BrowserGap Community Edition

Simple remote browser isolation application

The Community Edition version of the cloud-based internet isolation solution at https://browsergap.xyz

We're on HN 🎉

What is BrowserGap and Remote Browser isolation?

BrowserGap is a remote browser isolation product. RBI means accessing the public internet through a browser that runs in the cloud, rather than through a browser that runs on your device. This helps protect you from attacks on the web.

This protects you from nearly all web-based hacks, such as viruses, ransomware, browser and device zero day exploits, and also helps protect you from tracking, by changing your device fingerprint and IP address.

In more detail, the browser, normally is an executable application that runs on your device (phone, laptop). In RBI, instead you connect to a thin client web application that provides an interface to a browser that runs remotely. Remotely can mean in a VPS or VPC, in a physical box, or the public cloud.

Why is RBI significant?

And, if you're interested, read on for more detail.

It works by providing a thin client over the web that you connect your regular browser to. The thin client provides an interface to a remote browser that you interact with the browser the public internet.

This is significant because the internet is a cesspool of attacks. Malware, ransomware, virii, tracking, exploited PDFs, ways to deliver device zero days over the web, browser zero days. All these things can lead to the security of your device and network being compromised, causing significant inconvenience, distress and loss for you.

BrowserGap and the RBI methodology acknowledges that not all threats can be detected and neutralized (such as by virus scanners), in order to face that reality, RBI adopts a "isolation" posture towards threats, effectively isolating them in the remote machine and preventing them from reaching your device.

With BrowserGap, in order to render the content of a web page, the only thing we send to your device from the remote page is pixels. So no HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc from your browsing is ever executed on your device.

Cloud-based internet isolation is another name for this security practice and it is an emerging industry. Symantec recently acquired a company in this space, and Menlo Security was awarded an agreement to build a CBII prototype for DISA, after a June 2018 request for RBI solutions that could eventually serve 60% of DoD's~ 3 million users.

Use

Download the repository and self-host on your own machine (at home, or in a VPS, VPC or the public cloud)

E.g on Debian

$ git clone https://github.com/dosycorp/browsergap.ce.git
$ cd browsergap.ce
$ ./setup_machine.sh
$ npm test

Or

Try for free at https://free.cloudbrowser.xyz

Or https://hk.cloudbrowser.xyz (if you're in Asia-Pac this is probably faster)

Are you unwilling to invest more time in your security?

Please eamil me at cris@dosyago.com if you want to spend more time on your security.

Detailed Instructions

Below is from an email I sent to a user to help them set up the first time:

Okay, I'm not sure about the VirtualBox part, but I'm doing a fresh install from a new droplet now
and I'll list the commands I'm using 1 by 1 in order to help resolve your issue.

(btw to use nodejs v12 I usually use nvm, but I don't bother installing node 12 for root, and I will run some BG processes using sudo, which lets them use the existing node (usually 10) and I have not noticed a problem).

ssh in to droplet, get a root prompt

$ apt update && apt upgrade

(get a weird error about Debian stretch being expired, okay, moving on)

(later found need to add 

Acquire::Check-Valid-Until "false";

to /etc/apt/apt.conf, okay)

$ apt install git

$ adduser --disabled-password user

$ update-alternatives --config editor

(selected vim)

$ visudo

(added

user ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL

)

logout as root, ssh back in as user

$ sudo apt install curl
$ curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_10.x -o nodesource_setup.sh
$ sudo bash ./nodesource_setup.sh
$ sudo apt-get install -y nodejs
$ sudo apt install build-essential

( okay so node 10 is now installed, now I'm going to install nvm
so I can use whatever node version I want )

$ curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.33.11/install.sh -o install_nvm.sh
$ bash ./install_nvm.sh
$ source $HOME/.profile
$ nvm install --lts

(alright now node v12.13.0 is installed)

$ sudo npm i -g serve nodemon pm2
$ sudo apt install psmisc htop nethogs
$ sudo apt install libcgroup1 cgroup-tools

(okay that's a basic setup, now let's clone and install the bg)

$ git clone https://github.com/dosycorp/browsergap.ce.git
$ cd browsergap.ce
$ npm i

(put some coffee on)

$ npm test

(failed "change of cgroup failed")

$ ./setup_machine.sh
$ npm test

(failed same error)

(I edited the test.sh file to be
#!/bin/bash

username=$(whoami)
nodemon index.js 5002 8002 xxxcookie $username token2

(I have also updated the repo with this change now as well)
)

$ npm test

(works,

opened

http://<ip>:8002/ 

in Chrome browser and I can see the UI and it all works

That text is also at this gist