What a cloud browser is

A cloud browser is a browser process that runs on a machine you do not own. You stream the pixels. The cookies land on their disk. Sales pages call it “just Chrome in the cloud.” The architecture is a rented runtime with a landlord.

This page is the definition. Cloud browser risk is the sibling. I will not merge them. Name the thing first. Then argue about who can read it.

The note lives in Privacy because the product class is a custody class.

What you are actually using

A VM or a container in a region they picked. A Chromium (sometimes Firefox) they patch. A protocol that sends frames to your laptop. A cookie database you never ls. Sometimes a debugger port you also do not own. Isolation between their tabs can be real. Isolation from them is not.

It is not a local antidetect profile. MaskWright’s store is {userData}/maskwright-data on Windows 10/11. No account. No sync. profiles.json AES-256-GCM. User-data dirs not encrypted by us. That is still your disk. Data residency is your disk is that sentence.

It is not a cloud phone. What a cloud phone is is a rented Android. Cloud phones versus local Windows is the comparison. A mobile UA in a cloud Chrome is still a desktop browser in a rack.

Why the category exists

Cafe laptops. Teams that want a seat. Scraping farms that want a thousand headed browsers without a thousand towers. Automation vendors that want a URL to a live view. Those are real jobs. They are not “the same as local with extra steps.”

What leaves this machine on MaskWright is a short list. A cloud browser’s leave list is “everything the session is.” If a vendor is breached follows. Updates on a local app are packages. On a cloud browser, the vendor updates the machine you never held.

We do not sell bandwidth out of your PC. Why we dropped bandwidth sharing. Cloud browsers sell the opposite rental: their bandwidth, their CPU, your cookies on their disk.

People also mash “cloud browser” with remote desktop into a PC they own. If you RDP into your office tower, you still hold the disk. The landlord is you (or your IT). If you click a vendor URL and a Chrome appears in a canvas, the landlord is them. The screenshot looks similar. The tar of cookies does not.

Browserless-style APIs are the automation cousin: you send a URL, they run Chromium, they return a screenshot or HTML. Fine for a staging site you own. Not a place I would leave Ads Manager signed in. MaskWright is the opposite shape: headed, local, you sit in the chair.

Version 0.1 does not stream a desktop to a teammate. If you needed that, you already wanted seats and a server. We refused both.

Pushback I hear: “it looks like Chrome.” It is Chrome’s cousin on someone else’s disk. The screenshot is not the custody. If you cannot dir the user-data folder while their site is down, you are renting the session. Local MaskWright is the opposite shape: headed, on Windows, you sit in the chair.

FAQ

Is Browserless or Browserbase a cloud browser?

They are hosted runtimes, often for automation, not a profile drawer you live in. Still not your disk. Still a landlord for that process.

Can a cloud browser be antidetect?

It can spoof fingerprints. It cannot make the vendor not hold the files. Antidetect-as-a-service is a common pitch. Custody stays the pitch we care about.

Do you offer one?

No. Download MaskWright is Windows local. Compare if you wanted seats and a stream.

If the pixels are rented, the cookie store is rented. That is the definition. The risk page is next. Keep them in that order.