A new Chrome app, called Arc Welder, is available as a free download for everybody, and you can use it to test and run Android apps within the browser. The tool was designed with developers in mind, but there’s nothing stopping us from using to to package Android apps for Chrome. When you will download ARC Welder, it will automatically install the app runtime which is needed to make Android apps work, thus making it even easier to run Android apps. And, before you ask, this will work on Windows, OS X, Linux, and Chrome OS, as well. However, you need to know beforehand that many apps won’t work, especially those that rely on Google Play Services. To start testing Android apps, you just need to download the ARC Welder Chrome and then select the zip file or APK of your application you want to run. You can choose to run the app in portrait or landscape mode, tablet or phone mode, along with some other options. When you will run the app for the first time, it will ask for a location on your system to write files. After that, you just need to add an APK you have previously downloaded. I was able to successfully run some basic games, but had trouble with more complex ones. Also, be careful from where you download your apk files, as there are many sites spreading malware or something even more harmful.
