February 23rd, 2009
Web developers: one-click browser virtualisation
Application virtualisation appears on the cuff as boring and confusing, but this website is neither of these. Instead it’ll make you question, “how does it do this?”. I, for the life of me, cannot work out how, or even why this technology works, but it does, so I’m happy with it.
Whilst shamelessly plugging a product for no apparent reason is not my forté, Xenocode is a world leader in virtualising applications. Today they announce the online availability of their Browser Sandbox suite of applications.
Put simply, it allows you to run instantly any popular web browser there is on the market, without downloading or installing the actual browser.
How? Why? The “how” I have no idea, but you do need a small plugin running on your system to get the code working. This is a few kilobytes tops, so regardless of what you think of this already, there’s no way you can download a working, functional browser which is less than a megabyte.
Simply click and use, that’s all there is to it. Take a look; multiple, simultaneous browsers running on my desktop without installing a single one. You’ll notice Internet Explorer 6 on Vista, which in itself looks a little strange:
Web developers and multimedia students will surely reap the benefits of this ingenious website. Whilst this technology has been around for years, it seems only now have my eyes been opened to the wonders of application virtualisation.
Zack Whittaker, the youngest in the ZDNet network, is a British student at the University of Kent, Canterbury, where he studies BA (Hons) Criminology and Social Policy. His insight into the next-generation is unique and first-hand, sharing his knowledge of the here and now but more so what's next and how to get there.
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