Talk:Comparison of remote desktop software

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Comparison of remote desktop software article.
Article policies

Contents

[edit] Video Support

which protocol support remote watching video/camera?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.155.92.114 (talk) 19:58, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] RFB

What is RFB memory in fire systems —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.225.137.249 (talk • contribs) 05:16, April 27, 2007

[edit] Deleting table rows

Stop deleting table rows in a biased manner! An editor just deleted some rows which did not have Wikipedia articles about them, but did not delete all of the table rows satisfying that criterion. That is biased.

In any case, I don't think that we should only be comparing remote desktop software products that have individual Wikipedia articles. That would be unhelpful. Just because a product is little-known, doesn't mean it can't be best-in-class, hypothetically speaking. —greenrd 12:01, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

One of the deleted rows was ThinLinc, it had a pointer to the manufacturers (Cendio Systems) home page, which of course was not good. It should have pointed directly to the product page: http://www.cendio.com/products/thinlinc As a former employee of the company I do not wish to add the row again with that correction, but as a Netizen I want to point out that Wikipedia is about collecting information, not about censorship.

Wikipedia is about cooperation and so is the World Wide Web, we use links to point to information you get "from the horses mouth", we keep information, because destroying information is destroying Wikipedia, it is actually worse than spamming because it is done "because I know what is good for you, and you don't", and it is not obvious that information has been tainted.

Thus requiring that every page is a complete article worthy of being printed in a Encyclopedia Galatica (complete with external references) and then requiring that every item mentioned on a page needs a link, not to just any informational web page but to the almighty Wikipedia Galactica is killing the idea of both the web and Wikipedia. —User:TorbjörnAxelsson2007-12-13 09:00(UTC)

[edit] How about table row text headers?

I'd think that to be helpful. Renaissongsman 00:12, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Encryption format/type

I've had some conversations on the security of remote access protocols, particularly VNC vs RDP. I would have liked to refer to this article as a guide, but all I found was 'Yes/No'. Will there be signifigant opposition from the community if I renamed the 'Encryption' Contents from Yes/No to "None, '128-bit RC4 w/ TLS' for RDP, '128-bit RC4/AES/AESV2 with plugin' for UltraVNC, and so on? Sartan 23:55, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Instead of the reactionary approach, I've gone ahead and added this ;) 'References are' the pages themselves. Sartan 00:18, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] XDMCP

Does XDMCP really belong in this list? It's real purpose if for dumb terminals and created before the days of current remote desktop applications. --Skunark 04:23, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Probably not, it was an attempt at populating the list content. Feel free to remove. RFB/X11 doesn't really "Fit" here, does it? Sartan 03:02, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] multiple sessions

They all pretty much do multiple sessions. Would it be better to list which apps can share desktops, require full desktop or just an application? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Skunark (talk • contribs) 05:05, 12 May 2007 (UTC).

I was almost thinking of setting this up to specify application sharing (RDP, ICA) rather than 'multiple sessions' because this is vague and undefined. Let's fix this! ;) Sartan 03:01, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I think modifying it to denote tabbed sessions, or possibly adding such a column might be in order. --67.131.123.130 (talk) 15:44, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Encryption Misleading

Coloring the encryption column red if not on is NOT a problem if using ssh. Indeed if ssh is being used then likely you would want to turn encryption off so that unnecessary work is not done. The only time that encryption would be useful if it were greater than ssh or done faster. 128-bit is not strong encryption, perhaps a red mark should be made of these! 4000-bit is strong. 2000-bit is good? Perhaps this could be expanded by someone (no visits from NSA please). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 220.240.85.65 (talk) 17:19, 14 May 2007 (UTC).

I suggest we rename the column to 'Native Encryption', because you can encrypt pretty much anything you want if you set up a proper SSH tunnel. Whether this is done, or a best practice or not, is really up to the administrator although the application cannot enforce it. Sartan 03:03, 15 May 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Port knocking

I think port knocking is a useful feature and should be listed in the table. Does anyone agree? I only know of one VNC that implements it, though. --AndrewZ 15 May 2007 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.59.193.95 (talk) 19:10, 15 May 2007 (UTC).

[edit] What about TurboVNC

Any chance of getting TurboVNC included here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.35.225.227 (talk • contribs) 15:32, May 18, 2007

  • Ditto for Remote Administrator... This article needs to be expanded. -AlexLibman 19:16, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree radmin and Teamviewer are musts to be added to this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Erehe (talk • contribs) 23:30, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Add Danware's Netop... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.46.143 (talk) 16:49, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Recommend splitting the table in to three: client, server, java/browser viewer

I think this table would be better viewed if it was split into 3. Also, most if not all of the remote desktop software supports multiple sessions. All of the VNC server and clients do. Also, you might want to list Unix as the other OS candidate, they were listed there at one time. --Skunark 03:45, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] VineServer and VineClient are another couple of VNC implementations that should be mentioned

I was looking for an OSX general remote solution (not limited to X apps) and I found Vine via Google but not here.


69.118.123.126 (talk) 12:17, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Table formatting

In my web-browser I can see red/green cells in the table, but inside are undefinable symbols. Perhaps there are problems with Unicode on my PC, but it can be a problem to read this article for someone else too. Please change the symbols to conventional yes/no! --Happywren 05:05, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I am actually the one who changed the table from displaying "Yes" and "No" to a checkmark and an X. I had taken into consideration that in some rare cases there may be problems displaying these characters. However, my reason for making the change was to in fact resolve an even more common display issue. When you look at the table in a smaller resolution such as 1024x768, it becomes obvious how width is a constraint. Personally, I use a widescreen 1680x1050 LCD monitor, and the table could be considerably larger without a problem. But I deemed that it would most likely be more appropriate to cater to the compatibility issues of those on lower-end computers. If anyone else would like to comment on the table, please do. --CMBJ 09:45, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Width issues can be solved by splitting the table into two or more tables (ideally by theme, but you could at a pinch just call the second one "Continued" or something). I think that is a better way to solve it. My friend has a newish laptop, and he can't see this page properly on Windows XP, so I don't think the problem displaying the checkmarks is that rare.—greenrd 10:58, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
I have made the necessary changes to resolve this compatibility issue. --CMBJ 02:25, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] RDP not supported in Linux?

This "fact" (as it seems to be indicated in the current version of the table) can't possibly be true. rdesktop, anyone? Renaissongsman 00:12, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the current format of the list is wrong. Linux has RDP support (rdesktop as RDP client, xrdp as RDP server), but is there an application called Remote Desktop Connection (RDC != RDP!) for Linux? Or is it just the application that comes along with Microsoft Windows? What about the support for Mac, is that correct? IMO there shouldn't be mention about rdesktop support for Linux on RDC nor on any other RDP software which isn't actually supported in Linux. Also the list is lacking the xrdp. --Tanger 17:14, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pricing

Any thoughts on a column for price? I don't see it having been done before here, but would be useful info for potential users. The only hitch would be getting a fair comparison across different pricing schemes. jeffjon 20:48, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ncomputing and similar access terminals

Devices such as NComputing's access terminal probably ought to feature somewhere in this table. Not sure how, thought. BTW: I do not work for ncomputing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dwlegg (talk • contribs) 10:22, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Windows Vista Support

The Windows support column should be split or have a seperate demarkation indicating support of Windows Vista and more specifically user acess control and other new 'features' in Vista. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mamanakis (talk • contribs) 21:27, September 25, 2007

[edit] Synergy

The comparison of synergy is not in the list. As it uses RDP to switch from mointors to mointors, it should be included. Someone could be kind to add to the comparison list with other details describing the different kinds of use each has —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.120.222.254 (talk • contribs) 08:35, October 10, 2007


[edit] What about log me in

I think it should be included as well website —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.125.177.31 (talk) 09:45, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I feel that there are so many of these that it will be difficult to keep track of them all - I have seen at least a dozen so far. A new article should be created for this. --Sartan (talk) 15:47, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] RFB vs. VNC

Why is the protocol sometimes RFB, sometimes VNC, and sometime both? RFB is VNC's protocol, isn't it? Engelec (talk) 21:03, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] OSX 10.5 "Screen Sharing"

Can the native OSX 10.5 aplication of "Screen Sharing" be added to this list? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.250.4.67 (talk) 06:42, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

it's essentially just another version of VNC for the Mac, but probably should have its own line Msilverman (talk) 22:06, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Separate into tables for Protocol, Client Implementations, Server Implementations?

I think the table as it currently exists is confusing, with entries that are a mishmash of the three. It seems to me that it'd make sense to break it into separate tables something like this: Protocols

  • Protocol,
  • License,
  • Standard (e.g. Proprietary, Published Standard, etc.)
  • Encryption Support (none, built-in, plug-in),
  • OS Availability

Client Implementations

  • Protocol(s),
  • License,
  • Encryption Support,
  • OS Availability,
  • columns for features e.g. Audio

Server Implementations

  • Protocols,
  • License,
  • Encryption Support,
  • OS Availability,
  • columns for features

The Remote Desktop Connection entry, for example, is a bit of a joke - does it refer to the protocol, the Microsoft RDP client (which version?), or the Microsoft RDP server (which version?). Does xrdp (with its own line) mean that this line should actually list Linux support as 'Yes' because there's a server implementation available? Fencepost (talk) 18:36, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree the table needs splitting as it's getting rather long, but I'd prefer a different criteria because some entries are both client and server so I'm not sure if it is a useful criterion to split on. I'd suggest we split by platform:
  • Windows
  • Mac
  • Linux
  • Cross-platform

Opinions? Pgr94 (talk) 11:14, 31 March 2008 (UTC)


That is an interesting idea but since most of the software here is cross platform, all it would really do is weed out a few of the one-platform only ones and leave us with a still huge table of most of the products Msilverman (talk) 20:52, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, looking at the table more closely you're right. I'm not sure this is a useful criterion, but splitting by license into proprietary vs GNU-compatible divides the table into a fairly equal number of items. Sensible? Pgr94 (talk) 08:04, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Why no sessions comment for SSH with X forwarding?

What was the intent of the no sessions comment for SSH with X forwarding? This seems to imply that the author believed that a complete X desktop cannot be viewed remotely. While it is true that one may forward only one application one can also forward the desktop and run the window manager and everything all on the 'remote' machine. Since running X means some sort of Unix in most sane configurations the user can even log into the remote machine multiple times and have multiple desktops. How is this 'no sessions at all'? 64.56.231.11 (talk) 23:03, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] File Transfer over SSH

Why the no file transfer comment for X11 over SSH? You can just use SCP to transfer the file. Watson Ladd (talk) 15:20, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Clipboard transfer

Hi, i would like to add a new column to show clipboard transfer feature. Benbac20 (talk) 23:40, 10 May 2008 (UTC)