I used to use TeamViewer for remote desktop access of my PC but I stopped when there was controversy regarding a hack. Does anyone know whether this was actually just a case of people using the same username and password elsewhere? Otherwise, what would be a more secure solution?
I never heard of this TeamViewer problem. I'll tell you though I always connect to clients using either Cisco VPN or WebEx (this is also owned by Cisco)
Nobody (in my business anyway which is banking) uses TeamViewer - probably because it is free - I don't know if it is less secure than WebEx but out of probably 50 clients I have no-one at all who uses it.
The problem with WebEx is you have to pay quite a lot - for me it is about €20 per month but it can cost a lot more if you want to start having meetings rather than just remote access.
Within any local network then everyone just uses Microsoft Remote Desktop which is (obviously) free. I also use remote desktop to connect to my home PC so I can do inventory management (for a game called DOS2) on my Android phone while I'm on the bus to work. Honestly, if you are on the same network then RDC is the best.
What is your problem with TeamViewer anyway? Who are you trying to connect to - your other home PC's? Your friends or family? Your work? These questions might enable us to suggest some better solution but I'd go for RDC or VPN (in that order) depending solely on what access the other person allowed me to their network.
I recently started mining some new cryptocurrencies with my home PC but one of the programs is still under development and crashes every so often so I'd like to be able to check it occasionally from my laptop.
What is it running? Windows or Linux?
I'd use Kitty to connect to Linux (by ssh) or Remote Desktop if it is Windows.
Remote Desktop is much more efficient than Teamviewer (or WebEx) due to compression. It is definitely secure (as are the others probably but I am not an expert in such things - I just do what I'm told).
No - it will work by default on a local network.
If you want to access it from the internet you need to change your router to forward remote desktop connections from anywhere. The default port is 3389 so you need to send incoming connections on that port somewhere.
There is a good tutorial explaining how to do that here - have a look at section 8 : RDC - Connect Remotely to your Windows 10 PC Network Sharing Tutorials
I (occasionally) connect using RDC on my android phone to my home PCs and it works fine.
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