| Free product secures Firefox browsing |
Dec. 13, 2005
Virtualization software maker VMware released two free products for download Monday. VMware Player lets users run, evaluate, and share software in a virtual machine on Linux or Windows desktops. Browser Appliance, based on VMware player, allows PC users to securely browse the Web using Firefox, from within a virtual machine.
VMware Player installs like a standard desktop application and runs full 32- and 64-bit applications and operating system environments, known as virtual machines, in a secure, separate environment from the rest of a user's PC, the company said.
VMware Player is aimed at safely running pre-installed, pre-configured applications, beta software, and other software distributed within virtual machines on PC desktops. A number of leading database, application server, application software and operating system vendors in the industry -- including BEA Systems, IBM Software, Novell, Oracle, and Red Hat -- have developed pre-built VMware environments that are available for free download.
In addition, VMware Player has been selected by various open source communities, research projects, developers, and technology vendors as a means to distribute their software to end users, according to the company.
VMware first made VMware Player available as a beta download at the end of October.
Highly secure browsing
According to VMware, the Browser Appliance can be used as an alternative to simply running a browser on a PC, in order to protect the user's PC from adware, spyware, and other malware by browsing the Web with Firefox from within a virtual machine.
The Browser Appliance accomplishes this by taking advantage of the virtual machine's isolation capabilities "to prevent malware downloaded in the browser from propagating to the normal desktop," the company said.
Additionally, the Browser Appliance can be configured to automatically reset itself after each use, so that personal information is never stored permanently on the system.
Availability
VMware Player and Browser Appliance are free and available for immediate download here.
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