Mozilla Tests Integrated Desktop Browser 156
HelloDotJPEG writes "Mozilla Labs, the organisation's experimental arm, has launched Prism for interested Windows users to try out. Prism is a piece of software which integrates web applications such as Gmail or Google Reader into the desktop. The program enables you to run multiple such sites as though they were local applications, each in their own dedicated browser window. The product isn't entirely new, but is an officially adopted and rebranded update to the Site-Specific Browser project WebRunner (not to be confused with XULRunner upon which it is built). From the site: 'Web developers don't have to target it separately, because any application that can run in a modern standards-compliant web browser can run in Prism. Prism is built on Firefox, so it supports rich internet technologies like HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and and runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. And while Prism focuses on how web apps can integrate into the desktop experience, we're also working to increase the capabilities of those apps by adding functionality to the Web itself, such as providing support for offline data storage and access to 3D graphics hardware.'"
Re:Wow, people are sick (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Wow, people are sick (Score:5, Insightful)
That being said, as IT personnel, web based apps are great. The data is centralized (read: backed up), there are no extra apps to install, maintain, and configure on each desktop. Users can move from system to system (for example, from their main computer to a spare while one is in for maintenance) without any worry. It's a wonderful thing.
Woohoo indeed! (Score:2, Insightful)
The site-specific browsers are full Mozilla browsers, they simply have some chrome removed.
But you are absolutely right that a Windows developer would likely take the
So, although it was meant as sarcasm, you are right: it would take a
laugh all you like (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, if this is well executed, it provides a better level of isolation between web applications. Right now, it's pretty tricky trying to read mail for two or three GMail accounts (it would be less tricky if profiles weren't broken...), and if one web site locks up or slows down the browser, other web apps suffer as well. SSB can address those problems.
And the point of this is.....? (Score:3, Insightful)
How is this different to putting a URL shortcut on your desktop and having the browser window appear without an address bar?
Isolation (Score:1, Insightful)
The one advantage I can see here is keeping certain webpages open semi-permanently as applications (Gmail, Google Calendar, etc.). But it would be annoying if a crash of one app caused the others to close, too. Also, if this is designed properly it could be an advantage from a security standpoint. If your Gmail app is running separately from your web-browsing, there are fewer chances for cross-site scripting or other such exploits.
Re:And the point of this is.....? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Another active desktop? (Score:5, Insightful)
I never saw either being used. Is this the same thing?
Flash, Silverlight etc. are attempts to let you write cross-platform apps that are available through the web. This is becoming the hottest area these days. But you need special tools for cross-platform development; the reason these tools are needed, is that web browsers are not exactly compatible with each other. You can't write an AJAX app and have it run perfectly in IE, FF, Opera, Safari, etc. It is tricky.
Now, Mozilla Firefox currently runs the same way on all the major operating systems. So it could be a cross-platform app environment as well, if you think about it: Develop once for Firefox, and all people need to run your software is to use Firefox (which is a free download). But that is the problem - some people prefer IE, Opera, etc. You can't force them to switch web browser.
Therefore, the solution for Mozilla is to separate web apps from the browser. That is, the platform will be Firefox, but people won't even notice it; Firefox will be like Flash. Imagine running IE and clicking on a web app, which then opens in a new window. It could be Flash, AJAX, or Firefox; you wouldn't know.
Active desktop might have been adopted if there was much of a use for it, back then. There wasn't. But meanwhile things have changed, and nowadays web apps are quite useful and it now does makes sense to integrate them into your desktop - so long as you do so in a cross-platform manner. Mozilla already has such a platform - Firefox - which runs on all platforms in the same manner. All they need to do is a little packaging.
iPod like comments (Score:5, Insightful)
The current problem is that our desktop is built up around the idea of local applications and that is all the current desktops are designed to handle. But nowadays people are using less and less local applications and more and more web applications (whether you like it or not), and all of these run in a separate layer through the web browser. At some point, if we aren't already there, many people will not use a single local application on their computer apart from their web browser.
At that point, the whole distinction between the web browser and the operating system becomes completely irrelevant and we approach stage where windows is just a collection of device drivers (quote Netscape, mid nineties?).
Currently, the operating system does a lot of great stuff for us with regards to the local applications, and it really needs to start doing the same with regards to web applications and the first step is to make web applications first class citizens on the desktop.
Finally, complain all you want about the privacy and security issues with web applications. Well founded as they may be, they will not change the fact that people are flocking to web applications.
Active Desktop was a bit lame and MS seemed to have no real concept of where they were going with it.It was also well before the age of "web applications" as opposed to web sites. Just because there may be similarities with that old concept doesn't make this stupid.
Re:Hmm (Score:3, Insightful)
Might be useful in a corporate environment (Score:2, Insightful)
For our web based applications, our users are used to working with multiple browser windows opened simultaneously, each for a different part of our system (e.g. separate browser window for our credit cards system, different browser windows for our treasury system, different browser windows for our customer information system etc).
We actually forbid the use of the "back" button, and where possible we disable it (it messes up our data integrity). We also hide the address bar.
Because we also have applications developed as native windows GUI applications, Prism would probably make our web applications blend in with our GUI applications, improving the look and feel of our system.
Definitely something to check out in the future; although I doubt if it will be worth the hassle of deploying it.
Re:Woohoo indeed! (Score:2, Insightful)
And that highlights a common problem with Slashdot posters: they don't think things through properly and instead take the obvious path that Microsoft bashers have laid out for them.
Fixed.
Re:Wow, people are sick (Score:5, Insightful)
My grandmother, or any of the users I support who are completely baffled by tabbed browsing.
My grandmother has a gmail account. In order for her to use it, I had to turn on POP for the account and set her up with Thunderbird. Then I changed the icon on the Thunderbird shortcut to an envelope and the name of the shortcut to "Mail" so she could find it. The thing is, I've showed her the web interface for gmail, and she actually likes it better than Thunderbird, but opening a browser, typing gmail.com and logging in are too much for her to handle. With this, I can give her that same shortcut on her desktop with the Envelope and the word "Mail" and it'll take her straight to the Gmail web interface, without an address bar, or forward/back/stop buttons to add confusion.
The users here are set up with IRC chatrooms for their teams. We tried moving them to Campfire for a simpler interface and better opportunities for offsite access, but they liked mIRC better. They said it was easier to use than Campfire. When I asked them how Campfire's interface could possibly be more difficult to use than mIRC, they said it wasn't the interface, it was the fact that they had to leave a web browser or tab open all the time, and then they couldn't find it on the taskbar when they wanted to check out the chat. With Prism, I could give them a shortcut on the desktop that would open a Prism window to the chatroom, where the window title would be the name of the chatroom and the icon would be unique. Plus, it wouldn't get lumped in with all the other browser windows when the taskbar filled up.
Re:Woohoo indeed! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:iPod like comments (Score:4, Insightful)
Another point; before we do anything you said we "need" to do, we need to improve bandwidth to the world if we want web apps to work well. Honestly, I wouldn't know why you'd want to do that, seeing as they do the same thing as a non-web app but runs slower. Sure, they're more portable, but so is Java, and we all know how well Java caught on with the public.
Re:Why? Because it's not IE. (Score:3, Insightful)
I like Open Source software and Mozilla as much as the next guy, but doesn't it make sense to have your embedded controls be tightly integrated with the Operating System?
Why would you want your embedded controls to be tightly integrated with your OS? There's no reason for an HTML window to need tight OS integration. It's another web browser that's susceptible to all the issues that the core HTML engine is. It wouldn't necessarily be subject to the full browser's interface bugs, but it's got the same core so it would share those vulns. Ideally, you wouldn't want any integration with the OS.
This acts as a full replacement for the IE control. If you have some apps calling one and some apps calling the other, yes, both will be loaded into memory. However, if all apps call only Gecko, then only Gecko will be loaded into memory. Excluding behind-the-scenes OS-IE integration that causes (parts of) IE to be loaded, of course; the apps themselves will only load one or the other.