Introducing the Virtual Browser: A Persistent Browser in Your Dashboard

Today we're launching the Virtual Browser — a Chrome-like browser experience built directly into the BrowserFabric dashboard. Open tabs, navigate the web, and watch your AI agent work in real-time. Every tab is persistent: close it, and its cookies and login state are saved automatically. Reopen it days later, right where you left off.

Why a virtual browser?

BrowserFabric started as an API-first platform. You create browser sessions, control them with code, and get results back. That works great for automation pipelines, but it left a gap: what if you want to see what's happening? What if you need to log into a site manually before handing control to an agent? What if you just want to browse?

The virtual browser fills that gap. It's not a separate tool — it's the same BrowserFabric sessions you already use, but with a visual interface wrapped around them. Your agent can create a session via the API, and you can watch it work in real-time from the dashboard. Or you can open a tab yourself, log into a site, and then let the agent take over.

How it works

The virtual browser lives at /dashboard/browser. When you open it, you see a tab bar across the top — just like Chrome. Each tab is a live BrowserFabric session running on our servers.

• Click + to open a new persistent tab. A headless Chromium instance spins up on our infrastructure.
• Type a URL in the address bar and hit Enter. The browser navigates, and you see the page rendered live via CDP screencast.
• Click, scroll, and type directly in the viewport. Your input is forwarded to the remote browser in real-time.
• Switch between tabs instantly. Each tab maintains its own WebSocket connection for live streaming.
• Close a tab and its cookies, localStorage, and auth state are saved automatically. The tab appears in your 'Saved Tabs' menu.
• Resume a saved tab any time. A new session is created with the saved context restored — you're logged in again, right where you left off.

Persistent tabs: your browser state, forever

The key differentiator is persistence. In a normal headless browser setup, closing the browser means losing everything — cookies, login sessions, localStorage. You have to re-authenticate every time. With BrowserFabric's virtual browser, every tab is persistent by default. Your browser state is saved to our database and can be restored at any time.

This is especially powerful for AI agents. An agent can log into a service once, and that login persists across sessions, restarts, and even server migrations. No more cookie management code. No more re-authentication flows.

Human-agent handoff, built in

The virtual browser is designed for collaboration between humans and AI agents. Here's a typical workflow:

1. Your agent creates a browser session via the API and navigates to a site that requires login.
2. You open the virtual browser in your dashboard and see the agent's tab with a live view of the login page.
3. You type your credentials directly in the virtual browser. The agent waits.
4. Once logged in, the agent takes over and continues its automation task.
5. You can watch the agent work, or close the dashboard and come back later. The session stays alive.

Technical details

Under the hood, the virtual browser uses the same infrastructure as the rest of BrowserFabric:

• Each tab runs a headless Chromium instance with anti-detection patches (realistic user-agent, WebGL spoofing, navigator overrides).
• Live streaming uses CDP Page.startScreencast — JPEG frames at 1280x720, streamed over WebSocket.
• Input forwarding dispatches CDP Input.dispatchMouseEvent and Input.dispatchKeyEvent for native-feeling interaction.
• Tab switching uses React's key-based unmount/remount pattern for clean WebSocket lifecycle management.
• Context persistence uses Playwright's storageState API to capture and restore cookies and localStorage.

Getting started

The virtual browser is available now for all BrowserFabric users. Sign up at browserfabric.com, navigate to the dashboard, and click 'Browser' in the navigation bar. No additional setup required — just open a tab and start browsing.

# Or create a tab programmatically and watch it in the dashboard
curl -X POST https://api.browserfabric.com/api/v1/services/browseruse/call \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $BROWSERFABRIC_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"tool_name": "create_session", "arguments": {"persist": true}}'

We're excited to see what you build with it. If you have feedback or feature requests, reach out at support@browserfabric.com.