5 ms·

Browser Sandbox: Run popular web browsers with no installs

9 points by Halienja 16y ago

aeden 16y ago
I tried it in both Safari and Google Chrome on OS X and it says it isn't available for my platform. A bit of a letdown.
- pseudocube 16y ago
  Same for Linux.
- jnorthrop 16y ago
  FWIW - You can add FireFox and Opera to that list on OSX.
- teilo 16y ago
  This is a Windows-only product. It is doing Windows API abstraction. They could, of course, get this running on an Intel-based Mac or Linux, but they would have to do a whole lot more API translation to get it working - and probably have to use Wine and X11 in the process. Quite a lot more work. I'm happy with it. I have Parallels. Now I can use just one VM for all my Windows testing.
geuis 16y ago
So, they made something that only runs on Windows. The one platform that runs all of these browsers natively anyway. Incredibly useful investment in time.
- bensummers 16y ago
  Hint: You can only install one version of IE.
- teilo 16y ago
  Yes, actually. Incredibly useful is an understatement, considering that before this wonderful little product, the only way we web developers could test various versions of IE and various versions other browsers, was to have countless virtual machines wasting tremendous amounts of hard drive space, and sucking up gobs of our precious time as we waited for the VM's to boot just to properly test a site.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
Tichy 16y ago
One thing I noticed is that there doesn't seem to be such a thing for mobile browsers yet. Maybe a worthwhile problem to solve? No good idea how to go about it, though. Would emulations be sufficient? Or maybe attach some real phones to a server and make screenshots (scaling?)? I am not even sure how many mobile browsers there are. Would one have to test on every phone, or would major versions of webkit mobile, opera mobile etc. be sufficient?
RoboTeddy 16y ago
I'm finding this really useful: in the past I've had to use a service that runs over VNC (crossbrowsertesting.com). Dealing with cross-browser bugs is annoying enough without additional slowness and inconvenience. This feels much, much nicer.

9 points by Halienja 16y ago

aeden 16y ago

I tried it in both Safari and Google Chrome on OS X and it says it isn't available for my platform. A bit of a letdown.

pseudocube 16y ago
Same for Linux.
jnorthrop 16y ago
FWIW - You can add FireFox and Opera to that list on OSX.
teilo 16y ago
This is a Windows-only product. It is doing Windows API abstraction. They could, of course, get this running on an Intel-based Mac or Linux, but they would have to do a whole lot more API translation to get it working - and probably have to use Wine and X11 in the process. Quite a lot more work. I'm happy with it. I have Parallels. Now I can use just one VM for all my Windows testing.

geuis 16y ago

So, they made something that only runs on Windows. The one platform that runs all of these browsers natively anyway. Incredibly useful investment in time.

bensummers 16y ago
Hint: You can only install one version of IE.
teilo 16y ago
Yes, actually. Incredibly useful is an understatement, considering that before this wonderful little product, the only way we web developers could test various versions of IE and various versions other browsers, was to have countless virtual machines wasting tremendous amounts of hard drive space, and sucking up gobs of our precious time as we waited for the VM's to boot just to properly test a site.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

Tichy 16y ago

One thing I noticed is that there doesn't seem to be such a thing for mobile browsers yet. Maybe a worthwhile problem to solve? No good idea how to go about it, though. Would emulations be sufficient? Or maybe attach some real phones to a server and make screenshots (scaling?)? I am not even sure how many mobile browsers there are. Would one have to test on every phone, or would major versions of webkit mobile, opera mobile etc. be sufficient?

RoboTeddy 16y ago

I'm finding this really useful: in the past I've had to use a service that runs over VNC (crossbrowsertesting.com). Dealing with cross-browser bugs is annoying enough without additional slowness and inconvenience. This feels much, much nicer.