Simon Barratt

Safe(ish) web browsing

I was in the process of upgrading my VMWare workstation software today, so I visited the VMWare website and noticed a new client called the VMWare viewer.  Which is a free VMWare client to launch existing VMWare partitions.

In addition to the viewer, they are also offering some canned VMWare sessions, including one called the Browser Appliance.



This is a really nice idea.  Once you have downloaded the viewer and the Browser appliance, you can just open it up, and a pre-configured Ubuntu Linux OS with Firefox ready to go, pops up.  Allowing you to safely surf the web, knowing that your primary OS is not being affected or at risk!  If something goes wrong in the appliance, just shut down and restart and you are back at the clean staring point!

Update 21st Ocotber
One thing to watch out for, if you are running VMWare 4.5, you cannot open the appliance VM.  You are also unable to install the VMWare viewer - so you are stuck!  Either upgrade or uninstall!