Is It Possible To Control Programs With Javascript?

I am making an html/javascript browser homepage, that could be downloaded to any computer - you simply run the *.html file from your computer and it opens in your default browser;

Solution 1:

You can't do this unless you write a browser extension (plugin), for example.

Most web browsers put a lot of work into sandboxing JavaScript so any malicious users can't compromise the system the client's browser is running on, although older browsers are as watertight as sieves. Modern browsers are a lot better, but there are/may be some holes somewhere. All this security means that JavaScript can't (isn't supposed to be able to) access any part of the client's machine.

Solution 2:

Any respectable browser will block javascript from accessing anything on the user computer. It is a huge security risk to let a script in a HTML page do something like you want.

Depending on the browser and the configuration, it may be possible, but you absolutely shouldn't try to do it.

You can maybe achieve what you want through a browser extension, but you will have to write it for each different browser your customer are using.

Maybe the best thing to do is write a rich client instead of using HTML/Javascript.

Solution 3:

It would be doable if the HTML page were not opened in the browser! The browser makes its best not to allow such things for security purposes.

Not that JavaScript in itself is not able to do this -- the language is used in plenty of other places, see here.

Solution 4:

You can do something similar to this using a wrapper like Fluid ( http://fluidapp.com/ ) which encapsulats your page and turns it into a native app (with its own sandbox) There are equivalent programs for other platforms as well as Mac.