We’ve been traveling for about a month, and while my Chromebook is good for many things, there are occasions where I wished I had access to my desktop PC. I did a little Googling, and discovered there are many options for this today. I looked at a bunch of them, and ended up using TeamViewer for this.
TeamViewer is free for personal use. It runs as an application on my PC, which starts on login and runs in the background. I can use the TeamViewer application on another computer to access it, and see/control my desktop PC. (For Chromebooks and other similar devices, there’s a web viewer, too.)
I’ve found this more convenient and lower latency than I expected. Even on the other side of the world, latency was acceptable for basic copy/paste and browsing. It worked for playing turn-based games, like Civ V. The latency was noticeable when attempting a more-interactive game (Dota 2), and I don’t think I’d recommend that. But, for getting some files off of the computer, or playing some games that don’t mind some latency, or doing some other PC-required work, it works quite well.
It also supports 2FA for logins, and an additional password to access my PC directly, which is nice. There is a theoretical increased risk of access to my PC by others, but the 2FA and additional password make me feel more secure, at least. If I run into issues, I’ll update this post, but it was easy to get started with and has worked well thus far.
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