A Platform Independent Shared Web Browser

Runhe Huang ； Jianhua Ma

《網際網路技術學刊》 2卷4期 (2001/10) Pp. 301-308

並列摘要

The current popular browsers such as Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Communicator allow only an individual to freely navigate on the Web. Our shared Web browser enables multi-users in physically different sites to simultaneously navigate the Web-based virtual world together. Using the shared browser, a group of users share not only a Web document but also operations on the browser and Web documents. To be platform independent, he shared Web browser is implemented using Java language under a server-client model. The server programs are Java applications and the client program is a Java applet. As a gateway, the proxy server plays an important role in the shared browser system for loading Web documents in remote hosts on behalf of a client so as to overcome Java applet security restrictions. In this article, we present the shared Web browser in details and show its application in a multimedia collaboration system - VCR (Virtual Collaboration Room) as an object. The shared Web browser has potential applications in many other systems, such as tele-lecturing, tele-conferencing, shopping together in e-commerce, and group virtual tour.