Logmein is going pay-only...

[Scouse]

Which is kinda annoying - as it gives me either 3 days to upgrade all ten of my families computers that I perform ad-hoc support on with something else, or I pay $50/year to only be able to do that to two of them.

Which sucks.

Anyone got any good free alternatives?

Teamviewer? Something better than that?

 

[soze]

TeamViewer is the top application if you want no hassle access. The host gives you easy always on access.

 

[dysfunction]

Yes another vote for Teamviewer.

You could also try

SplashTop
Chrome Remote Desktop
Mikogo

 

[Moriath]

Educate your family to not bugger up their computers.

 

[caLLous]

I have a LogMeIn account, it's useful for quickly checking if a machine is online but for everything else I just use RDP. I have static DNS's set up for the computers I control via RDP though, which makes it a lot easier. That's one thing I like about LogMeIn, the fact that you install the app on the server which communicates with their site so you don't have to faff about with IP's.

No experience with Teamviewer but I've heard good things about it.

 

[old.Osy]

If you run other services on the remote computer that you need accesible most of the time (ftp, web service, etc), make use of freedns services, and then just use RDP.

http://freedns.afraid.org/

 

[soze]

RDP is OK for remote servers but it is no good for helping family and friends as they just get "Computer is Locked" screen, which is no good for them showing you what is wrong or you showing them how to fix it.

 

[old.Osy]

In that case, TeamViewer all the way.

 

[caLLous]

I've seen some recommendations for alternatives to LogMeIn. The first is remobo, which is free but you need a pro license if you wish to control a computer without somebody on the other side (the free one seems perfect if you're doing occasional tech support and somebody is at the remote computer). The second is Chrome Remote Desktop which runs in Chrome (obviously) and lets you control computers remotely.

I've not tried either of them but I did use LogMeIn last night. My remote machine was unreachable, it turns out it had been on too long and mem usage was 100% so the dyndns updater had crashed and hadn't updated the dns. I (stupidly, with hindsight) spent the best part of 20 notes on LogMeIn Ignition for Android back in the day and they seem to have given me 6 months of free pro-ness before they kick me out.