By 苏剑林 | March 29, 2016
Recently, due to research on data mining, I needed to find a way to remotely control a phone (mainly Android) from a computer. I searched for some tools on the internet and am recording the results here purely as a memo. Readers with similar needs may find this useful for reference.
I had previously set up remote control on Alibaba Cloud servers and Raspberry Pi, and I remembered that the remote control tool under Linux is called VNC. So, I Googled and Baidu-ed for "vnc server android," "vnc server apk," etc. I found that there are indeed quite a few such tools, the most famous being "droid vnc server." However, I tested several similar software, and while they were indeed VNC software, they did not display correctly on several of my Android 4.x devices (screen corruption/artifacts). I was forced to abandon them. Looking at the dates, I realized that these software programs basically stopped updating in 2013 and generally only supported up to Android 2.3, which explains it.
Having failed to find a working VNC server, I had to settle for the next best thing and search for terms like "remote control phone." The first answer I found was TeamViewer and its Android version, QuickSupport. The two work together to indeed allow remote control of a phone. However, this solution has one fatal weakness for me: when connecting to the phone, you must manually press "Confirm" on the phone side. My goal is remote automatic control; if someone were there to operate it remotely, I wouldn't need automatic control. I don't understand the logic of requiring a manual confirmation... so I abandoned it. In fact, it has other disadvantages, such as the installation package being too large and having too many features. Practically speaking, I only needed a pure VNC.
Later, I accidentally searched and found WebKey. With a "give it a try" attitude (since I had failed several times before), I discovered that this is likely what I needed. It can display the screen normally and is managed via HTTP rather than being a pure VNC; the installation package size is reasonable. In fact, it does even more: it requires a simple registration to use, supports remote management via password (eliminating that annoying manual confirmation), and provides intranet penetration (allowing for true remote management; this is likely why registration is required). However, this is also a small drawback: because registration is required, if WebKey ever goes down, the tool will become unusable.
There is no perfect free lunch; I'll use WebKey for now.