No, seriously. That's exactly what WebRunner is: the simplest web browser you've seen since... well, ever. (Well, unless you count text-based browsers like Lynx). This Mozilla project can render pretty much any page or content that you can access in Firefox. But it comes without any bells and whistles. At all.
In fact, it's probably best not to think of WebRunner as a browser at all. Rather, it's a lightweight tool for accessing web-based applications. Like Google Docs & Spreadsheets, but wish you didn't have to leave it open in a browser tab all the time? No problem, just fire it up in WebRunner and think of it as a standalone application that only works when your computer's connected to the internet.
You load websites by clicking on WebRunner "bundles," which are basically zipped archive files holding configuration data, icons, and scripts. You can create your own bundles or download existing bundles for most Google services (Reader, Mail, Docs, Analytics) and a few other sites like Twitter and Facebook.
[via CyberNet]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-17-2007 @ 10:43AM
khakwins98 said...
How's the memory usage? -- I'm sure it will have less memory leaks than the full firefox but seeing as I'll still have to have firefox open for other browsing ...
A 17MB download makes me skeptical of it being efficient.
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10-17-2007 @ 10:44AM
RPGFanatic said...
Hmm, this looks great, unfortunately, it is not working for me. It installed properly and everything but all that appears in the start menu folder is the Uninstall file. Could it have something to do with Vista? (Although I can see it running on Vista in the screenshot...)
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10-17-2007 @ 10:47AM
Brad Linder said...
RPGFanatic: try downloading a bundle and clicking on it. If everything installed correctly it should open WebRunner.
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10-17-2007 @ 10:47AM
nizzy1115 said...
I think this could be great to deploy in an elementary school district where they only need to access a couple of different web sites.
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10-17-2007 @ 10:59AM
Sherpa Josh said...
When I try to install webrunner i get a message saying all the xulrunner runtime files are corrupt and it wont copy it to the program files folder. I told it to ignore the fact that they are corrupt and tried to run on the webapps from the bundle and nothing happens, i tried to download the install file again but no still no luck. Any suggestions?
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10-17-2007 @ 11:07AM
Peter said...
This would be awesome for kiosks and other locked down situations.
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10-17-2007 @ 11:17AM
Mikado said...
Does this maintain cookies and other state information independent of a traditional Firefox installation? Do multiple webapps maintain their state independent from each other? One possible application would be to have multiple webapps open to different gmail accounts, which I can not do now with separate tabs in the same Firefox window.
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