How does the Roozz browser plugin achieve it's cross platform capability
I came across the browser plugin from roozz.com and I tried it out with LinqPad, try it here. They say there is a conversion process that takes basically any exe and converts it to their platform which can then be run on windows, mac, linux through all major browsers.
When I dug into what was going on, at least for LinqPad on Windows 7, all it did was download the linqpad exe to my user AppData/Local folder and host it inside of chrome. Interestingly I could just launch the exe outside of the browser and run it normally. I was even able to uninstall Roozz plugin and keep launching the app like normal.
The main questions I have.
- Is this really cross platform, can I run a .NET 4.0 WPF app on windows, mac, and linux, or are you only able to run windows apps on windows and mac apps on mac?
- In general, what is this plugin doing and what are the limitations?
EDIT: Just to clear up, this isn't as much about how browser plugins generally work, but rather how this one can run apps exclusively written for one platform and run on an incompatible one.
Further testing revealed that there is some BS around their claims, or at least some confusing "hype" because LinqPad does in fact not work on MacOSx. When trying to run the app you get,
"Your operating system is not supported by the Roozz platform yet. But we are working on it."