Here is how to use gigolo. The following works on a local network. I just tried to use it to access a remote location out on the web (at our tuxfamily host, where the blogs for linuxvillage.org and pclinuxos-fr.org are installed), it works as well.
I have gigolo 0.4.1 in Archlinux and will connect to a machine next to me with Ubuntu, where openssh (server and client) is installed.
Starting gigolo:
Hit the menu "Actions > Connect":
Provide the remote machine information:
Once completed click the Connect button then a new window comes up:
You can ask the program to keep the information, until you logout or always:
Next, the connected destination appears:
However, clicking on the folder icon does not produce any effect, therefore next, something else to be tried from within the preferences menu:
I will insert pcmanfm instead of gvfs-open, then once I click on the same folder in gigolo pcmanfm is started into the remote location…
and I can access to the remote file system.