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January 11, 2008
Browser-colored glasses
Browser-colored glasses: Matt Asay wonders why some claim that all network tasks must be done through an HTML browser, and is receptive to what AIR might provide. The first internet applications were desktop apps (email, FTP, bulletin board clients), but a lot more people came in after 1995, when browsers added JavaScript and plugins. To safely browse anywhere on the World Wide Web will remain important, but there isn't much to support the belief that Microsoft, Mozilla, Webkit and Opera must crowd out every other use of networked computers. HTML browsers are a part, not the totality, of our networked experience. I like how Asay sees AIR as inclusive of Ajax apps such as Zimbra: "My company has moved to Zimbra. It drives me to distraction, however, that I have to look at my bookmarks and other browser artifacts while I try to immerse myself in the Zimbra application. Why not 'ship' Zimbra as a 'standalone' application that borrows all of the browser technology but removes the browser artifacts when I click on the Zimbra icon? ... Adobe gets this right with AIR... The application straddles the Web and the desktop." In comments someone tells him of Mozilla's Prism, which is a chromeless version of Firefox doubleclickable on the desktop, although without the other desktop integration found in AIR. A strong close: "Why not leverage that browser without force-feeding users on it? I can't tell you how disappointed I am when I click on the Zimbra Desktop and it forces me into a browser window. I don't want the browser. I don't want the three tiers of toolbars that take up screen real estate and distract me from my application. I want Zimbra. It's an application."
Posted by JohnDowdell at January 11, 2008 12:01 PM
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Comments
Personally, I want everything I can get inside the browser... the fewer stand-alone apps on my desktop, the happier I am.
The browser is where my tools live... my extensions, my Greasemonkey scripts, my stylesheet overrides. All the stuff that lets me wrest control of my data and my experience away from the developer and put it where it belongs: in my hands.
In stark contrast to the author, every time I'm forced to leave the browser, I'm frustrated. It feels like I'm going back in time, to some primitive period in computing history where one size had to fit all and apps were black boxes. I can tolerate that kinda stuff when necessary (I love me some Premiere CS3, after all), but as a rule, if something *can* run in the browser, it *should*.
Posted by: Roger Benningfield at January 12, 2008 06:00 AM