There are many reasons that you may want to use a program other than Remote Desktop to connect to another PC. It is possible that your version of Windows didn’t come with Remote Desktop. For example, Windows 7 Home and Home Premium, Windows 8 non-pro, and a few versions of Vista do not come with remote desktop.  It is also possible that you would like to go for a more secure alternative, although there are plenty of tips to use remote desktop securely. This is a topic for another post though. Whatever your reasons may be, you probably are looking for a solid, secure alternative. Let’s take a look at the best options.

LogMeIn Free

LogMeIn Free, as the name suggests, is a free alternative to Windows Remote Desktop. This is a great all around software. It is fast, secure, and a quite capable remote desktop application. The only downside is that you cannot transfer files or remotely print. Another great thing about this software is that it is super user friendly. You can find more info and download links here.

GoToMyPC

GoToMyPC is another great alternative to Windows Remote Desktop. This software is very easy to use and feature packed. GoToMyPC has great security as well boasting 128-bit AES encryption, dual passwords and end-to-end authentication. One more great feature is that GoToMyPC allows you to connect to your PC with your iPhone, iPad, or Android device. There are many more features as well that make this software more powerful than Windows Remote Desktop. The one downside to this software is that it is not free. However, if you are constantly connecting to remote PCs, then this software may be worth the price tag. You can find out more info about GoToMyPC here.

TeamViewer

The last remote desktop alternative that we are going to look at is TeamViewer. This is another free alternative to RDP. TeamViewer is super simple, which makes it very user friendly. It also allows you to share presentations and take part in online meetings. TeamViewer uses full encyption, based on 1024bit RSA private/public key exchange and 256 Bit AES session encoding, making it pretty secure to use.

The above remote desktop alternatives are all solid options. You really can’t go wrong with any of them, it really just depends what you are looking for. Know of another solid alternative? Let us know in the comments!