Hi. Does anyone know a FOSS android app that supports the RDP used by Gnome now that vino is deprecated and the Ubuntu build of gnome-remote-desktop has had the VNC capability disabled? I used to use bVNC pro and vino but I (somewhat) try to move with the times.
Disclaimer: this is strictly “I know of” an app rather than “I have used it”.
F-Droid, which I happen to have on a tablet, lists aFreeRDP as a free remote desktop protocol client. It has a github page under FreeRDP. It seems to be reasonably up to date.
It also lists RustDesk, but that appears to be mainly Windows and also seems to require one to go through their server.
Thanks. I will check it out. I will not use anything which requires me to sign up for an account.
FWIW there is an interesting discussion here on how the VNC capability was removed. Bug #1987159 “Drop VNC support from GNOME Remote Desktop in Kine...” : Bugs : gnome-remote-desktop package : Ubuntu
And why.
Additionally, it was merged into upstream GNOME shortly thereafter, so this isn’t just an Ubuntu decision.
Understand that security and privacy concerns are high priority.
Now with my moderator hat on: we are getting off-topic here, so please try to stick with the topic at hand.
Hmm. Seems aFreeRDP requires me to download an APK either from the web or via F-Droid. I don’t particularly want to stray away from the Google Play store. (I am already a bit twitchy about that, but I guess you need to give a bit of yourself away if you are not prepared to write everything yourself!) I am amazed (but should know better) that there is no longer a straightforward way of viewing and using one’s Ubuntu desktop on an Android phone. (I do not count having to subscribe to some kind of service over the internet as straightforward). I just want to connect (VNC/RDP/however) to my desktop on an Ubuntu machine located in the bedroom when I’m in the kitchen or elsewhere on the LAN. Using my phone. (I used to be able to do it over the internet as well, SSH reverse tunneling, PGP key pairs on devices rather than pwd access etc but baby steps in this brave new world.)
Thanks. It is unclear whether you meant to type “I Understand that security and privacy concerns are high priority.” or “You should Understand that security and privacy concerns are high priority.” or some other construction. However I am all about choice and a solution which allows me to configure the level of security which is appropriate for my needs is better (IMHO) than one which enforces the level of security that someone else thinks I need. But that is just what I think. And sorry for continuing the off-topicness of this but I do not know where else to post it in a way where the context would be apparent to anyone stumbling across it from elsewhere. Any suggestions?
To return to the original topic, there are some Free RDP apks on the play store which look worth checking out if you prefer to deal exclusive with that (and many people do).
With this, I’ll bow out, as I think I’ve contributed all I can that’s useful.
I’m adding staff color to this so everyone knows that there’s a reason why this reply might be off-topic.
I should’ve also made it clear that I had a developer hat on there. The “You should” is what was meant and what I was hope would be implied, but wasn’t necessarily directed at you but anybody coming across the thread.
In this case, you’re running into a couple of issues, and I don’t want to stray too far into the “why” as opposed to the “how” with this: VNC, from a privacy and security standpoint, is a lot less secure than RDP because RDP is encrypted by nature whereas VNC needs to be tunneled through something like SSH in order to be encrypted. New users don’t know how to to that, and following a guide should not be an answer in a world where a user just needs to get things up and running without complex setup. In my opinion, users shouldn’t have to touch the terminal except rarely.
The other issue is that GNOME tends to be very opinionated, which is the issue you’ve come across with it in the past and the frustrations you’ve had. You, as an advanced user, don’t seem to be too happy with the walled-garden of GNOME, so you might be happier with a different DE, but that’s completely off-topic for this conversation, so just something to think about.
You would probably want to start a new discussion about this. Discussions are welcome in the Desktop subcategory of Project Discussion, and the developers are even there to talk as well. However, the minute it goes into a “Support and Help” question, it’ll get pulled right back in here.
However, this topic is about remote access via RDP to GNOME and how to accomplish that, not about the tangental discussions, so my wish is to keep it on the straight-and-narrow topic as opposed to the tangental topics that come out of it which is why when you posted…
…I wanted to get the topic refocused. It was nothing against you, really, but just to keep things focused on the topic while making sure you knew that it wasn’t just Ubuntu making this decison.
With that in mind, let’s get back on-topic. 
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Thanks. It was my inability to find anything useful on the Play Store that prompted me to ask here. (i.e. I may not have searched correctly on the play store and there may be something that someone else uses they could recommend). Thanks for taking the time to help.
I use this android app to connect from Android to Ubuntu:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.iiordanov.freeaRDP
There is also a pro version but the free one works well.