COVID-19 Has Made Remote Access Essential For Work And Home In 2020

Port forwarding is a technical-sounding term, but it is one that impacts many consumers. You may have read about someone getting hacked after “port forwarding” their home router, for instance, to use a new internet-connected camera remotely. Once you do this, however, you signal the world that there is an open port on your business or home network that might be worth a look. 

Note: See my Virtual Private Network (VPN) links here on Forbes at end of post.

The remote.it service wants to solve that problem with, you may have guessed, without port forwarding. What exactly does that mean, why should you care, and what you can do – hang with me for just a bit longer and it may lead you to sign up for this free web service.

What exactly does “port forwardless” mean?

First, let me explain port forwarding, which is essentially the act of putting a doorway from your network onto the Internet that anyone can see. This may not sound like a big deal, after all, the internet is a big place. How likely is it that someone finds that door? Port forwardless is how you hide that door. 

Tech experts at the company have experience and data that shows a port forwarded connection will be detected on the public Internet in under 5 minutes and immediately attract bots from all over the world that will attempt to enter the private network through the open port. If that does not raise your level of “caring,” I am not sure what will.

With all of the pandemic-push to remote work, the company is poised to solve secure, remote access to computers, mobile devices, IoT devices (such as a Raspberry Pi), and even home game servers (such as a Minecraft server or something similar). 

I was able to connect a few devices on my home network and then see them from my mobile device. So, if I wanted to tap into a hard drive to download and share a photo or file, I could do it without having to wait until I returned home to get it. I could also connect to a webcam more securely than in the past where the settings required I open up a port (as in that port forward example above). Sometimes the web app that comes with a webcam is relatively secure, but sometimes not secure at all. I had trouble using the Microsoft Remote Desktop Client, but was able to use the VNC Viewer program (both are supported and recommended by the company and are free to download separately). 

Although I first got interested in remote.it because I thought it could be used as a virtual private network (VPN) alternative (to hide my IP address to websites that I visit, for example), the support team let me know that instead remote.it is more intended if you want to create your own private network within the internet. After that, I realized it still had lots of potential to give me access to my own computers and devices at home and at a family member’s home (to help fix tech problems for others remotely).

For business users, it is robust and powerful. I could see use cases for companies that have employees needing access to the network remotely, but particularly for manufacturers or field operations where you have sensors or smaller devices or applications that can run on any TCP service (Transmission Control Protocol that lets you communicate with other computers, share data, over Internet Protocol “IP”). If you are a small business or even a large enterprise, you can use the remote.it service to let your employees securely connect to office computers or devices. 

Years ago, my son wanted to create and run a Minecraft server on one of our older machines. But all of the options meant opening up the network (again, per above comments) by port forwarding. I will admit I did not totally understand all of it, but the main point I did get is that opening up a port to the wild wild internet was not a good idea. The remote.it service solves that with a free option to host a secure Minecraft server. (The company loaned me a Raspberry Pi to test out this configuration.)

The company, of course, offers options for Mac, Windows, and Linux, plus apps for iPhone and remote.it for Android smartphones. You do need to have the companion web application running as well, but it is worth a look if you are needing to maintain secure access into a home or business network. It is a bit of a technical slog sometimes to sort different options, but the customer support is excellent and I found the response time for email or phone to be lightning fast. 

It may be that this remote access toolset helps you, it impressed me, but you may still need a virtual private network (VPN). I wrote about a bunch of them (and by bunch, I mean around 20 separate posts) here on Forbes. Take a look at these: