
VNC Viewer for Google Chrome - jbmorley
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/vnc-viewer/iabmpiboiopbgfabjmgeedhcmjenhbla
======
kzahel
Weird, looking at the manifest, I see it asks for permission for "socket": [
"tcp-connect: _:_ " ], but when I try to use that in my own app, I get the
message "socket" permissions are only allowed for packaged apps.

I am quite frustrated by the confusing mix of extensions vs "legacy" apps vs
"hosted" apps vs the newfangled "packaged" apps. The chrome web store is
extremely confusing and the documentation is all over the place.

~~~
Andrex
It's not that confusing, the only confusing thing IMO is the split between
hosted and packaged. I'd rather the CWS only allow packaged apps.

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dm2
What are the advantages of this over Chrome Remote Desktop from Google?

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chrome-remote-
desk...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chrome-remote-
desktop/gbchcmhmhahfdphkhkmpfmihenigjmpp)

~~~
ithkuil
This works with legacy vnc servers

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patrickk
An alternative is Teamviewer- <http://www.teamviewer.com/>

I've found it excellent. Free for non-commercial use.

~~~
backwardm
I use Teamviewer all the time and find it very useful. I need to spend a
little time to look at how the connections are made though—I'm not confident
that it's secure since you have to enter an ID and password that are (I'm
assuming) authenticated by a different machine controlled by Teamviewer. I
wonder if the connection is sent through their computers (to get around router
issues) and therefore susceptible to capturing passwords, etc. or if the
connection is handed off to the two machines after the ID / password is
handled.

~~~
uptown
TeamViewer works great - but I share the same concerns. It seems too good to
be true, which makes me wonder what I'm sacrificing as a user.

~~~
chime
Nothing really. It's just a typical freemium model. I used it to fix my
parents' computers remotely every now and then. Then a few months later I
bought TeamViewer Premium for a network I manage. I didn't even try looking
into alternatives because TeamViewer worked so well and it was relatively
cheap for what it did. Of course there are tons of free alternatives but it is
more expensive (in manhours) to go through the process of vetting, getting,
and setting them.

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angryasian
This really works very well. Its much faster and stable than thinvnc I was
using on my chromebook. My only issue would be that I have to scroll a lot. I
wish I could resize as the computer I'm connecting to has a much higher
resolution (I think is causing the issue)

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mindcrime
This kind of thing could be interesting. I've often bemoaned the use of
HTML/Javascript as a "poor man's X server" and argued that a browser is not
necessarily the best way to remote out a UI. VNC, on the other hand, is
designed for pushing user interfaces out remotely, so integrating the two
could be a very natural step.

What'll be interesting to see, is if we can get to a point where there's a
very natural handoff mechanism between the browser and VNC. Will there be, for
example, urls like:

vnc://myhost.com/some_remote_desktop

that will seamlessly start a VNC viewer? If so, that starts to become really
cool.

Of course, I freely admit that I don't know well VNC works over public
Internet / WAN links. That was always one of the arguments against using X,
that the latency of WANs / the public Internet, screwed with it and made it
fairly unusable. Not sure if VNC is better in this regard or not.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Why are we still messing around with ancient technology like VNC? Its
terrible. It just samples screen output; it does not intelligently understand
the underlying GUI so it can't really cache anything or accelerate anything.

If we're going to replace HTML as a "poor man's interface" then we need to do
better than VNC. Perhaps NX or RDP.

Still, I'd argue that HTML as a poor man's interface is perfect. I could sit
down a write a HTML-based control panel that uses next to no resources. With
VNC or whatever, now I need X running on my server, a GUI window manager
running, and need to write a desktop app. This isn't progress.

~~~
mindcrime
_If we're going to replace HTML as a "poor man's interface" then we need to do
better than VNC. Perhaps NX or RDP._

Well, I certainly won't argue against that. But at least with VNC it's being
used for the purpose it was developed for. Personally I feel like trying to
build complex application UIs with HMTL/CSS/Javascript is trying to shoehorn a
square peg into a round hole. Browsers are great at, well, browsing
hypermedia. I'd like to see that continue and the adoption of something like
RDP, NX, or $NOT_INVENTED_YET for remoting interfaces.

~~~
spankalee
But HTML isn't usually "remoting" an interface anymore, it _is_ the interface.
This trend will only continue and solutions like VNC, NX will become
unnecessary.

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neuroguy
I used to use VNC viewer with ssh tunneling, I wonder if there is a way to do
that with this extension... Switched to NX, but didn't set up the web viewer
yet, so this would be an easy way to work on the road if could do ssh tunnel.

~~~
gnud
Set up a ssh tunnel, using ssh on *nix, or putty on windows. Then point the
VNC viewer to the local port of that tunnel.

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giis
>This application is not supported on this computer. Installation has been
disabled.

Too bad, seems like it won't work with linux system.

~~~
maethorechannen
What version of Chrome are you running? It needs version 25, which is fairly
recent.

~~~
csense
Fairly recent? More like bleeding-edge.

I saw the same text. I am running Mint 14 (based on Ubuntu 12.10) and my
version is 24.0.1312.56.

~~~
teach
I'm running Ubuntu 12.10 proper, and my version is 25.0.1364.152. And the
update hasn't been in the last couple of days, either; there's already a
Portable Chrome build of 25.0.

~~~
CrazedGeek
The update was Monday:
[http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2013/03/stable-
chan...](http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2013/03/stable-channel-
update_4.html)

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greggman
Nice!!

And unlike Chicken of the VNC, this one actually supports the scrollwheel!
(maybe there's some way to get Chicken of the VNC to support the scrollwheel
but I didn't find it. I did find "Chicken", a fork of "Chicken of the VNC".
It's got various connection bugs.)

No luck with copy and paste from Chrome OSX to Ubuntu 12 but maybe I'm doing
it wrong

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achy
Honest question: What is the benefit of running a native application inside a
browser window instead of standalone?

~~~
contingencies
Google captures greater profits and influence by flogging people its DRM-
infested ChromeOS machines for cheap, claiming they are hyper secure.

On the face of it, that may be right, but privacy and independence are lost.
Victim buyers discover they can't do anything without either paying more money
or being online (ie. under surveillance from the GooglePlex).

~~~
krasin
Could you please elaborate about DRM in ChromeOS?

~~~
contingencies
To support Netflix and similar Google plans to implement DRM on these
platforms. They have expanded their offices in LA over the last few years.
They seem to be using not only conventional DRM as a layer of protection, but
also a trusted platform module (TPM) protected boot sequence that validates
that the environment has not been tampered with prior to executing the DRM-
related code. I believe they are also using operating system level containers
via LXC, as a more powerful and language-neutral extension of the Java-centric
model on their other mobile platform, Android. Finally, the devices do not
have any significant local storage, which means you couldn't really pirate
content even if you decrypted it: there's nowhere to put it!

[http://dev.chromium.org/chromium-os/chromeos-graphics-
readin...](http://dev.chromium.org/chromium-os/chromeos-graphics-reading-list)

~~~
DannyBee
Errr, your link points to documentation about DRM in the linux kernel, which
isn't the same DRM you are talking about.

What all the docs in that link are talking about is the Direct Rendering
Manager.

Every single ChromeOS machine also has a developer switch, which will let you
put whatever you want on the machine.

~~~
contingencies
Oh OK, I didn't actually read those I was just posting the likely link that
popped up on a search. Feel free to do your own research then.

'Developer mode' that disables consumption of things you have _paid for_ on a
machine that has virtually no storage? Sounds great. Why do you seem to
support them?

~~~
DannyBee
I did my own research, and i don't see the issue?

Yes, developer mode erases the machine for security reasons.

I don't see to support them, I do support them on this (I actually am not a
fan of chromeos in general), because it is still a huge step forward over
almost all available newer "locked" machines available.

Your solution is what exactly?

It seems they've done the best pragmatic thing they can do here. It enables
DRM and content for those who want it. Those who don't, can still do what they
want with the machine. If you want to have your cake and eat it to, yell at
netflix/et al. It's not like Google has an real leverage here. They've tried
for years to get anywhere with other strategies.

~~~
contingencies
Oh, for _security_ reasons! Whose security? Let's be honest here: the content
owners. It's classic DRM: you buy the device and it works for someone else. My
solution is to strive to avoid buying, supporting or discussing DRM-crippled
devices except to reveal their true nature to the wider community. "Don't be
evil!". Puh-lease. Anyone know what Google spends on PR? I'm sure it's either
hidden or shocking.

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Sambdala
Not supported by ChromeOS apparently.

~~~
fiatjaf
"This application is not supported on this computer. Installation has been
disabled."

Not supported on Mint, apparently.

~~~
JaggedJax
Works for me on Linux Mint 14 with Cinnamon.

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iblaine
I would like to add this to Chrome just in case I may use it but Chrome
already has a 400MB memory footprint on my laptop. So I'll stick to
teamviewer...but nice to know this is available if need be.

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Kellster
Question: why would you use this instead of Back to My Mac on OSX? Isn't that
all the same?

~~~
shurcooL
VNC servers can run on Linux, Windows, OS X. This is more similar to running
VNC client as a native binary for your OS, except this lets you do it in
Chrome.

The biggest benefit I can tell is if you can run this on Chrome OS now. That,
and pushing the technology forward.

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ashwinaj
Did anyone figure put how to paste your PC/Mac copied/cut text into the VNC
session?

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aquaphile
Take a look at Joel Martin's NoVNC using websockets and canvas.

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ImprovedSilence
wow that is EXACTLY what I need. I Hope.

