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The idea of depending on one's browser for everything

glennmagusharveyglennmagusharvey
edited 2014-10-19 18:59:44 in Tech
Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human

* music playing


* social networking


* office productivity


* file sharing


* real-time chat


* gaming


* etc. etc. etc.


Yes, I understand that the modern web browser is a really nifty multitool that can do all these things.


But it shouldn't be seen as the way to do these things.  At best, it's a tentative workable means to tide one over until a more permanent means is found.  Such as:


* downloading music and playing it with a dedicated player


* utilities that interact with social network sites (e.g. third-party Twitter clients) <-- this is something that is actively being hindered by social network sites, partly for ad revenue reasons


* office productivity suites, unless you're using Google Docs for quick sharing


* Dropbox, Filezilla, etc.


* IRC clients, Teamspeak/Ventrilo, etc.


* games being locally stored and run on one's machine


* other things, like a PDF snipping tool that could actually be downloaded (PDFScissors, while convenient, can't...and it bugs me)


 


If you're going to do all these things in the browser anyway, you might as well make the browser the OS itself.

Comments

  • lrdgcklrdgck
    "you duck spawn, refined creature, you try to be cynical, yokel, but all that comes out of it is that you're a dunce!!!!! you duck plug!"

    Looks like the guys at Google were thinking along the same lines.

  • glennmagusharveyglennmagusharvey
    Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human

    Well, they weren't the first -- Microsoft basically had Explorer and Internet Explorer share some of the same engine, I think, and even had that Active Desktop feature with a browser bar built into the taskbar.


    I guess "OS as browser" might be a thing that might be best suited for certain specific applications, such as kiosk computers, but not personal computers.

  • Central AvenueCentral Avenue



    If you're going to do all these things in the browser anyway, you might as well make the browser the OS itself.



    There have been multiple attempts at doing this, with varying amounts of success. (webOS, Chrome OS, and Firefox OS come to mind.)

  • BeeBee

    Turning a browser into an OS is generally a bad idea, especially if your name is Microsoft.  Browsers have to go through a lot of overhead that you probably shouldn't be putting on your entire system.  Also events are really different between them.

  • ninjaclownninjaclown

    ...but the add-ons for Firefox and Chrome...they're so useful... can't live without them...

  • RaydereRaydere
    My arms are falling off!

    You should look at emacs users, the most hardcore of which are known for doing everything within emacs, including web browsing.

  • Naas_HumanNaas_Human

    Can it run video games too?

  • NyktosNyktos
    a little muffled

    It comes with Tetris.

  • RaydereRaydere
    My arms are falling off!

    I'm sure other games for emacs exist, or could be done. At the least, you could whip up a roguelike or two.

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