How to check changes on remote origin git repository?

There are couple of ways and lots of discussion regarding check changes on remote git repository.

git remote update - bring your remote refs up to date
git status - tell you whether the branch you are tracking is ahead, behind or has diverged

git show-branch *master - show commits in all of the branches whose names end in master (eg master and origin/master)

git pull origin master - bring my local up to date

git fetch origin - update the remote branch in your repository to point to the latest version
git diff origin/master - diff local against the remote
git merge origin/master - accept the remote changes

git remote show origin - Show synthetic view of what's going on remote "origin" repository