Originally intended mainly as a technology demonstration for our new Hosted Virtual Server offering, there was so much positive feedback, that we decided to make it publicly available. Aside from the obvious use as a proofing tool for web designers, it may also assist in estimating page loading times from abroad (our Server has a 100 Mbit/s internet connection), for testing external accessibility of internal webservers from within a LAN, for anonymous page display, or even for geolocation tests (the server is physically located in Germany).

NetRenderer uses a dedicated virtual Windows environment for each Internet Explorer version. Since we do not try to trick multiple IE versions to coexist, these native IE instances ensure optimal rendering fidelity and repeatability. At the core we use a proprietary C# application to control parallel rendering and to generate the virtual screenshot images. A separate frontend software does some pre-processing and error management, combines the image overlays and stores job logs and statistical data into an SQL database. For security reasons we must block Java and ActiveX, but Javascript is enabled. All machines will automatically receive Microsoft updates, so they should always be just as up-to-date as real-world browsers in the field.

Comments, suggestions and error reports are always welcome at info@geotek.de If you find this free service valuable, how about supporting IE NetRender by making a donation?

Nicolas Turcot has created a small Firefox extension that allows to render the currently displayed webpage directly without the need to copy and URLs. This works via context menu, "Extra" menu or with some custom icons on the menu bar. Here is the link to install the newest version of this cool extension: IE Netrenderer Firefox Extension.