This blog post was co-authored by Andre Leibovici, Principal Product Marketing Manager at Citrix.
While it has never been easy, securing access to corporate resources was more straightforward when workers were in the office and only used corporate-managed devices. Now, IT is looking to solve challenges caused by people working on networks that are not secured, and on devices that the organization might not manage.
BYO programs have become more prevalent among companies in today’s world of remote work. The increased usage of BYO devices creates risks around permitting employees to access IT-sanctioned apps or corporate resources from personal devices, and companies must take action to mitigate them.
As the future of work continues to evolve, two trends are emerging that require mobile supportability: the shift from native apps to web apps and the growing hybrid workforce. The intersection of these trends created the need to secure employee web and SaaS activity beyond the capabilities of standard browsers.
Introducing the Citrix’s Mobile Web Viewer
Citrix’s new mobile web viewer balances the user and admin experiences, providing a comprehensive security solution without sacrificing experience. The mobile web viewer works in tandem with Citrix Secure Private Access, providing zero trust network access (ZTNA) to IT-sanctioned apps — whether these apps are web or SaaS. This offers a great end-user experience, meets cloud security requirements around inline controls and scalability, and offers workers the flexibility to use any device with a granular set of access control policies.
Zero trust network access (ZTNA) is a remote-access technology that follows a zero trust framework and helps customers looking to solve challenges for their remote and hybrid workforce.
The video below highlights the mobile web viewer integration with Citrix Workspace app, showing how it provides seamless zero trust network access to IT-sanctioned web and SaaS apps deployed by the admin.
A Technical Overview of the Mobile Web Viewer
Before, Citrix used the CCTab on Android and the UIWebView on iOS to render web and SaaS apps, but these solutions had technical limitations that restricted us from providing a complete user experience. As we looked to pivot away from this solution, we conducted user research to understand how organizations leverage these apps on mobile and tablet devices.
While a few customers had a use case for mobile devices as the primary access mechanism, we found that most web and SaaS app customers using Citrix Workspace app leveraged mobile devices as a “companion device.” As a result, users turned to Citrix Workspace app for two kinds of tasks:
- Consuming information such as company announcements on the intranet
- Performing small tasks such as applying for leave and approving travel budgets
Based on these observations, we decided to move toward allowing users to perform these tasks seamlessly, while allowing admins to secure these apps. We moved to an Android WebView and WKWebView-based approach on Android and iOS, respectively, allowing us to customize our solution to best serve enterprise web and SaaS app access needs.
One key difference to note from the Citrix Workspace Browser on desktops experience is the technology used. The mobile web viewer uses Android WebView and the WKWebView on iOS. However, to the end-user, the mobile web viewer continues to provide a simplified experience with modern browsing functionalities — including a seamless SSO experience, file management, and easier navigation. Additionally, with Citrix’s global customer base in mind, we have revamped our globalization technologies to support a broader range of languages.
New Security Policies
The new mobile web viewer natively integrates with Citrix Secure Private Access, providing granular security controls like watermarking, restrictions on copy/paste, printing, downloads, and more that prevent unauthorized use of any sensitive or corporate data stored in these apps. These policies are configured and applied on a per-URL basis without disrupting the natural user experience until they attempt an activity restricted by the policies.
A New, State-of-the-Art User Experience
In addition to the comprehensive security capabilities, the new mobile web viewer comes equipped with capabilities that improve user productivity and engagement. Some of the functionalities available to Citrix customers include:
- Zero trust network access (ZTNA) to web- and SaaS-sanctioned applications
- SSO for web and SaaS with adaptive access policies
- File downloading with preview
- Full browser navigation between pages and sites
- Ability to share URLs
- Find in page
- Activity feed with consistent view for link
- More globalization functionalities
- … and more
Get Started
We can’t wait for you to try out the mobile web viewer for Citrix Workspace app for Android and iOS. The new mobile web viewer is generally available with Citrix Workspace app for Android and iOS, beginning with version 22.2.0. For more information about mobile web viewer, visit our product documentation.
Learn more about Citrix Workspace and Citrix Secure Private Access. You can also read about the Citrix Workspace Browser for securing web and SaaS app access on desktop platforms.
