Teamviewer/Anydesk/RustDesk alternative ?

Perceval

Perceval

Hello everybody !
I'd like to remote access my customers for instant IT help (there's no security concern ; targets are Windows computers), with open source software (even self hosted). I've been a long time user of Anydesk, but I'm not really confident in it (closed and talkative software which may soon ask for money as Teamviewer does).
I've been digging in Rustdesk, got my own working server and works nicely, but the software isn't clean (strange devs and behaviors, privacy concern, and there's no client in FreeBSD).
Do you know an alternate software which works the same way as Teamviewer to be fully confident with...?
Thank you ?
 
Thanks very much for your feedback,and sorry for the late response !
It looks like Guacamole and MeshCentral are designed more as RMM on-site management, where I would only need a WAN on-demand session (I definitely don't have to keep anything on the customer's computer after my job on it). I'll give a try but I don't know at all how they work.
Small question to Guacamole uers,as I don't understand how it works from client side ; does the remote client need to expose a port or something for remote connection ?
I'm looking for something *as simple as possible* on the client side, some customers of my own (extreme situation, but it did happen) don't even know how to open a browser to download something !

EDIT : FYI, I just tested the Windows exe of Rutdesk running within Wine, and it does work fine.
 
People use meshcentral for remote support also.
I use guacamole, meshcentral, and Rustdesk. All for their own purposes.

Rustdesk for easy 1-1 access.

MeshCentral for WAN access to my local (and some remote) devices.

Guacamole for internal VNC SSH etc…
 
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I once upon a time gave LiteManager a try. I was greatly impressed by one feature. The ability for it to stay connected even on iOS. I have no idea how they did it, but I did multiple tests even up to a half hour of closing the app (not completely, just going to Home Screen) and it was still connected when I reopened it.

It took some time to configure and get working though.
 
Perceval said:
Hello everybody !
I'd like to remote access my customers for instant IT help (there's no security concern ; targets are Windows computers), with open source software (even self hosted). I've been a long time user of Anydesk, but I'm not really confident in it (closed and talkative software which may soon ask for money as Teamviewer does).
I've been digging in Rustdesk, got my own working server and works nicely, but the software isn't clean (strange devs and behaviors, privacy concern, and there's no client in FreeBSD).
Do you know an alternate software which works the same way as Teamviewer to be fully confident with...?
Thank you ?
Click to expand...

Consider Remmina. It supports RDP, VNC, and SSH. Lightweight and user-friendly, it integrates well with various desktop environments. TigerVNC offers VNC capabilities. NoMachine provides good performance but requires a proprietary client. RustDesk itself is available and can be self-hosted.
 
I'd like to thank everyone for your feedback, as a newcomer from Windows, I was always on Teamviewer (and its derivatives) for 1-1 support (RDP on WAN does work but needs to open/redirect ports, which is not an available option for my customers).
I sadly noticed that the latest Anydesk port is the easiest way to go by now, since I can't run RustDesk (and its shady side), even if it runs using Wine.
bgroper : customers got higher security issues from the Windows spooler than using remote assistance ? (I meant there's nothing secret on the remote device when I provide help, I don't really need to secure the connection, even if I'll prefer !)
fr0xk : afaik, Remmina is Linux/Unix world only ? My customers are about 98% of Windows, 2% of others (Mac and Android).
 
MeshCentral works fine on FreeBSD. It’s essentially like Apache Guacamole except it has endpoint agents. Ylianst who built it also has great documentation videos on YouTube.

I have a group inside there called “Remote Support” that has an invite link+password (password not necessary) that allows users to download the agent, hit connect, and voila.

Could you clarify “shady side” or Rustdesk?
 
I guess I might script something to remove the agent once the job is done, I'm not supposed to still control something after.
Well, about RustDesk, it's an interesting project but looks to have a dark side : devs are unknown, weird licensing,... It also became open sourced but afaik telemetry things are still sent "somewhere". I don't have the full details but there's something strange around the software.
 
Perceval said:
I guess I might script something to remove the agent once the job is done, I'm not supposed to still control something after.
Well, about RustDesk, it's an interesting project but looks to have a dark side : devs are unknown, weird licensing,... It also became open sourced but afaik telemetry things are still sent "somewhere". I don't have the full details but there's something strange around the software.
Click to expand...
You’re talking about the mesh agent? You can set it to be only active when the user hits connect. When you are done, the user just hits disconnect and exits the agent. It doesn’t run in the background if you set it to “interactive only”
 
Mmh, would be interesting then !
I need to look at the documentation, it is based on NodeJS so... Would the server part could be run from my Synology NAS *without* docker ? (I didn't really enjoy Docker, and my main NAS isn't compatible. I'd have to switch with another NAS I have, I'd need to avoid this by now ?)
 
Perceval said:
I'd like to thank everyone for your feedback, as a newcomer from Windows, I was always on Teamviewer (and its derivatives) for 1-1 support (RDP on WAN does work but needs to open/redirect ports, which is not an available option for my customers).
I sadly noticed that the latest Anydesk port is the easiest way to go by now, since I can't run RustDesk (and its shady side), even if it runs using Wine.
bgroper : customers got higher security issues from the Windows spooler than using remote assistance ? (I meant there's nothing secret on the remote device when I provide help, I don't really need to secure the connection, even if I'll prefer !)
fr0xk : afaik, Remmina is Linux/Unix world only ? My customers are about 98% of Windows, 2% of others (Mac and Android).
Click to expand...

I see a port:
net/remmina

I can't guarantee anything
 
I use Remmina for all RDP connections to Windows.

RDP is fine, but it's not shared remote control; the remote user does not see what you do with their desktop.

Open source Quick Assist would be wonderful.
Click to expand...
Remote connectivity is an essential part of my work, and have no need to share the session with any remote user/s.
When using Remmina, and having remote desktop in focus (ie fullscreen), many keyboard shortcuts are interpreted by the host computer, and not by the remote desktop, eg Alt-F4 to close an application.
This works better with xfreerdp.
Sadly Remmina seems quite fast, and I'd like to use it more. Perhaps I've not worked out how to configure it correctly.
Probably need to do some more RTFM (Read the Fine Manual). :-(
 
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