I am presently working on website (Java EE). One of the requirements is to not let the client to open anything else other than the browser. After a lot of search I got the following results :
Change the policy of the OS.
Write some batch/c/c++ program which will intercept all the keyboard and mouse events not letting the user open anything else.
PS : It should work on windows and IE 7 or above only. The other OS and browsers need not be considered. This software is made only for intranet, so I already have control on the client machines if I have to run something.
My question is .. is there anything else I can do which will reduce the work needed on the client side or on the program which I have to write??
This is very OS specific I'd say. Windows, I believe, has APIs related to finding open windows. You could find all open windows and close them. In your application's main loop you can detect if any windows are open then close them.
Perhaps mac and ubuntu have something similar.
This might be a good place to start looking: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms633497%28VS.85%29.aspx
I have no idea how to use it though.
You'll need something more powerful than javascript to communicate with your application that is monitoring the user's desktop. You may want to look at connecting JS to Silverlight then having the client download something upon opening the browser that is also similar to silverlight or .net. Then you can have them all communicate possibly.
You can set IE to be the shell process (a registry key) instead of explorer.exe, and then run IE in kiosk mode, and then disable task manager via policy (to prevent new processes).
Related
I have a web application which runs on all browsers but there is a link to another application which can only run in Internet Explorer. How I can force browser to open this link in a new IE browser when my application running in other browsers such as chrome? Should this piece of code written in server side or client side?
You can't force the client to launch a different browser like you're asking.
What I would suggest is to have your application test when it is launched to see if it is currently running in IE. If it isn't, it should issue an error message stating something like: "This application requires Internet Explorer. Please reopen in IE." Then have it stop there.
Most probably, using resources of JavaScript and HTML5, you cannot run applications on end user's computer. Moreover, it sounds incorrect in terms of security and usability.
The best thing you can do is to write a message like "Open this link in IE" near your link.
At the final page, you can detect a user's browser and, in case it is not an IE, show him a message "Unfortunately, this web-page works only with IE. Please, open it in IE".
By the way, could you tell us, why your page is not working in other browsers? Probably, we will find a proper answer there.
I would like to access a special hardware (a penta scanner, for the wisest ;) ) from a web page.
The aim is to retrieve the information from the scanner and compute it on server side.
The problem here, is that I have to summon functions from a DLL that has to be on the client side. I have two leads for that:
Develop a COM DLL and use ActiveX
Try to get through a homemade extension for a web browser in order to communicate with the local DLLs.
I've tried the first option, and I got stuck and I've posted another thread about it. Anyway, even if it works, there are too many constraints about it (as to use IE or the fact that even Microsoft is not fond of this feature and banned it from edge).
The second method is something that I found on another forum but, I do not understand how I can interact with a browser extension (whatever the browser).
So what I am asking is:
Is it possible to use a web browser extension as a medium to a local DLL and if so, would you be so kind as to give a hint about how to do ar anything that might look like a start about how to do it (even just some key words to use on google, since mine didn't get anything)....
Thanks.
Based on my understanding, the motive to develop an Extensions is to enhance the feature and functionality for particular web browser.
You cannot control any hardware devices like printer or scanner with it.
So if your goal is to control the scanner from your web page with the help of any kind of extension than I think you cannot do this with Extension.
How to open an EXE file from a Client Machine through a Web Application using Chrome?
I am able to open the EXE through Internet Explorer since I am using ActiveX Objects to open the Exe file through client side scripting. But since chrome does not support ActiveX I am unable to open the EXE from chrome. Can somebody provide an alternate way to open the exe from chrome?
I know it works if IETab addon is added to the browser for supporting ActiveX. But the client policy will not accept adding add-ons.
I am trying for a solution as such in WebEx websites where a temporary application is run once and each time it is accessed it opens in the temporary app without each time installing it.
Thanks in Advance..
Short and simple answer, NO! it's not possible just by using plain HTML5/JavaScript API, and thank god it's not possible or else the consequences would be devastating! Imagine any random website executing a file on your computer! That would be the worst security nightmare!
But, there are workarounds!
1. You can, for example, use Flash (but you shouldn't) or Silverlight but as mentioned the OP doesn't want any plugin-based solution so I guess they are not as useful.
2. Another solution would be to deploy a Desktop agent, if possible, and then communicate with it using a local Rest API and handle all the native access in that Desktop agent.
Still, the most preferred way would be to just ask your user to scan (or whatever) the document and upload it to your site.
More references can be found here
I have developed a chrome extension which does particular job and tries to connect back to a java desktop application.
Now what I want is, the chrome extension should get enabled only when desktop(java) application is opened and similarly it should get disabled whenever I close the desktop application.
Can I manage this using java?
Or any other way/ CMD is it possible?
Basically, you would need some ways to exchange message between extensions and native apps, for this purpose, there are many optional ways, such as Native Messaging, WebSocket, or simple http server/client.
Depends on what you choose to use, the implementation details may differ. However their ideas are similar:
Start the connection from extension and keep the connection for each side
Save a flag in extension side to mark whether your extension should be enabled
Once the connection is lost, revert the flag and disable the functionality of the extension
I've developed interactive content for a client ( VR Objects ) using javascript and Flash (if needed) that they now want to distribute to prospective customers via a flash drive. That makes it local content causing security issues especially with IE. Actually there doesn't seem to be much problem with any browser except IE. True, IE displays the "allow blocked content" button but they fear that is too complicated or scary. And on IE11 in Win 8.1 it still may not work.
The development environment I use has a way around that for testing using an "embedded web server" although all that seems to do is produce a localhost address such as http://localhost:60331/wyj-01xn/output/surfacide_flash.html. Paste that in the URL bar of any browser on the same machine and you are good. Try it on another machine and no go. So I gather the port address and whatever the /wyj-01xn/ is about are machine specific. Another possible problem -- it may not work easily with IE11 on Win8.1, but I don't personally have that setup to test.
QUESTION: Is there a way I can produce this same functionality for my client, distributed along with the content on the flash drive, without the need to install some special software (local web server) on each client computer??? The current workaround is to tell customers they should us any browser except IE. Client isn't happy.
You could distribute your webpages along with a portable Nginx server, or wrapped inside a Node-webkit or AppJS package.