At the library where I work, we recently purchased a paid
TeamViewer license. This allows us to conduct remote computer classes and
provide socially distanced patron computer support during the pandemic. This
blog post contains some of the things I have learned about TeamViewer during
this process.
What is it?
TeamViewer is a remote access application which allows you
to view the screen of another computer over the internet, as well as control
the mouse cursor and keyboard. In this way, it is like Remote Desktop, but the
similarity ends there. TeamViewer is a "zero config" service, which means it does not require the complicated network setup that Remote Desktop
requires to be functional over the internet. To make this possible, all traffic
is routed over port 80 through TeamViewer’s servers. The data is protected with end-to-end encryption,
so nobody, not even the TeamViewer server admins, can eavesdrop on your
session.
Also unlike Remote Desktop, it does not interact with the
Windows login system. With Remote Desktop, you must supply the login credentials
of a Windows user account to initiate a connection. But with TeamViewer, you directly
see what is being displayed on the remote computer’s screen, as if you were
sitting in front of it. For example, if you logout of the current Windows user account
while using TeamViewer, you are shown the Windows login screen. Doing this
whist using Remote Desktop would cause your connection to be terminated.
Instead of using IP addresses to connect to remote computers,
TeamViewer assigns each computer a nine-digit, globally unique ID. This number
never changes, even if you uninstall and reinstall TeamViewer (which makes me
wonder if the ID is stored in the registry or if it is associated with your IP
or MAC address). It also gives you a random, 6-character password, which the
person connecting to your computer must know in order to connect. This password
changes every time you open TeamViewer, which prevents someone who connected to
you in the past from connecting again without your permission.
License
TeamViewer’s license states that you may use it for free so
long as you are only using it for personal use. What is "personal use" exactly?
If you’re using it to connect to a friend or family member’s home computer,
that’s considered personal use. The moment you use it to connect to a computer
at work or to a server, you are expected to purchase a license. If you don’t
have a paid license and TeamViewer’s algorithms think that you are using it
non-personal purposes, it will put a block on your computer’s ID, which
prevents you from initiating and receiving connections. How it makes
this determination, I don’t know. But if you think you have been wrongly
accused, there are ways to submit a request to have them unblock you.
One thing that is restrictive about the paid plans is that
it heavily limits how many computers can have active connections open at time. TeamViewer
calls these "channels". A channel is created when a computer initiates a
connection to one or more computers. For example, if Computer A remotes into Computer
B, that’s considered one channel. A single channel can include multiple
connections. For example, if Computer A remotes into Computers B, C, and D at
the same time, that’s still a single channel.
The least expensive paid plan only allows a maximum of one
channel. So, if you install TeamViewer on two computers, only one of those
computers can initiate remote connections at a time (both computers can still receive
incoming connections, it’s just that only one computer at a time can
create outgoing connections). If another computer associated with your license
has a channel open and you try to create a new channel by connecting to a
remote computer, you will get an error message that blocks you from doing so.
The more expensive plans allow you to add more channels, and
they come at a hefty price tag. We decided to purchase 1 additional channel,
which would have costed us an additional $778/year. But because the library is a non-profit organization, we were able to obtain a 60%
discount through TechSoup, which is a website that sells software at reduced
prices to non-profits.
Variants of the software
There are three different variants of the TeamViewer
software.
TeamViewer: Listed at the top of the download page on
their website, this is the full-featured software application. With it, you can
both connect to other computers and have other computers connect to you.
TeamViewer QuickSupport: This is a good choice for
when you want to do a one-off computer support session with someone who is
sitting at their computer. It allows other computers to connect to you, but does
not give you the ability to connect to other computers. One nice thing about
this application is that it does not actually install anything onto the
computer—it’s just an EXE file the user downloads and runs. With a paid
TeamViewer plan, you can customize the way the QuickSupport window looks, which
is useful for displaying your business’s logo and branding.
TeamViewer Host: This is the best choice for when you
need remote access to computers that are under your control (as opposed to the
computers of random people on the internet). Like QuickSupport, it only allows incoming
connections. But unlike QuickSupport, it installs software onto the computer,
which automatically launches when Windows boots. If you’re installing this on a
server, you’ll want to enable unattended access by assigning it a password that
never changes.
Other features
Integrated voice/video chat: Talk with the person on the other end directly through TeamViewer without needing to maintain a second line of communication (e.g. phone call or VoIP call). In my research, I have not been able to find any other
remote access software product that has this capability. The audio quality is fine,
and I’ve never had problems understanding people.
Clipboard syncing: TeamViewer supports seamless copy
and paste between your local system and the remote computer. Not all remote
access software supports this.
File transfer: There are several ways TeamViewer
allows you to copy files between computers. Note that the transfer speed is quite
slow (seems to be capped around 1 Mbps), so it’s not great for large files.
- File browser: This is similar to an FTP client in that it allows you to browse the remote computer’s entire file system (or, at least, the folders that the remote user has access to) and download any files you want. You can also upload files to any location of your choosing.
- File box: Allows you to upload individual files to a drop box, which the person on the other end then downloads from the drop box.
- Clipboard transfer: Just like you can "copy and paste" files in File Explorer to make copies of file, you can do the same with TeamViewer to transfer a file to the remote computer.
Multiple monitor support: If the computer you are
connecting to has multiple monitors attached to it, TeamViewer allows you to
switch between them with ease or display them all at once.
My Verdict
My two main criticisms are the channel limits and price. I
feel that channel limits can be very restrictive when you are working in a team,
and the software seems expensive compared to alternatives.
But on the flipside, you definitely get what you pay for.
Think of TeamViewer as the iPhone of the remote desktop world. The service is reliable,
and the software is very easy to use. It was the only remote access software I
could find that had integrated voice chat, which is feature that we needed to have. The company is based in Germany, a country that is subject to strict
European privacy laws such as the GDPR, which is reassuring from a security and
privacy standpoint. Oh, and did I mention the user interface has a dark theme?
;-)
If you’re an IT technician that just needs remote access to
a handful of machines, there are other less expensive solutions out there. But for
everyone else, TeamViewer provides a reliable, user-friendly solution that
non-computer professionals can use with relative ease.
