previous versions. The Explorer-like application has a split-window view, with one pane for the remote computer and one for the local computer. You can drag and drop files from one to the other, or synchronise a directory, which is handy if you want to work on common files between two computers. With this version you can also drag and drop files from the remote PC window to your local computer and vice versa. It's brilliant when you only want to copy one or two files.

One thing the file manager can't do is open a file stored on the local computer in an application on the remote computer. Instead, you have to copy all the files you want to work on to the remote PC, and remember to copy them back when you've finished.

This version also introduces support for sound, so you can hear anything played on your home computer. However, even at the highest quality setting, it's not good enough for listening to music, and there is little to be gained from hearing Windows warning sounds. In most cases you'd be better off copying the file you want to hear to your local computer and turning off the sound option altogether.

The best feature in version 6 is the print server, which allows you to print from the remote computer to a printer attached to the computer at which you're sitting. GoToMyPC detects which printers are installed on the local PC and guides you though the process of installing the driver on your remote PC. This is particularly useful for printing files from applications installed on your remote PC that you don't have on the PC where you're currently working.

GoToMyPC 6 is a robust remote access application that works very well, and we love the way you can drag and drop files directly between your local and remote PC. Except for this feature, though, GoToMyPC doesn't do anything that LogMeIn Pro can't. LogMeIn is also cheaper at $13 (around £6.60) a month, and if all you want is remote control, there's even a free version.

Author: David McKinnon