How are windows executables [.exe] launched out of browsers?

I'm not talking about browser exploits. I'm talking about real applications used in real companies, like Ijji and Nexon.

Basical开发者_C百科ly, from their websites you can click a "Start Game" button, which will launch an executable located at c:\ijji\english or c\nexon[gamename] respectively. These applications are real desktop applications, meaning that they can take advantage of the filesystem, direct3d, and OS [in the form of executing other applications]. The applications can also be launched through command line [as opposed to going to the game host's website].

I figured this would be possible if the application created an ActiveX object to call for the creation of a new process. However, the websites are able to launch applications from multiple browsers other than Internet Explorer, including chrome, which, to my knowledge, does not implement ActiveX.

Obviously the people developing these applications use their own means to do this.

From looking at the services list as well as currently running applications list, I have no indication that they're running something like "gameLaunchingServer.exe" which listens to some obscure port for an incoming connection [to be accessed using iframe - HTTP Protocol] and responds by launching an application...

I'm stumped, and this is sort of stuck in my mind. Obviously, they're not using some random browser exploit, otherwise people at http://www.[insertMaliciousWebsiteHere].com would have jumped on the opportunity already to install random crap. Regardless, it seems pretty cool, and I wanted to know how it worked.

Just curious, hehe.

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I believe what they're doing is setting up their own protocol handler on install - when a browser is asked to access an address with a protocol that it doesn't know how to handle (for instance, a steam:// address), it looks at all the installed protocol handlers to find a match.

So you can register your application as a myApplication:// protocol handler, and then your web page can link to a myApplication:// address and launch your application.

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I didn't quite find the button you are talking about, but I'm thinking it works only after you installed the application once, isn't it?

In that case, the application probably created its own protocol, just as skype, msn and a bunch of clients.

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Having a protocol is the easiest way (and very easy indeed to implement - a simple registry key).

Another way which is used is an extension or plugin.

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I thought they were run through plug-ins or like applets.

For example, MS SilverLight