There are very many companies competing to make a name for themselves within the hosted virtual desktop market. VMWare looks to pose the biggest threat to G.ho.st as they offer a free open-source virtual hosted desktop. Here is a list of some major competitors…
VMWare – http://www.vmware.com
Leostream – http://www.leostream.com
Citrix – http://www.citrix.com
I just did a comparison of g.ho.st within IE, Firefox, and Chrome to see if there are any differences.
I should start by saying, for bias reasons, that I typically use Firefox for my browsing.
Using the browsers, they are typically the same as far as the desktop within g.ho.st. I used F11 to maximize each browser to full screen and tested some capabilities of each. Here are some short summaries…
IE – Probably the worst of the three. The interface is not easy to get in and out of full screen mode and F11 did not work once g.ho.st was loaded.
Firefox – The best of the three. Nice interface with a very small minimize, maximize/cascade, and exit buttons in the top left made it easier to work within g.ho.st and switch to windows desktop. Also drops down an addressbar when moving the cursor near the top to navigate away from g.ho.st if necessary.
Chrome – The runner up. I had to install this to test it and I was impressed with how fast everything loaded. Worked well with everything and has a reminder to press F11 to exit full screen when moving the cursor near the top of the screen. Had a problem and crashed when trying to login to WordPress within g.ho.st.
All-in-all I would prefer to use Firefox when using g.ho.st. All three browsers seem to have some glitches that do not create a cohesive use of g.ho.st and sites such as WordPress. When navigating to edit pages within WordPress, each browser displays a message asking if you would like to use the main browser window or the browser within g.ho.st to navigate to the link. This becomes problematic because it is a security issue and does not allow a “do not ask me this again” option to the user. The result is having to click cancel each time you click a link within WordPress dashboard.
