Can you make a desktop application run in a browser? [closed]

Question

Is there a way to take a desktop application and make it run in a browser without having to recode everything? I'm a front end developer that edits basic HTML CSS and Javascript, and my boss has asked me to try to get an application he found to run on our website.

I am doubting there is an easy solution but I just need to find out if it is possible, and if not, then what are the basic steps I would need to try and get the same functionality of the app, in a browser on our site?

Answer 1

This answer might be a little beyond what you're looking for, but for the sake of completeness I feel it's worth mentioning:

Thanks to emscripten you can compile anything that can be made into LLVM bytecode (like C or C++) into JavaScript. For example, Unreal Engine 4 was compiled into JS and was able to be run inside of Firefox, without plugins, at around half of native speed. In addition, a list of games, game-engines, emulators, frameworks, and programming languages have been compiled to run as JS in the browser.

So, if you have the source of the application that you want to run in the browser and you don't mind some tinkering, you might be able to get it running with emscripten.

Answer 2

Thinfinity VirtualUI is a product that enables you to add just a piece of code to your source and then run the app thru any browser supporting HTML5.

There are two development levels available: - a plain app publishing (add the code and go web), and - a jsRO framework (Javascript Remote Objects) that enables deep integration with other web resources, plus UI customization.

I guess this last option is the one that better covers your scenario.

Answer 3

You can provide simple HREF link to download and run native app. But as I asked in comments you should look at the executable platform it runs on and put disclaimer for your users that it runs only on such OS and such CPU hardware.