PuTTY

PuTTY is one of the big guys in the SSH and Telnet clients bunch with added abilities to connect through rlogin as well as raw TCP protocols to other computers. It also features an xterm terminal emulator in order to provide an effective environment for advanced users.

One thing you must make sure of is that you can enjoy PuTTY within the legal boundaries of your country as it may interfere with both domestic and international cryptography laws such as China, Singapore, Vietnam, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Tunisia or Belarus.

PuTTY starts up revealing its comprehensive configuration panel to aid you customize and manage sessions and connections alongside the terminal and the window that wraps it in. You can easily opt for the connection type (Raw, Telnet, Rlogin, SSH and Serial) and set logging options for the currently selected session.

The Terminal section refers to various general settings as well as line discipline and remote-controlled printing. You may also set keyboard actions, alarms and advanced terminal features, while tweaking the appearance, behavior, translation or colors of the window. The Connection area allows customization of Low-level TCP connections, Internet protocol version, Login and Terminal details, Environment variables, Proxy type and other protocol-specific adjustments.

Once the connection is set up, you can control and use the resources of the computer that you linked to in a matter of seconds. PuTTY stores the hosts and their corresponding settings in order to facilitate fast yet accurate switches between machines and even supports most of the encryption algorithms such as AES, DES, Blowfish, 3DES or Arcfour.

PuTTY grants you control using the SSH encryption key and the protocol version, while providing SCP and SFTP clients accessible through command-line. It also supports X11 forwarding in addition to local, remote or dynamic port forwarding, the IPv6 protocol and authentication using public-keys.

The bottom line presents PuTTY as a vital application for experienced users in need of a sturdy yet fully-customizable environment for their PC-to-PC secure connections. Its wide-ranging array of supported protocols together with its execution speed make it worthy of its top spot within Softpedia’s Telnet/SSH Clients category.