14 DAY TRIAL // Linux in the web browser is not a new concept to us, especially because even Canonical, the maker of Ubuntu Linux, has an Online tour of their computer operating system, which users can always try for free at http://tour.ubuntu.com/en/.
However, today we want to inform our readers about a startup called Icebergs, which offers a new cloud-based service that runs a traditional Xfce desktop environment on top of Ubuntu Linux. At the moment, it is based on Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS (Trusty Tahr), running Linux kernel 3.13.
Everything is written in HTML5, providing users with a full and complete desktop environment and offering them root (system administrator) access, so that they can install the software they need.
There's a full screen option available, so you won't have to stay in a tab all the time if you want to concentrate on your current session. Icebergs offers several paid plans and a free one that won't save your sessions.
We've tried the free plan using the latest version of the Mozilla Firefox web browser, version 41.0, and we're not very impressed with the speed. Actually, we think that the whole thing runs pretty slow and you might get slightly annoyed after a few minutes of playing around.
Here's how Icebergs' offering works
New sessions are generated in real time and it takes approximately two or three minutes to start for the first time, especially if you're on the free plan where nothing is saved. After a session is created, you need to click on the "Open Desktop" button to start it.
As mentioned, Icebergs has a few paid plans, starting from $9.99/month for 25 hours of usage per month, two instances, and 8GB storage per instance. The most expensive plan costs $59.99/month for 750 compute hours and 16 instances, with the same 8GB of storage per instance.
On the other hand, the free plan offers you a single instance with only two hours per month and no storage. However, the best thing is that you can cancel any time if you don't like their services. Try Icebergs' service at https://icebergs.io/.
