AnyDesk: a Fast Remote Desktop Program

The IT world keeps moving: software versions grow and new features keep appearing. Remote control is no exception — classic RDP and Radmin, the popular TeamViewer, the free LiteManager (up to 30 licenses) and plenty of other programs. Recently another one appeared, with an interesting feature — very fast screen transfer. It’s called AnyDesk.

Speed isn’t AnyDesk’s only advantage, and for now the program is completely free.

What makes AnyDesk interesting

AnyDesk was made by a group of former TeamViewer employees who left and founded their own company. They wrote the video subsystem and codecs from scratch and optimized them specifically for transferring an operating system’s interface.

Tests show AnyDesk clearly ahead in frame rate. Six programs were compared: AnyDesk 1.0.0 beta, TeamViewer 9.0.28223, Screenhero 0.14.1.1, Splashtop Streamer 2.5.8.4, Splashtop Personal 2.4.5.2 and Google Remote Desktop 35.0.1916.38.

What else I liked:

• a simple interface;
• encryption of transferred data;
• many languages;
• a small client that can also act as the “server” others connect to.

You can download the program from the official site anydesk.com.

If you need a quick connection without installing anything, readers also recommend Ammyy Admin. And for permanent access to your own computers by login and password, TeamViewer is convenient.

Bottom line: AnyDesk is a good remote control program for home and small offices, and it has every chance of becoming truly popular.

Five years later (2019): why I came back to AnyDesk

Around spring 2019, TeamViewer blocked connections to its old versions. For a while the TeamViewer 6 — TeamViewer 6 combination still worked, but one step aside and access was gone.

I had a few older Linux machines with TeamViewer 8, and I could no longer connect to them. TeamViewer 14 wouldn’t install there (it needed newer libraries), and the old one no longer worked.

I went through a pile of programs — none of them were right. I wanted something fast, without workarounds or port forwarding. And then I remembered AnyDesk.

Over those years AnyDesk had grown a lot and officially ran on Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Linux, FreeBSD, Raspberry Pi and Chrome OS.

Installation is very simple on both Windows and Linux: on Debian 8, AnyDesk installed and worked without upgrading the whole system. Where TeamViewer refused, AnyDesk worked.

The only downside: like TeamViewer, AnyDesk is paid for commercial use. For personal use it’s free.