Remobo: VPN, Chat, Filesharing, Remote Control All-In-One!

Filed under: Internet, Windows, Freeware, P2P

Remobo: VPN, Chat, Filesharing, Remote Control All-In-One!

by Lee Mathews Aug 14th 2008

Hamachi is a great app. So is VNC. Torrents are great, too. You see where I'm going. These are all great on their own - so when Remobo rolled them all in to one, tasty package, I was pretty excited.

Set it up, add your buddies, and you've got an instant, private P2P network. Click the My Shared Files link and create torrents of your folders and files with two clicks. When your buddies view your shares, they'll see a simple web page with links to the torrent downloads. It's simple, and it works quite well.

Clicking windows file sharing on a buddy will display their Windows file and printer shares (like Hamachi does). File access speeds (even over my sluggish DSL) are good, and at least on par with Hamachi's free offering.

Remote control is handled by VNC, and works just as well as any other VNC implementation I've tried. The only thing I don't like about the setup is that it uses your Remobo password as the VNC password. Provide someone with your password so they can remote in, and presto, they've got your network credentials as well.

Is it just me, or is that a bad idea? It seems to me that a TeamViewer-like access code might be a better option for VNC authentication.

There's a ton of potential in Remobo, and the beta is definitely an intriguing download. It's freeware, Windows only.

[ via Freeware Junkie ]

Tags: p2p, peer to peer, PeerToPeer, torrent, vnc, vpn

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Jeffrey said 6:28PM on 8-15-2008

Great to hear that you like Remobo. For those who'd like to let their friends VNC into their computer without sharing Remobo password, you can change your VNC password as usual (eg: by clicking on the "Options" or "Admin Properties" of VNC). In other word, the VNC password can be different from Remobo's.

In fact, if you already have VNC server process running while Remobo receives the inbound request for VNC connection, Remobo will forward the request to the existing VNC server process, instead of creating its own. This way, you can keep all your existing VNC settings while connecting through Remobo.

Thanks for your feedback and we'll work on more user-friendly access control.--- Jeffrey

elbaso said 1:22PM on 8-18-2008

I would give Remobo a try if it where cross-platform, as I work on a PC, but at home we're Mac-only.
Hamachi is cross platform, so I'll be sticking with that in the meantime.

gee said 2:57PM on 8-18-2008

The Mac version should be out soon, and great job pointing out that VNC password issue. Its fixed in the newest version with a solution that allows you to set a different password for incoming connections.

alex said 9:46AM on 10-02-2008

Is it work if i'am behind a router (NAT) ?

Lee Mathews said 9:59AM on 10-02-2008

sure will!

AndyC said 11:54AM on 11-07-2008

Is rdp from windows better than VNC? tried remobo on 2 of my Vistas, no lucky. tried "NeoRouter", so far so good. Easier than Hamachi to use and support Vista and Linux.

Featured Time Waster

Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

I have an absolute weakness for physics games, and while Civiballs isn't the strongest physics-based game, what it lacks in the physics department it makes up for a few times over in style and fun.

In Civiballs, you are presented with a few colored balls, and your goal is to get those balls into the same-colored urn on the level. The "civi" part of Civiballs is that there are 3 sets of levels to play, each representing a different civilization. While the civilization doesn't affect gameplay, the artwork for each level is beautifully themed to it's appropriate era.

To play the game, you are given only one tool - a sword with which to cut the chains that are holding the balls. The puzzle part of the game is in figuring out what order, and with what timing to cut each chain. Do it right, and all the right balls end up in the right urns, with no stray balls entering an urn (a no-no). Do it wrong, and you get to start over again.

Civiballs is not terribly deep on gameplay; the entire game can be completed in about 15 minutes. But if you enjoy this type of game, it will be a very enjoyable 15 minutes.

View more Time Wasters