
Chrome Remote Desktop goes mobile - deanmoriarty
http://chrome.blogspot.com/2014/04/chrome-remote-desktop-goes-mobile.html
======
mbillie1
Just gave it a shot from my Samsung GS3 to my 15" Retina MBP. The setup on the
client computer is a bit annoying, but once it's up, it's very
straightforward.

I did notice that the resolution was downgraded on the MBP and I had to
manually restore it to the best setting via System Preferences after the
connection. Other than that, it worked fine.

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basicallydan
I'm using it to post a comment from my Nexus 5. Naturally the connection is
particularly good because they are on the same WiFi Network but really, this
is pretty great. Really good mouse cursor control too.

~~~
matkam
I noticed the mouse position shown on my Android phone didn't match with the
actual mouse postion on my Mac

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srhngpr
Works well and the setup was quick and easy.

1\. Install Chrome extension

2\. Open the "App" in Chrome and enable remote desktop on computer and set pin

3\. Install Android app, open it, then choose desktop from list and connect

~~~
karl42
On my Mac I also had to run the Chrome Remote Desktop Host installer.

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clarkdale
Don't forget the official Microsoft Remote Desktop app[1] or the Citrix
Receiver app[2] if your office supports that.

[1]
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft.rdc.android)

[2]
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.citrix.Rec...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.citrix.Receiver)

~~~
voltagex_
Citrix Receiver has been broken for me since Kit Kat.

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VikingCoder
This probably doubles how much I value my Nexus 7.

~~~
wvenable
I'm not sure what the value of this would be on a Nexus 7 -- there are plenty
of remote desktop apps available for Android.

~~~
VikingCoder
Chrome Remote Desktop authorizes under my Google account, which I have
configured to require Two-Factor Authentication. That's nice.

Plus, the machine I'm remoting talks up to Google, so I don't have to
configure any firewall rules to allow incoming connections.

Plus it was authored by Google, so I trust it significantly more.

Already works for Remote Assistance for Windows, Mac, and Linux. And I have
expectations it will work for remote control for all those platforms, soon,
too.

Oh, and I can have the Chrome Remote Desktop client on any PC that has Chrome.
I've found that several of the "remote desktop apps available for Android"
ONLY have an Android client.

~~~
wvenable
All your points are valid.

But for Windows, I use the built in remote desktop feature/server and the
client is pre-installed on every Windows machine. I'm at work remoting into my
home machine right now. But I can also use any number of different Linux,
Android, or iOS clients to connect to it. It does require two seconds to setup
port forwarding and I use a dynamic DNS service.

The performance of an RDP-based solution is going to be much better than this.
But if you're remoting into OS X or Linux then there is no advantage.

~~~
personZ
RDP, courtesy of various licensed Citrix technology, is world's above so many
other technologies: I can RDP to a desktop running thousands of miles away
over the internet with better performance and responsiveness than VNCing to
the Mac sitting 10 feet away, over a 1Gbps twisted pair. I am not exaggerating
for effect, but after being spoiled by RDP, VNC is close to unusable.

It is unfortunate that close to no attention is paid to this element.

~~~
j_s
Have you had opportunity to try NoMachine? I knew them as the NX people - they
seem to be giving their tech away these days.

[https://www.nomachine.com/](https://www.nomachine.com/)

~~~
Nux
NX (also check X2GO, OpenNX etc) is very good and it's as fast as RDP. Much,
much better than VNC.

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alinspired
I'm happily using
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.freerdp.af...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.freerdp.afreerdp)
for direct RDP connection Windows (and Linux with xrdp installed). Might take
a port forward to setup, but direct RDP quality is unbeatable

~~~
neutronman
The security is beatable, unfortunately. Do RDP through a VPN for the sake of
your own sanity.

~~~
j_s
The details: [http://www.fishnetsecurity.com/6labs/blog/remote-desktop-
pro...](http://www.fishnetsecurity.com/6labs/blog/remote-desktop-protocol-
security-creating-successful-implementation)

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voltagex_
I think I'll stick with TeamViewer. Anyone used both who can give a quick
comparison?

~~~
fiatjaf
TeamViewer is a lot faster, but Chrome Remote Desktop has its advantages.

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rogerbinns
Sadly you can't enter an access code to accept invitations to view other's
desktops. Also the exporting a desktop side doesn't support Linux, although
you can invite others to view. (CRD distinguishes between accessing other's
desktops while they are seated there versus accessing your own unattended
desktop.)

One gotcha to watch out for is that your unattended desktop has to actually be
awake and running. If it goes into power saving mode you can't access it. It
also seems to take CRD a long time (often hours) to realise that a sleeping
system is no longer sleeping.

~~~
voidlogic
>Also the exporting a desktop side doesn't support Linux, although you can
invite others to view.

This makes me wonder how much more work Linux desktop support would have been?

~~~
rogerbinns
The unattended export needs to run as a daemon and potentially get involved on
the security side (ie let you unlock the desktop even when not in front of the
machine).

It mainly seems to me that Google really just doesn't care about the Linux
desktop even though reports are half the employees using Goobuntu. Another
example is Google Drive not being available for Linux.

~~~
voidlogic
This is not official, but if this is a pain point for you this might help:
[https://github.com/astrada/google-drive-
ocamlfuse](https://github.com/astrada/google-drive-ocamlfuse)

~~~
rogerbinns
We solve the problem by paying over $1k/yr to Dropbox who are of the opinion
that people do actually use Linux.

Of course then Dropbox mess up the multi-account thing badly even with the
recent changes.

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tarr11
You can also build your own Remote Desktop if you wanted, since DesktopCapture
[1] was released for extensions in Chrome 34 Stable last week.

[1]
[https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/desktopCapture](https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/desktopCapture)

~~~
TomC7
This only allows capture right? Or is there control?

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zavi
This is great, but I was really hoping they would add a way to remotely
control other Android device.

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TheEzEzz
This is the sort of thing I expect Windows Phone to really excel at. Should be
one of the big benefits from Microsoft unifying their code base and UI between
mobile and PC. Does this feature exist, or is it in the works?

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mandlar
The best part of Chrome Remote Desktop is that it punches through firewalls.

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wiradikusuma
Aww man, "This app is incompatible with all of your devices." in the Play
Store. And when I clicked detail, "This item cannot be installed in your
device's country." :(

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secfirstmd
I wonder how far we are away from your Chrome OS basically being run or
mirrored completely in the cloud. With Google hosting/mirroring your entire OS
bit like a kind of VM on a server.

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wehadfun
didn't even know this was in chrome how secure is this?

~~~
Zhenya
Not a direct answer but Chrome team is very security conscientious.
Furthermore, it is probably more secure than using a 3rd party app and handing
over to them credentials to your machine.

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drdaeman
> it is probably more secure than using a 3rd party app and handing over to
> them credentials to your machine

Well, unless you consider your computer Google-owned, this _is_ using a third-
party (Google) app and handing over to them credentials to your machine.

However, trusting a third party for connection initiation is the only option
unless one has a computer that's globally addressable and accessible from the
Internet.

Still, as (IIRC) Chrome Remote Desktop does not provide end-to-end
authentication (i.e. peers don't visibly - in a manner acknowledgeable by the
end-user - authenticate that they're genuinely securely communicating to each
other without third party inbetween), so it's probably less secure, if
compared to a VPN-to-home service.

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jamesbritt
So this is like VNC, except VNC will work with my Ubuntu desktop.

Is there something else to this? That page is pretty sparse on details.

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rogerbinns
The actual display protocol isn't that interesting. The things that matter are
connectivity and convenience. You can be in any random network location, as
can the desktop, and it will be able to do the connectivity plumbing. On the
convenience side it hooks into your Google authentication (blessing or curse)
and requires an additional PIN for the connection.

The Chrome extension for viewing lets you invite someone to access your
desktop. The viewers and desktops can be any combination of Linux, Windows or
Mac.

Unlike skype, viewers can interact with the desktop.

~~~
jamesbritt
Ah, ok, cool. Thank you.

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btgeekboy
Finally! Been hoping for this for years, especially now that LogMeIn is no
longer free.

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pavanky
Doesn't work on Linux + Chromium. Anyone else having similar issues ?

~~~
tdicola
I don't think Chrome Remote Desktop lets you share a Linux desktop. I tried a
few months ago and found it's a long standing (year plus!) request to Google
on their support group. Kind of sad that Google can't or won't support Linux
here.

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moskie
This will probably be how I control my HTPC from now on.

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batmansbelt
I couldn't figure out how to click.

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esMazer
tapping on the screen worked for me

