UltraVNC Editor's Review

UltraVNC is billed as a program designed for professional computer support services. While it certainly does that, it's also incredibly useful for a different market: grown up children who get asked to fix their parents' computer and can't face another lengthy journey to their house!

VNC stands for virtual network computing and means that you can use one computer to access and control another via the Internet. In the case of UltraVNC you need to install it on the computer to be controlled. You can then access it from any machine running the software, or through a web browser. Naturally there's tight security to stop unauthorised access.

The biggest potential problem with such software is slow response times as you wait for data to be transferred between the two computers. There's no perfect solution to this, but UltraVNC does a decent job of finding a compromise by reducing image quality to improve speed.

If you expect to need to control a machine regularly, you can set the software to always be available for remote access, even after a restart.

It's only fair to point out that similar tools are built right into Windows itself. However, these usually require both machines to be running more expensive Professional editions of Windows which are in common home use.

Pro's: Simple to use; relatively responsive while in action

Con's: Lacks a few features of its commercial alternatives

Conclusions: Best suited for occasional use, but a solid performer