Small office/home office network hardware vendor Buffalo Technology has announced a security router with a clever mix of remote access and PC remote control capabilities that could lure away some Citrix GoToMyPC's 150,000 users and help Buffalo increase its current 7% share of the U.S. market.

Standard features on the Buffalo Wireless Secure Remote Gateway (WRZ-RS-G54) include a four-port switch, SPI firewall, intrusion detection and an 802.11g wireless access point.

Other secure routers in its class typically include an IPSec VPN client, which means you need a box on each end of the connection to create a secure tunnel. In contrast, the Buffalo router includes a Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol VPN server, which means any remote client with the PPTP client (and permission) can set up a VPN tunnel to a network. Microsoft's original IP tunneling protocol, PPTP, is supported by most client platforms, including Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Pocket PC OS and Symbian. Most PPTP clients are free; the Palm OS client costs about $30.

Once you make the PPTP connection to a router, a portal page gives you access to all resources on your home network, such as servers and printers, and control over individual PCs, as you get with GoToMyPC.

To access the desktop, the Buffalo router uses a variant of the open source Virtual Network Computing standard, TightVNC. VNC is widely used by the tech community; its only flaw is lack of security. But Buffalo has secured VNC by running it inside the 40- or 128-bit encrypted PPTP tunnel. Buffalo also uses a Java-based control application, so you can run the Web-based remote control session using any browser, including Opera and Safari. GoToMyPC, in contrast, only works with Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator, and Windows (95 and up) host machines. However, the GoToMyPC Universal Viewer and PocketView let you connect using an array of client.

Two key features are support for Wake-on-LAN and Dynamic DNS. One of the big downsides of remote PC control products is the need to keep the host PC running all the time. This can be inconvenient (if you turn off the machine and no one is home to turn it back on), a security risk and waste of electricity. The average monthly cost for running one PC and monitor 24/7 is about $15, experts say.