TightVNC is a

free and open-source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

remote desktop software In computing, the term remote desktop refers to a software- or operating system feature that allows a personal computer's desktop environment to be run remotely off of one system (usually a PC, but the concept applies equally to a server or a ...

server and client application for

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which in ...

and

Windows Windows is a group of several Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, W ...

. A server for

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lap ...

is available under a

commercial Commercial may refer to: * a dose of advertising conveyed through media (such as - for example - radio or television) ** Radio advertisement ** Television advertisement * (adjective for:) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and s ...

source code license only, without SDK or binary version provided. Constantin Kaplinsky developed TightVNC, using and extending the

RFB protocol RFB ("remote framebuffer") is an open simple protocol for remote access to graphical user interfaces. Because it works at the framebuffer level it is applicable to all windowing systems and applications, including Microsoft Windows, macOS and t ...

Virtual Network Computing Virtual Network Computing (VNC) is a graphical desktop-sharing system that uses the Remote Frame Buffer protocol (RFB) to remotely control another computer. It transmits the keyboard and mouse input from one computer to another, relaying the ...

(VNC) to allow end-users to control another computer's screen remotely.

Encodings

TightVNC uses so-called "tight encoding" of areas, which improves performance over low bandwidth connection. It is effectively a combination of the

JPEG JPEG ( ) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image ...

and

zlib zlib ( or "zeta-lib", ) is a software library used for data compression. zlib was written by Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler and is an abstraction of the DEFLATE compression algorithm used in their gzip file compression program. zlib is also ...

compression mechanisms. It is possible to watch videos and play DirectX games through TightVNC over a broadband connection, albeit at a low frame rate. TightVNC includes many other common features of VNC derivatives, such as file transfer capability.

Compatibility

TightVNC is cross-compatible with other client and server implementations of VNC; however, tight encoding is not supported by most other implementations, so it is necessary to use TightVNC at both ends to gain the full advantage of its enhancements. Among notable enhancements are file transfers, support for the DemoForge DFMirage mirror driver (a type of virtual display driver) to detect screen updates (saves CPU time and increases the performance of TightVNC), ability to zoom the picture and automatic SSH tunneling on Unix. Since the 2.0 beta, TightVNC supports auto scaling, which resizes the viewer window to the remote users desktop size, regardless of the resolution of the host computer. TightVNC 1.3.10, released in March 2009, is the last version to support Linux/Unix. This version is still often used in guides to set up VNC for Linux.

Derived software

RemoteVNC

RemoteVNC is a fork of the TightVNC project and adds automatic traversal of NAT and firewalls using

Jingle A jingle is a short song or tune used in advertising and for other commercial uses. Jingles are a form of sound branding. A jingle contains one or more hooks and meaning that explicitly promote the product or service being advertised, usually t ...

. It requires a GMail account.

TightVNC Portable Edition

The developers have also produced a

portable Portable may refer to: General * Portable building, a manufactured structure that is built off site and moved in upon completion of site and utility work * Portable classroom, a temporary building installed on the grounds of a school to provide a ...

version of the software, available as both U3 and standalone downloads.

TurboVNC

TurboVNC VirtualGL is an open-source software package that redirects the 3D rendering commands from Unix and Linux OpenGL applications to 3D accelerator hardware in a dedicated server and sends the rendered output to a ( thin) client located elsewhere on ...

is based on the TightVNC 1.3.x, xf4vnc, X.org, and TigerVNC code bases and includes numerous performance enhancements and features targeted at 3D and video workloads.

TigerVNC

TigerVNC TigerVNC is an open source Virtual Network Computing (VNC) server and client software, started as a fork of TightVNC in 2009. The client supports Windows, Linux and macOS. The server supports Linux. There is no server for macOS and the Windows ser ...

is VNC server and client software, started as a fork of TightVNC in 2009, after three years of inactivity in TightVNC trunk. It also takes some code from TurboVNC.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Tightvnc Cross-platform software Free network-related software Free software programmed in C Free software programmed in C++ Free software programmed in Java (programming language) Portable software Remote administration software Remote desktop Remote desktop software for Linux Virtual Network Computing