Keeping a web application that’s behind a firewall can be tricky — it’s important to do thorough testing, but going public and exposing potential bugs to customers in order to run those tests might defeat the purpose.

Of course, there are many reasons to keep a web application behind a firewall in the first place, which means you can’t necessarily forgo it completely. Protecting unsecured data and credentials, hiding new features, and security are all common concerns that might warrant a firewall.

Access to a local tunnel solves some of your problems, but you’re still missing many of the benefits of a web testing tool, and you’ll likely only be doing a limited amount of manual testing. A tool like CrossBrowserTesting offers all the luxuries that you may be looking for, but how can you test securely behind a firewall while still taking advantage of all the tool’s capabilities?

Our local testing tunnel, Local Connection, can bring the power of CrossBrowserTesting right to your application whether it’s behind a firewall, across a proxy server, or used to test plain HTML/CSS/JavaScript files on your local machine.

When you connect to our local tunnel, you get access to every part of CrossBrowserTesting including screenshots, live testing, and test automation. In this way, our local tunnel allows you to easily connect to wherever your website or application is located and get more comprehensive visual and functional testing done before your site hits production.

And with our Google Chrome Local Connect Extension, you can instantly access the local tunnel with a click in your browser. This means you can securely test the breadth of your web application without interrupting your workflow.

Simply install the extension from the Google Chrome Store and click the icon while on the page you’d like to test. To use Local Connection, go to the CrossBrowserTesting app and follow the instruction to install the Local App.

Don’t let a private web application be the reason you skip or delay testing across environments. Enjoy the convenience of Local Connection in Google Chrome for faster testing in over 1,500 browsers.