Going on the road with your data used to mean making lists of files and equipment that you couldn’t forget. No more. With the right setup and know-how, you can leave your main computer and all of its files at home, accessing it on the road from any Internet-connected computer. In fact, there are now so many ways to access your main computer on the road that the difficulty lies in figuring out which one is right for you. Read on to find out.
Q: I used a free trial of GoToMyPC to access my home computer from the road. I like the service, but I don’t use it enough to buy a subscription. Are there free alternatives out there?
A: GoToMyPC may be the most recognizable name in the remote control space, but it’s certainly not the only one. And yes, free alternatives do exist.
Representative of the free remote control alternatives is LogMeIn.com (https://secure.logmein.com). It’s also one of the easiest to use. Just sign up for an account with an e-mail address, allow the service to install a small host application on the computer you will be accessing from afar, and you’re ready to go. You’ll be able to access your main computer through any Internet-connected computer by going to LogMeIn and typing in your user name and password. Your main computer will then be one button-click away. With LogMeIn, everything takes place within a web browser. You’ll see your remote computer’s desktop, just as you left it, and have access to all of its files and e-mail.
There are, however, always limitations with the free versions of third-party remote control solutions. With LogMeIn, one limitation is that you cannot transfer files from the remote machine to whichever one you’re using to access your main computer. You could get around that, however,…