[HN Gopher] HopToDesk - Free Remote Desktop Software for Windows...
___________________________________________________________________
HopToDesk - Free Remote Desktop Software for Windows, Mac, Linux,
Android, iOS
Author : chuchana
Score : 46 points
Date : 2022-12-10 11:18 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.hoptodesk.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.hoptodesk.com)
| jcpham2 wrote:
| Free today, pay tomorrow
| 3ln00b wrote:
| There's rustdesk for those looking for an opensource alternative
|
| https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk
| jeroenhd wrote:
| The source code for this fork seems to be available:
| https://gitlab.com/hoptodesk/hoptodesk
|
| Going by the interactions listed in that issue, I'm not so sure
| how reliable this fork is, though.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| I tried running that in docker earlier today, but didn't read
| through the documentation and thus didn't figure out how to get
| to a web UI for it. Had a brief look around and saw that it
| doesn't work with Wayland, so will try something else first.
| I'd like something similar to Guacamole (which seems to have
| disconnection issues with windows RDP connections) and will
| have a look at HopToDesk along with https://oss.rport.io/ and
| https://meshcentral.com/info/
| 13415 wrote:
| How does this compare to X2Go?
| pmontra wrote:
| > Do I need to configure my router or firewall to use HopToDesk?
|
| > HopToDesk should simply work and be able to connect to any peer
| without needing to change any router or firewall settings. Other
| remote desktop tools such as Windows Remote Desktop and VNC do
| require setting up port forwarding or opening ports on the router
| or firewall to allow remote connections to be made, however this
| is not the case with HopToDesk
|
| Does that means that all traffic is routed through some of their
| servers?
|
| Edit: they say it's open source so I went to
| https://github.com/hoptodesk to look at the code and surprisingly
| there are only a couple of exe and an AGPL.
|
| Edit2: the code is at https://gitlab.com/hoptodesk/hoptodesk
|
| Edit3 and Answer: they do have a server, search for rendezvous in
| the source code. Self hosting is in the roadmap, see
| https://gitlab.com/hoptodesk/hoptodesk/-/issues/5
| jeroenhd wrote:
| This project is a fork of RustDesk so if you're looking for
| something with selfhosting support, you can try that. RustDesk
| is also clearer on the way the network works in terms of
| STUN/TURN.
| rzzzt wrote:
| STUN/TURN could be at play. The latter will use the relay to
| move data between participants.
| p2hari wrote:
| Could not find the info on the website. Here is the git link
| https://gitlab.com/hoptodesk/hoptodesk Please correct if wrong
| DoctorOW wrote:
| I remember hearing about Blender having a problem with people
| downloading the source, rebranding it, and selling access to
| their "new" program without mention of the full featured free
| software. This "fork" of RustDesk currently seems insufficiently
| different in terms of business model made even more sinister
| since instead of charging directly it insists on making you route
| desktop control through their servers.
| intelVISA wrote:
| Quite grim really, shameful conduct to not only do that but
| come here and try to display the carcass with ...pride?
| nigerianbrince wrote:
| That's precisely what it is.
| yardshop wrote:
| My company's LogMeIn subscription just recently got cancelled and
| we will not be resubscribing due to continual billing run-arounds
| with them.
|
| I found DWService as an alternative
| (https://www.dwservice.net/en/home.html) and have given it a
| brief try but was surprised not to find any mentions of it on HN.
| It seems to have an open source client, but the back end is not
| open source. Does anyone know this service and have any thoughts
| about it?
|
| I'm giving RustDesk a try now instead of this based on people's
| comments here.
| kasajian wrote:
| I've been using splashtop and jumpdesk
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| So wants the purpose of a holding company floating a fork of
| rustdesk that is supposed to be free for commercial and home use?
| What's the money angle Here?
|
| I am an ardent supporter of rustdesk because it allignes with my
| belief system and the development is rocket fast.
|
| You submit a bug request and it will be fixed very quickly.
|
| They have a self hosting server so its not like there are
| problems with "trusting" the server. You can roll your own.
| Compared to anydesk/team viewer/no machine/zoho assist whatever,
| this is the only open source software that actually competes with
| proprietary software and is feature complete to a good bit.
|
| Again, as a fork of rustdesk, what exactly are they bringing on
| the table?
| yodon wrote:
| The idea of a new free cross-platform remote access product
| sounds great if it can be trusted. That "if" is however a very
| big if.
|
| The website says HopToDesk is Open Source but there is no link to
| any repos that I can find on the website. GitLab has a recently
| opened HopToDesk account with just 5 stars and no obvious
| traceability on first look from my phone to any real identifiable
| human contributors.
|
| HopToDesk says it's an American company based in the US but
| LinkedIn is not showing me any evidence of the company existing
| and no employees associated with it. Neither does the preliminary
| googling I've done. My searches are far from exhaustive and
| certainly not authoritative but normally when someone builds a
| company that solves an important problem the people involved are
| proud of having done so and are easily findable. The first 5
| other remote access software companies I looked up on LinkedIn
| all had obvious search results with easily discoverable
| employees, founders, and etc.
|
| The License file in the GitLab repo is a generic AGPL file with
| no mention of any corporate entity or individual holding any
| copyrights. Again, this is a quick look from my phone so not
| authoritative, but again it's not at all confidence inspiring.
|
| Commercial remote access products are quite expensive to
| subscribe to and typically have real costs to operate in the form
| of connectivity charges. If customers are not paying for the
| service, are the customers (and their machines) the real product
| being sold here?
|
| I'm not finding anything in a quick search that gives me any
| confidence I should trust this app, and I'm seeing lots of things
| that are not confidence inspiring.
| jonas-w wrote:
| Just fyi, the "Source"[0] link is at the bottom of the page
|
| [0] https://gitlab.com/hoptodesk/hoptodesk
| yodon wrote:
| Thanks - it's also become apparent the repo is a fork of
| RustDesk, which isn't immediately obvious from either the
| site contents or the repo history.
| sirius87 wrote:
| So what happens in cases like these?
|
| Looks like RustDesk doesn't have a Copyright notice or
| copyright info in the license or source code. This codebase
| comes along and has no attribution information to make it
| obvious that it is indeed a fork of RustDesk.
|
| Is the copyright implicit, and is HopToDesk in legal
| violation for not making it apparent?
| yodon wrote:
| RustDesk looks to just have a generic AGPL license with
| no additional copyright listed beyond the Free Software
| Foundation copyright statement. IANAL but my read is that
| means RustDesk releases its code under a license that
| allows this type of activity.
|
| The FSF is the strongest champion of free as in libre
| licenses. Free as in libre is intentionally far more
| permissive than free as in beer. There are times when
| free as in libre is desired for all kinds of good use
| cases, but that unfortunately also means the projects are
| also free as in libre for all kinds of bad use cases.
| That's the fundamental challenge everyone who works in
| open source software has to deal with. Free as in libre
| and free as in beer are different things, and as soon as
| you start putting restrictions on use cases you shift
| from free as in libre to free as in beer (or not even
| free as in beer).
|
| Maybe someday we'll have licenses that neatly resolve
| this problem, but we don't yet and I wouldn't hold my
| breath waiting for it. RustDesk likely chose the AGPL in
| part because in many people's minds AGPL offers an
| appealing intersection of free as in libre with
| requirements that many view as in conflict with running
| the software as a business. HopToDesk would be an
| existence proof that AGPL is not the barrier to
| commercial operations that some people advocate it is,
| leaving the world in a state where licensing open source
| code for "good" uses only (as in you can't take my open
| source code and make a competing business with it) is a
| hard unsolved problem. As another commenter here
| mentioned, Blender has had a lot of challenges with this
| sort of thing, as have a range of open source projects
| that hope to make money off hosting of their projects and
| consequently don't want AWS offering branded hosting of
| their projects.
| pakitan wrote:
| Judging by the trustpilot review solicitation, the business
| model could be "start free, amass trustpilot reviews and
| backlinks for SEO purposes, rank near the top of google
| searches, start charging for the service".
| hoptodesk wrote:
| CharlesW wrote:
| Is there anything interesting about this compared to NoMachine,
| which was recommended by HN'ers in another recent thread that
| discussed remote access solutions?
| yardshop wrote:
| Could you tell me what other thread that is? I did a search and
| didn't come up with anything except very old threads, and
| recent posts with no comments.
| CharlesW wrote:
| Sure...
|
| 6 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33856620
|
| 16 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33730299
|
| 22 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33656637
| xnx wrote:
| The free Chrome Remote Desktop has been a lifesaver for me dozens
| of times.
| GranPC wrote:
| Anyone tried this? How does it compare to RustDesk?
| yodon wrote:
| This issue suggests HopToDesk is a fork of RustDesk
| https://gitlab.com/hoptodesk/hoptodesk/-/issues/5
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-12-10 23:01 UTC)