Enterprise Browser: Definition, Key Features, and Use Cases

The broad adoption of SaaS and web applications made the web browser a critical enterprise application. But many organizations still use consumer browsers that were never designed as enterprise applications. Recognizing this gap, the concept of an enterprise browser has emerged as a cornerstone of modern infrastructure strategy.

Let's dive into the world of enterprise browsers: what they are, where they fit into the IT ecosystem, and how they're reshaping the way businesses interact with SaaS and web applications.

What is an enterprise browser?

An enterprise browser is a web browser designed specifically to meet the unique needs of businesses, focusing on security, manageability, and integration with enterprise tools and workflows. 

Unlike consumer browsers that are optimized for general web browsing by individuals, enterprise browsers offer features tailored to workplace usage. This includes integration with enterprise identity systems, enhanced security measures, full administration controls, and optimization for enterprise applications.

Key Features of an Enterprise Browser

Enterprise browsers are designed to address the unique needs of modern enterprises by offering a suite of features that enhance security, productivity, and manageability. Here's how they deliver on these fronts with specific examples:

Application Access

Enterprise browsers provide secure and controlled access to both internal and external web applications, ensuring that users can reach necessary resources efficiently.

Consider a scenario where an organization uses a mix of cloud-based SaaS applications like Salesforce for CRM, Google Workspace for collaboration, and internally hosted web applications for HR and finance. An enterprise browser can offer seamless access to these resources by integrating with identity and access management (IAM) systems for single sign-on (SSO) capabilities. It can enforce granular access to applications and restrict certain pages or functions within an application to certain users. 

In addition to user identity, an enterprise browser considers the device status, network location, and geolocation to protect against unauthorized access. 

Data Protection

Protecting sensitive corporate data from leakage or unauthorized access is a core capability of enterprise browsers, achieved through granular control over data interactions within the browser.

Imagine a financial analyst working with sensitive customer data in a web-based reporting tool. The enterprise browser can prevent this data from being copied and pasted into unauthorized web applications or being downloaded to an unsecured device. Policies could be configured to allow data interaction within approved applications while redacting sensitive information or blocking downloads to ensure data doesn't leave the secure environment.

Visibility with Privacy

Enterprise browsers balance the need for organizational oversight with individual privacy, offering detailed insights into user behavior and application usage while respecting user privacy.

Take, for example, a healthcare provider needing to ensure compliance with health information privacy regulations such as HIPAA while still monitoring for unusual or unauthorized access to patient records through web applications. An enterprise browser can log access to sensitive applications, providing auditors with the information needed for compliance reviews without capturing personal browsing data of the staff, ensuring that personal use of the web remains private and secure.

User Productivity

Enhancing user productivity by streamlining access to tools and resources, offering a fast and responsive browsing experience, and integrating productivity-enhancing features.

Consider a contact center agent who interacts with customers through email and online chat. Leading enterprise browsers offer built-in productivity tools, such as an AI assistant and smart clipboard manager, that will help the contact center agent reply quickly and confidently to customer inquiries. 

Enterprise Browser Use Cases

Enterprise browsers address several critical use cases in modern enterprise IT environments by balancing the needs for security, manageability, and a positive user experience. 

Let's explore how they cater to specific scenarios:

Securing SaaS and Web Apps

Challenge: SaaS and web applications are central to business operations but can pose significant security risks when accessed with a consumer browser. 

Solution: An enterprise browser ensures secure access to these applications by embedding security policies directly into the browser. It can enforce content and context-aware policies, like restricting copy-paste actions, redirecting downloads to secure cloud storage, or redacting sensitive information displayed on-screen, thereby preventing data exfiltration or leakage.

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)

Challenge: BYOD policies increase flexibility and reduce costs but introduce risks associated with mixing personal and corporate data, potential malware infections, and inconsistent security postures.

Solution: Enterprise browsers enable secure and controlled access to corporate resources from personal devices. They can ensure separation of work and personal data by restricting downloads onto a personal device and applying security policies tuned for BYOD. Outside the enterprise browser, the personal device stays personal so there’s no compromising user privacy. 

Contractor Access

Challenge: Contractors need access to corporate applications and resources. Providing access to an unmanaged device risks exposing sensitive information, and provisioning laptops or virtual desktops adds cost and complexity.  

Solution: With an enterprise browser, organizations can offer contractors controlled access to necessary applications and data, without provisioning new devices. Policies can be fine-tuned to limit access based on the contractor's role, location, or device, ensuring they have only the information necessary to complete their tasks. Data protections ensure that sensitive information never leaks outside the browser. 

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Reduction

Challenge: VDI solutions provide centrally managed  access to corporate environments but are expensive, complex to manage, and often deliver a subpar user experience.

Solution: An enterprise browser can reduce the need for VDI by offering a secure, managed browser environment that connects users directly to corporate web applications and resources. This approach can augment VDI by providing direct access to SaaS and web apps, reducing the load on VDI infrastructure, and in some cases, replacing the need for VDI altogether.

Zero Trust Security

Challenge: Legacy security models based on device and network trust are no longer adequate for today's distributed work environment. Zero trust models, which assume no implicit trust and verify every access request, can be challenging to implement.

Solution: An enterprise browser supports zero trust security models by verifying the user, device, and application context for every access request. It can enforce access controls and security policies directly within the browser, ensuring that only authenticated and authorized users can access corporate resources.

In each of these use cases, the enterprise browser emerges as a pivotal tool that enables organizations to navigate the complexities of modern IT environments, ensuring security, flexibility, and a seamless user experience​​​​​​.

Why should my organization use an enterprise browser?

Enterprise organizations that use SaaS or web applications for essential business functions should use an enterprise browser. Consumer browsers were never designed for enterprise use, so organizations typically surround them with other tools and technologies to make them suitable for business. An enterprise browser offers a superior browser experience for IT, security, and employees alike.  

Built-in Security

Enterprise browsers integrate advanced security measures, including protection against phishing attacks, malware, and adaptive threats that target vulnerable browser components. 

Additionally, they protect the enterprise applications and data that flow through the browser. Unlike consumer browsers that passively render web content, an enterprise browser adds dynamic policies to determine how web content can be accessed and used. 

Control and Governance

Enterprise browsers offer IT administrators the ability to implement granular, context-aware policies that are applied directly within the browser. This level of control extends to regulating access to web destinations, managing file movements, and governing user interactions based on a multitude of factors including user role, device status, and location. 

For instance, administrators can restrict copying and pasting of sensitive information to untrusted sites, block downloads that contain PII, or even redact confidential data directly on-page. 

Visibility and Monitoring

Enterprise browsers enable IT departments to gain comprehensive insights into web-based activities while respecting user privacy. This includes detailed logging of user actions within the browser, from the websites visited to specific interactions with web applications, such as file downloads, form submissions, and data entry. 

Such granular monitoring allows for a thorough audit trail, facilitating compliance, forensic investigations, and proactive threat detection. Importantly, these capabilities are all context-aware, ensuring that personal browsing remains private and only work-related activities are monitored. 

Integration with Enterprise Tools

Enterprise browsers seamlessly integrate with corporate tools and infrastructure, such as identity management systems, cloud storage, or SIEM, ensuring a cohesive and secure IT environment.

Reduced Infrastructure

By centralizing control, enhancing security, and providing integrated functionality, an enterprise browser minimizes the need for multiple disparate security solutions and simplifies IT management. 

Here are a ways it achieves these reductions:

• Consolidated Security Features: Enterprise browsers incorporate a range of security features directly within the browser, such as phishing protection, malware scanning, and secure browsing environments. This can reduce the need for separate security solutions like remote browser isolation (RBI), secure web gateways, and cloud access security brokers (CASBs), thereby simplifying the security architecture.
• Enhanced Endpoint Protection: By embedding security measures directly in the browser, such as disarming browser attacks and protecting against malicious downloads, enterprise browsers can reduce reliance on endpoint security solutions. These built-in protections help to safeguard against exploits where they’re most likely to happen: the browser.
• Data Loss Prevention (DLP): Enterprise browsers can enforce data governance directly at the source, controlling data transfer across all methods of movement. This includes file upload/download, clipboard access, printing, saving, and even screenshots. Applying DLP within the browser simplifies administration and reduces the need for standalone DLP solutions.
• Reduced Need for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI): With access controls and management built into an enterprise browser, organizations can dramatically reduce their reliance on virtual desktops. Shifting workflows out of VDI to an enterprise browser will reduce infrastructure costs and complexity, while providing users with a better overall experience. 

Better User Experience

Enterprise browsers offer a user experience that’s similar to a traditional consumer browser, while optimizing for enterprise workflows. Here's how:

• Familiarity and Compatibility: Most enterprise browsers are built on the Chromium engine, the same technology that underpins widely-used browsers like Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge. This ensures 100% compatibility with the full range of web applications and services, and provides a familiar interface and behavior that users are already accustomed to, with minimal user training required.
• Seamless Integration with Enterprise Tools: Enterprise browsers integrate seamlessly with the broader enterprise ecosystem, including identity and access management (IAM) systems, single sign-on (SSO) capabilities, cloud storage platforms, and security information and event management (SIEM) solutions. 
• Optimized Performance: By focusing on the needs of enterprise users, enterprise browsers can offer optimized performance, including faster page loads and smoother interactions with web applications. For example, leading enterprise browsers offer built-in ad blocking, which can increase page load speed and reduce network overhead. 
• Enhanced Security Without User Friction: Enterprise browsers provide robust security features, such as phishing protection, malware scanning, and secure browsing environments, directly within the browser. These built-in protections operate transparently to the user, securing web activities without introducing unnecessary friction or disrupting the user's workflow.
• Support for Remote and Hybrid Work: Enterprise browsers offer secure, remote access to private or internal applications, significantly reducing the need for complex VPN setups or virtual desktop solutions, thereby providing a better user experience for remote access.
• Data Protection with User Privacy in Mind: Enterprise browsers can enforce data protection and compliance policies while respecting user privacy, particularly useful in BYOD scenarios. Unlike mobile device management (MDM) solutions that grant full device visibility to IT, an enterprise browser only grants visibility and control to activity within the browser.

Enterprise Branding and Messaging

Organizations can customize enterprise browsers to reflect their branding, set a personalized homepage with direct links to enterprise applications, and customize in-browser messaging and notifications.

The Island Enterprise Browser

Island is the leading enterprise browser, offering complete control, visibility, and governance over web-based activities within the corporate environment. The following capabilities not available in a consumer browser and go beyond the scope of other enterprise browsers:

• Deep Integration of Security and Productivity Features: Island seamlessly blends security features with productivity tools within the browser itself, rather than relying on external plugins or services. This includes advanced data protection mechanisms, secure access controls, and user activity monitoring, all designed to function without disrupting the user experience.
• Granular Control Over Web Activities: Organizations can enforce policies to block access to harmful or risky web destinations or display a warning to users. Within an application, policies govern what actions are allowed based on the context of the user, their device, and the application itself. These controls can mask or modify what’s displayed on the page, as well as how data moves between or outside of applications. 
• Built-in Zero Trust Security: Island is engineered with a zero-trust architecture at its core, ensuring that no user or device is trusted by default, regardless of their network location. This approach is reflected in features that verify the identity and security posture of each user and device before granting access to web applications and data.
• User Privacy Considerations: While offering comprehensive visibility into user activities for security and compliance purposes, Island also respects user privacy. Policies are context aware to differentiate between corporate and personal browsing sessions, applying the right level of visibility for each activity. Users can see how their current session is monitored and protected with dynamic status indicators in the browser window. 
• Simplified IT Infrastructure: By integrating a wide array of security and management features directly into the browser, Island reduces the need for additional security solutions, such as remote browser isolation (RBI), virtual private networks (VPN), and complex DLP systems. This consolidation also reduces costs and the administrative burden associated with managing multiple security tools.

The Enterprise Browser: A New Foundation of Modern Infrastructure

The unique challenges of modern enterprises — ranging from securing sensitive data and applications to enabling a flexible and productive workforce — demand a solution that goes beyond the capabilities of traditional consumer browsers.

The enterprise browser emerges not just as a tool, but as a foundational element of a modern IT ecosystem. By offering built-in security features, granular control and governance, and a user experience designed for productivity, enterprise browsers like Island address the critical needs of today's businesses.

Further reading

With an enterprise browser, IT leaders now have the opportunity to build a tech stack that’s considerably leaner and much more effective.

→ See why BYOD is your best starting point for testing and roll out.