Browser support 0.1 - takaha/noVNC GitHub Wiki
In general noVNC v0.1 works on any browser with Canvas and WebSockets support (either native or via web-socket-js) which is just about everything except IE 8 and lower. However, noVNC works best and is fastest in Chrome (any version) and Firefox 4+ (with native WebSockets manually enabled, see note 4).
The following tables show results of testing noVNC on various browser and OS combinations.
| Browser | Status | Performance/Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Chrome 12.0.742.91 | Excellent | Very fast. Native WebSockets. |
| Chrome 10.0.648.205 | Excellent | Very fast. Native WebSockets. |
| Firefox 4.0.1 | Very Good | Very fast with native WebSockets enabled (see note 4) |
| Firefox 3.6.16 | Good | Slowed by web-socket-js overhead. |
| Opera 11.11 (native WebSockets) | Good | Native WebSockets enabled (see note 4). |
| Browser | Status | Performance/Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Chrome 8.0.552.215 | Excellent | Very fast. Native WebSockets. |
| Chrome 7.0.510.0 | Very good | WebKit render bug workaround (see note 3) |
| Chrome 5.0.375.29 | Excellent | Very fast. Native WebSockets. |
| Firefox 4.0 | Good | Very good with native WebSockets enabled (see note 4) |
| Firefox 4.0 Beta 6 | Excellent | Fast. Native WebSockets. SSL cert hassle (see note 2) |
| Firefox 3.6.1 | Good | Slowed by web-socket-js overhead. Local cursor causes segfault. |
| Arora 0.10.1 | Fair | Slow due to broken putImageData and web-socket-js. |
| Opera 11.00 (native WebSockets) | Good | Opera WebSockets enabled (see note 4) |
| Opera 11.00 (web-socket-js) | Poor | web-socket-js/Flash slows down dramatically over time |
| Opera 10.60 | Poor | web-socket-js problems, mouse/keyboard issues (see note 1) |
| Konqueror 4.3.2 | Broken | web-socket-js never loads |
| Browser | Status | Performance/Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Chrome 5.0.375.29 | Excellent | Very fast. Native WebSockets. |
| Firefox 3.5 | Good | Slowed by web-socket-js overhead. |
| Firefox 3.0.17 | Fair | Works fine but is slow. |
| Arora 0.5 | Fair | Slow due to broken putImageData and web-socket-js. |
| Opera 10.60 | Poor | web-socket-js problems, mouse/keyboard issues (see note 1) |
| Konqueror 4.2.2 | Broken | web-socket-js never loads |
| Browser | Status | Performance/Notes |
|---|---|---|
| IE 9 | Good | Slow. Similar to Firefox 3.6 (but 2X slower for tightPNG) |
| Browser | Status | Performance/Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Chrome 5.0.375.99 | Excellent | Very fast. Native WebSockets. |
| Safari 5.0 | Excellent | Fast. Native WebSockets. |
| Firefox 3.0.19 | Good | Some overhead from web-socket-js. |
| IE 6, 7, 8 | Non-starter | No basic Canvas support. Javascript painfully slow. |
-
Note 1: Opera interacts poorly with web-socket-js. After two disconnects the browser tab or Flash often hang. Although Javascript is faster than Firefox 3.5, the high variability of web-socket-js performance results in overall performance being lower. Middle mouse clicks and keyboard events need some work to work properly under Opera. Also, Opera does not have support for setting the cursor style url to a data URI scheme, so cursor pseudo-encoding is disabled.
-
Note 2: Firefox 4.0 Beta does not provide a direct way to accept SSL certificates via WebSockets. You can work around this by navigating directly to the WebSockets port using 'https://' and accepting the certificate. Then return to noVNC and connect normally.
-
Note 3: Browsers using WebKit build 66396 through 68867 (Chrome/Chromium build 57968 through 61278) have a Canvas rendering bug. The WebKit bug is #46319. The noVNC bug is #28. The workaround causes a very slight rendering slowdown in buggy versions of WebKit/Chrome.
-
Note 4: Firefox 4.0 native WebSockets support can be enabled by navigating to URL
about:configand enabling optionnetwork.websocket.override-security-block. Opera 11 native WebSockets support can be enabled by browsing to URLopera:config#UserPrefs|EnableWebSocketsand enabling the option.