Shadow PC is an extremely useful service. Just check out our recent review of the service. It’s the sledge-hammer of cloud services. It doesn’t just allow you to play video games stored in the cloud, it allows you to run an entire Windows desktop from the cloud! There are no limitations on apps you can run or games you can play when you actually install and run them yourself. I actually personally subscribe to Shadow more for access to Windows and Windows productivity apps than gaming.
Shadow has long been accessible on computers (Windows, Mac and Linux) as well as mobile devices in the iOS and Android family. For each of these platforms, you need to download and install a native app in order to use Shadow. You can’t just access your virtual cloud desktop via your browser. That is the case until next week at least!
Shadow announced on Twitter today that browser based access to Shadow PC is coming next Monday in “early access”:
Browser and Early Access Limitations
In Shadows announcement, they highlight what differences you can expect with browser access both during early-access and later on.
Most people using Shadow wont miss too many of the items marked with an “x” for now. We’ll give it a try on Monday and let you know how bearable the “Average” latency is compared to the native application. It’s nice, though, to see the final features of the browser version include a number of upcoming enhancements.
Shadow mentioned that the Browsers to be supported are Edge, Firefox and Chrome… It may be a bit of a bummer for MacOS users that Safari is not included, but Chrome being listed brings us to our next point.
Big Win for Chrome-OS Shadow PC Users
The biggest winners here are Chrome-OS users, like myself, who wouldn’t mind having access to a powerful Windows desktop in the cloud from time to time. In the past, I have installed the Shadow app for Linux in the Chrome-OS Debian container. But, browser access is what most Chrome-OS users really want and expect. And it looks to be coming next Monday! You soon should be able to play all of those PC games that aren’t on GeForce NOW on your Chromebook via Shadow. Hogwarts Legacy and Elden Ring here we come!
