Random Online Utility: Xencode Browsers

It's been a long time since I introduced the ROU "series," so it's high-time I added another tool to this list. This time I bring you a tool I just discovered- thanks to the geniuses on the internal Telerik Newsgroups- called Xenocode Browser Sandbox. The "tool" (it's really more of a service) enables you to launch browsers "from the web"- including IE6, IE7, IE8, Opera, Safari, and Chrome. Here's the basic tool pitch: You visit the Browser Sandbox page and download the executable for the browser you want to use (it comes in Xenocode's virtualized package). You run it- no installs required. The browser of the version you selected opens and runs! Clearly, the coolest part of this is that you can finally run multiple versions of IE on the same computer without all the hassle of firing-up a VPC. I tested IE6 on my Windows 7 workstation and it definitely works as promised. There are some shortcomings- for instance, I couldn't enter any text in inputs on webpages (no keyboard input)- but if your goal is to just navigate to a page to see how it looks, you're set. For a free tool, it's pretty cool. Check it out and stay tuned for more cool ROUs.