It’s been a bit more than six months since we launched the Secure Browser service in Citrix Cloud, so it seems like a good time to take a step back and look how the service has developed since its launch.
How far have we come since we started?
How has the service developed since its launch in March 2018?
The first big feature addition enabled existing Citrix customers to integrate the service with an on premises StoreFront installation to make secure, cloud-based remote browsers appear to the user look like just like another published application. By doing this, the secure HDX session opens using the native Citrix Workspace app (or Citrix Receiver as we called it back then), improving the user experience even more. Zero learning curve and a great user experience — what more can you wish from a brand-new cloud service?
This was quickly followed by the Tech Preview public REST API for directly launching a certain URL within a cloud-hosted browser, without going into the Citrix Cloud console.
A few months later we extended the service availability to an additional region, significantly improving the user experience for our customers in the eastern U.S. Another great user improvement that was brought online just a few weeks later was the ability to for our customers to use the Citrix Cloud Workspace experience for accessing published Secure Browsers. This also gave customers the right to use Site Aggregation, enabling them to aggregate their on prem Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops installations with the Citrix Workspace experience.
In September, we gave admins the possibility to change the icon for the published browser from the default Chrome icon, which greatly helps the user adoption when rolling out the solution. But an even greater improvement was the extension of the service to the East Australia region. Now the surfers “Down Under” can enjoy a great, secure internet surfing experience along with the phenomenal surfing conditions of the Australian coasts!
And speaking of multi-region availability, the Admin UI became available in all of the five “Citrix Cloud” languages, English, German, Spanish, French and Japanese. Nihon-go hanashimasuka? Hai, sukoshi hanashimasu. (That’s as much as the author remembers from his language studies at University.)
And saving the greatest and freshest improvement last, now it is possible for the admin to select “Auto” as a region. This will automatically select the region closest to the user using Citrix Intelligent Traffic Management (i.e. this is the technology from our Cedexis acquisition). How about that for cool cross-product integration!
Consider all of this, as well as the work that has been behind the scenes to drastically improve the launch speed and to seamlessly integrate the Secure Browser technology with Citrix Access Control. This means that Citrix provides a holistic solution offering SSO for SaaS apps and controls to protect the data within the SaaS apps. We also offer web filtering capabilities to prevent users from accessing malicious content on the internet.
Counting all the major customer facing improvements together, we average more than one major feature addition per month. Rest assured that we aren’t planning to slow down. And, while we will keep adding features to this service, it will remain the easiest configurable security service from Citrix.
If you don’t believe it yourself, just follow these steps and you’ll be securely surfing the web within minutes!
