[HN Gopher] MobaXterm free Xserver and tabbed SSH client for Win...
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MobaXterm free Xserver and tabbed SSH client for Windows
Author : thunderbong
Score : 61 points
Date : 2021-10-26 15:34 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (mobaxterm.mobatek.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (mobaxterm.mobatek.net)
| mike_d wrote:
| I have been using MobaXterm as my terminal on Windows for years
| and only have good things to say about it.
|
| It isn't just an SSH client. You get a full local cygwin
| environment, local WSL environment, VNC and RDP connections, a
| remote file editor, and a bunch of other cool stuff.
| esalman wrote:
| I've been using git sdk for Windows within vscode for the
| cygwin/msys experience, the msys package manager is a nice
| bonus. That said my less tech savvy lab mates absolutely love
| Moba.
| craftkiller wrote:
| Word of warning: they emailed me my password to their web store
| in plain text. As in, my actual password, not some 1-time random
| generated password. This means they didn't follow any security
| practice at all in the handling of their passwords. I don't know
| if their security incompetence extends to the actual desktop
| client, but I wouldn't trust them.
|
| https://plaintextoffenders.com/post/145298739078/httpmobaxte...
| geocrasher wrote:
| One of the ways that MobaXterm shines is in its licensing. The
| free version is licensed for commercial use!
| Individual end-user is allowed to download (...) and to use
| MobaXterm Home Edition in a commercial or company environment.
|
| This is wonderful because you don't have to lie and tell Xterm
| "Yes, I am a home user..." even though you're using it for work.
| So if all the other great things about MobaXterm weren't enough,
| its licensing is what causes me to recommend it at work.
| nirvdrum wrote:
| It's nice that they offer a free commercial-use license, but
| you wouldn't be compelled to lie about your usage otherwise.
| Their commercial license is perpetual use at a fairly
| affordable price; you could just pay for it. Or not use it.
| geocrasher wrote:
| If they didn't license the free version for commercial use,
| you're right- I wouldn't lie about it. I'd just not use it.
| Software licensing means something to me.
|
| Truth be told, I don't _need_ the Professional Edition. At
| $69 USD it 's relatively expensive, and there's nothing
| holding me back from using the Free Edition for everything I
| need.
| throwaway745686 wrote:
| Been using (and paying) MobaXterm for years and have nothing but
| good things to say for it. All my servers are added the right tab
| my project, having the ability to just drop files over to be
| scp'ed and a slew of other useful tools embedded into the
| program.
| krossitalk wrote:
| My goto terminal emulator on Windows. Without a doubt, Moba is
| what SSH on windows has been missing.
| geocrasher wrote:
| Agreed. Been using it for several years!
| nailer wrote:
| Why not use Windows Terminal (which comes with Windows) and
| WSL/Ubuntu with OpenSSH (from the app store)?
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| One thing I cannot for the life of me authoritatively,
| _confidently_ understand is whether WSL2 requires a Type 1
| hypervisor running under baseline /parent Windows OS. It
| appears that it does, and that is just a _massive_ deal-
| breaker for most of my PCs :(
| CryptoBanker wrote:
| Moba supports bookmarks and SFTP among other features
| Lunartix wrote:
| OpenSSH also supports "bookmarks" (ssh_config) and sftp.
| roywiggins wrote:
| It has an X server built in, which has come in extremely
| handy. Yes, there are other X servers for Windows, but with
| mobaxterm I don't need to faff about configuring it, and it's
| a nice terminal otherwise, so when I realize I _do_ need to
| pop open a graphical program on a server, I can just do it
| with the terminal I 'm already using.
|
| The drag-and-drop file transfers are also great.
|
| Yes, you can get a lot of this stuff with WSL, but my work
| laptop doesn't play nicely with WSL _at all_ (some
| interaction with the antivirus reliably BSODs).
| jcrawfordor wrote:
| As a long-time paid MobaXterm user, it feels like it's becoming
| less relevant as Microsoft Terminal and WSL advance. That said,
| it still offers a lot of convenience... a lot of things that you
| _can_ do with WSL with some setup are one-click in MobaXterm. The
| MobaXterm developers also seem pretty responsive in making
| improvements, so it 's not unusual for newer things to show up in
| MobaXterm first - for example, before WSL MobaXterm was by far
| the easiest way to get a mosh client in Windows.
|
| I guess the question is whether or not MobaXterm development will
| keep ahead of Microsoft Terminal. The main downside right now, I
| would say, is that MobaXterm feels slower. But that comes with
| the benefit of a lot of conveniences.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| Agreed; I've used it for a long time as paid user, and when you
| invest the initial overhead of learning/setup time, it has
| saved me tons of time every day when I worked as sysadmin.
|
| (I'm also guilty of "do as I say not as I do", and occasionally
| during critical incidents logging in to multiple servers at
| once and parallelizing my keyboard output 0:-)
| ponytech wrote:
| In my case I am using MobaXterm to start my WSL terminal, so it
| will stay in my setup for the foreseeable future.
| tyingq wrote:
| I would guess WSL is choking off demand for tools like this one,
| VcXsrv, GitBash, Cygwin, and so on. The latest WSL includes a
| Wayland server, and a (not well documented...but easy) way to
| make Windows Shortcut launchers[1], and they seem to be smoothing
| out the bugs.
|
| [1] It's wslg.exe. So you can create a shortcut with values like:
| - Target: C:\Windows\System32\wslg.exe xterm -ls -fa Consolas -fs
| 20 -bg black -fg green - Start In:
| \\wsl$\Ubuntu\home\myusername
| riffic wrote:
| what's that quote about re-inventing Unix, poorly?
| nailer wrote:
| This is Unix (unless you don't count GNU as Unix which is
| technically true but nobody cares anymore).
| riffic wrote:
| I was just talking about Windows in general, not WSL.
| visarga wrote:
| VSCode is also a great SSH tool, you can even debug remotely. I
| rarely touch system terminal anymore.
| pid-1 wrote:
| Also Windows has a reasonably decent Terminal app nowadays
| (Windows Terminal).
|
| In $JOB I generally just use Windows Terminal + scoop.sh to
| install stuff like grep, etc
| davb wrote:
| -
| contravariant wrote:
| I could understand if you were to complain the terms of the
| _commercial_ license were too restrictive but right now you 're
| basically saying you'd only buy it if it were free.
| noja wrote:
| > the free (home) license is quite restrictive for non "home"
| use
|
| Sorry, but what are you expecting a home licence to be for?
| chrsig wrote:
| how dare they insist multi million dollar institutions
| compensate them for using their software en masse!?
| dang wrote:
| One past thread:
|
| _MobaXterm free Xserver and tabbed SSH client for Windows_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9598943 - May 2015 (19
| comments)
| password4321 wrote:
| OpenSSH has been available in Windows 10 since 2018, though I'm
| not sure how the terminal gotchas work out in practice.
|
| Bitvise SSH has been free for all uses for several years. Can't
| mention it here without reference to their SEO squatting of
| putty.org but it's a quality tool.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| Cygwin's X server works great for me. There was another one that
| had better OpenGL support but I can't remember the name.
| franga2000 wrote:
| I used to use it religiously before switching to Linux - It's the
| single piece of software that made sysadmin tasks even bearable
| on Windows. I still miss some of its convenience features on
| Linux. I've heard they even have a good dark theme now, which was
| the one and only thing on my wishlist (well, besides fixing all
| the drag&drop bugs, but I've been most of those are Microsoft's
| fault).
| danbrooks wrote:
| Long time user and big fan of mobaxterm. Nice clean interface for
| ssh on windows.
| kweks wrote:
| Happy paid user of MobaXTerm for years. I've found even with WSL
| advancements it's actually become more useful.
|
| Compared to other tools like PuTTY, it's an incredibly well
| thought out piece of software.
|
| Well worth the licence fees, at least for my firm.
| mig39 wrote:
| Is there something similar for macOS?
| tyingq wrote:
| The shell integration in iTerm2 integrates drag/drop and right-
| click scp, if that's the part you wanted:
| https://iterm2.com/documentation-shell-integration.html
| oneweekwonder wrote:
| Would that not be iTerm?
| shadowoflight wrote:
| Not sure why you're getting downvoted into oblivion, but for a
| terminal emulator with a great feature set (minus the X server
| part), iTerm2 has served me very well (and can integrate with
| tux sessions to display tmux tabs and windows as separate OS-
| level tabs and windows).
| esalman wrote:
| Specially something with X11 support would be nice. Xquartz
| seems to be the only option but it has nowhere near as many
| features.
| josephcsible wrote:
| Aren't there already FOSS tools to do all of these things? Is it
| really worth sacrificing your freedom for a little bit of
| convenience?
| shadowfox wrote:
| > Is it really worth sacrificing your freedom for a little bit
| of convenience?
|
| While I am not particularly fond of MobaXterm, I am wondering
| what freedom am I sacrificing here? It seems to be a regular
| software product that you can switch out to something else
| if/when I feel like. There doesn't appear to be any inordinate
| lock-in or something of that sort.
|
| Or do you mean "Freedom" as in the GNU?
| josephcsible wrote:
| > There doesn't appear to be any inordinate lock-in or
| something of that sort.
|
| For now. Perhaps they're on the "embrace" phase still.
|
| > Or do you mean "Freedom" as in the GNU?
|
| Basically yes. I'm asking whether this is actually better in
| any way than the FOSS tools it's competing with.
| tapoxi wrote:
| What FOSS tools does it compete with? Windows Terminal?
| chasil wrote:
| This would compete with Microsoft's port of OpenSSH.
| C:\Users\v-fishecj>ssh -V
| OpenSSH_for_Windows_8.1p1, LibreSSL 3.0.2
| geocrasher wrote:
| For now. Perhaps they're on the "embrace" phase still.
|
| I've been using it for at least 7 years, perhaps several
| more? Nothing has changed about its licensing or lock-in.
| shadowfox wrote:
| > There doesn't appear to be any inordinate lock-in or
| something of that sort.
|
| > > For now. Perhaps they're on the "embrace" phase still.
|
| I suspect I am missing something here. What exactly is the
| "threat model" here?
|
| MobaXterm seems to be a product with a fairly old school
| model - you pay money and you get a perpetual license for
| that version of the product. It also throws in 12 months of
| updates. But, It is not a subscription service like a ton
| of SAAS products. The license appears clear as to what you
| are getting.
|
| Are you worried that they will retroactively revoke your
| license in the future?
| sneak wrote:
| People who run Windows generally aren't very concerned with
| software freedoms, and see nonfree software like this freeware
| as fine.
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(page generated 2021-10-26 23:02 UTC)