Check The Files On Your Mac From Any Browser.

FarFinder is a utility which lets you access files on your Mac with any web browser or your iPhone. Sound like fun?

Though FarFinder has to navigate some tricky and complex technology barrier over the internet, it seems to work. The question I have to is, “Why?”

No, not why does it work? But what bother looking at the files on your Mac when you’re not at home? Isn’t this really a solution looking for a problem?

FarFinder lets you sit at a computer, anywhere on the internet, fire up a browser, and if the sun and moon and stars are all aligned just right, and you have an overriding need to check your Mac’s files, you can. Remotely.

Since the iPhone has a cool browser in Safari, use your iPhone to check your Mac’s files while your Mac sits at home waiting for your digital caress.

Once you’ve set up FarFinder, then leave home without your Mac, all you need is to connect back to your Mac using a FarFinder web site. The URL is findeme.flyingmac.com/joebloggs (but only if your name is “joebloggs”).

There are some benefits to being able to see the files on your Mac when you’re not at home.

For example, if you left an important spreadsheet, document, or presentation on your Mac and you’re just minutes away from the big meeting.

It would be great to be able to remotely access your Mac and grab those files right from a browser window at work. That’s what FarFinder does.

It will install on all your Macs at home, then let you access each or any Mac from a remote location using the HTTPS protocol for added security.

Select a file or folder, click download, and it copies from your Mac to wherever you are. The reverse holds true, too. Send files to your Mac from wherever you are.

There is a middleman. It’s the people who create FarFinder, FlyingMac. They’re the middlemen and women who charge you to use FarFinder, and you login to their server to have your browser redirected back to your Mac at home, or wherever it is.

FarFinder works on both OS X Tiger and Leopard and costs a mere $35. Depending on how you use FarFinder, that gets paid back quickly.

Is this an interim solution to ultimate and constant access to our files, wherever they may be? Sure, the iPhone has only 16GB of storage now, but how long before it has hundreds of gigs? Then you carry everything you need with you, right?

Not quite. But I don’t see FarFinder as a common utility for the average Mac user.

First of all, over half of all Macs sold these days are notebooks, which, ostensibly, would already be carrying most files a user would need.

Second, how many times in the past year or two have you had to go looking for a Mac file only to remember that you left it at home on your Mac? There are times when I was somewhere else and wished I had a certain file, photo, document, utility, or whatever, but it was never a day deal breaker.

Still, FarFinder has merit for some Mac users and works reasonably well considering the complexity of dealing with various networks, protocols, and firewall issues. The browser window is truly a window to anywhere. Even your Mac sitting back home.