The best software to view and control Mac/Windows/Linux desktops on android remotely

Hello visitor!

In this article I want to show and review several ways and apps to view and control your desktop remotely via your android phone or tablet.

[Motivation]
 There are several reasons why one would want to control a pc remotely over the network. For example there is

• You want to control that updates are correctly installed and then shut the computer down while you're still away from home
• You want to make sure, steam games are downloaded properly so you can start playing as soon as you're home again
• You want to help out a friend or family member with their computer without having to get there physically. Also, you're too lazy to start up your own pc.
• You simply like the idea of having your desktop's complete power in your hand.

No matter what you want to achieve by remotely controlling your desktop with an android device, there are plenty of ways to get it done. Unfortunately though, it becomes hard to decide which of the apps and connection protocols will suit you the best.

[Defining some requirements]

1. First of all, the price is a very important aspect. Personally, I have come to the conclusion, that although free apps have no effect on your wallet if turning out to be crap, mostly you don't want to have them as tools to rely on every day for the following reasons:great likelyhood of support/development being suddenly dropped or missing from the start
   • lacking features of the paid alternatives
   • the app showing a lot of annoying advertisement
   • unfriendly user interfaces
   On the other hand, most people out there will not use the app on a regular basis, so the price should be moderate.
   So we cherish: The app we are looking for should offer a free demo which can be upgraded to a fully-featured, ad-free version for less than 10$ or €
2. The solution has to be as easy to be set up as possible, so we can expect inexperienced users to set up the desktop's control server by just pointing them to its website. Therefore, the server also has to be free.
3. Personally, I am using Linux. At work, I have to maintain iMacs. And most people I know are using Windows. The solution I am looking for has to support all these three platforms.

[The competitors]

Being asked about remote desktop sharing, most people will probably immediately think of the following two keywords:

1. TeamViewer (software product)
2. VNC (protocol)

which both offer Android apps.

Then, after a little bit of research, one will additionally find the following solutions:

3. RDP (protocol)
4. Splashtop (software product)
5. Google Chrome Remote Desktop
6. Skype screen sharing

of which only the former two support Android with dedicated apps. [Sidenote: in the future, we can expect Chromoting]

[General opinions]
So here are my opinions on the remaining four:

1. From my personal experience, TeamViewer performs pretty bad on Linux and the framerates are still far from fluid, even if one gets it to work. Therefore I will not cover the program here. Nevertheless, I encourage everyone to download the software himself and test it, for it is free.
2. VNC: The probably best supported protocol out there for our task, but I will drop covering it here in favor of rdp for reasons I am explaining later
3. RDP: Comes preinstalled with Windows, so nothing to set up here. It will also perform better than VNC on Windows servers, for it is able to communicate unalterable components of the user interface such as the desktop background, standard widgets used etc. to generate less traffic on disply changes. A servers also exists for Linux (xrdp) and is available to enterprise customers from aquaconnect - which I couldn't test. Actually I thought there was a free server, but I was mistaken as I found out while writing this.
4. Splashtop is a one-manufracturer software product bundling desktop server and apps. It isn't quite cheap if it isn't on sale and offers no demo, but from personal experience, I can only recommend this app, especially when it comes to multimedia. This is because frame rates are almost excellent and it can transmit audio - even on Linux. There are several versions, of which one requires a one-time payment while most of the others are given away for free as long as you have signed a service contract for the splashtop remote service.

[My RDP app recommendation]

If you are on Mac OS, you already have VNC integrated - called ARDP. I'm afraid I will have to leave you alone picking an app that suits your needs, since I focused on RDP.
For all the others, it is probably a good bet to go for rdp as you will have the faster protocol. In the play store, there is a ton of apps to choose from. I tested the following:

• AccessToGo RDP by Ericom Software
• Ahope RDP Client by Ahope Ltd.
• aRDP Free by Undatech
• PocketCloud Remote RDP by Wyse Technology
• RDP Remote Desktop aFreeRDP by Thinstuff Technologies
• RDP Windows Remote Desktop by KSoft
• Remote RDP Lite by Yongtao Wong
• Remoter RDP Client by Tanas Inc
• Remotix VNC & RDP Lite by Nulana LTD
• ThinDroid RDP by Terminal Works Ltd.

of which I liked Remote RDP by Yongtao Wong the most - even in the free version (limited to 1 server), directly followed by aRDP by Unandtech, which is even opensource, by the way. Both perform with decent framerates and mostly efficient and intuitive user interfaces. In addition, both can transmit arrow keys (for example via hacker's keyboard) as far as I remember, which is often helpful if tapping is too unprecise.

This said, you should be ready to go by now, into the wilderness of the countless rdp apps out there.
If you are willing to pay a little more to invest in a closed system which therefore performs a lot better, I kindly remind you of Splashtop Remote.

Cheers,

suluke