Comments on: The New New Browser Wars

By: Yahoo’s BrowserPlus continues to dismantle wall between browser and desktop » VentureBeat

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 01:17:20 +0000

[...] don’t want to spend days working on a feature only a few folks will see. BrowserPlus engineer Skylar Woodward touted graceful degradation to GigaOM’s Stacey Higginbotham back in May, so it sounds like Yahoo supports this [...]

By: John Tea

John Tea — Sat, 31 May 2008 03:12:05 +0000

I could see Air being included with Flash so in the future upgrades are seamless to the user. Adobe will probably like this model so that once the user installs Air/Flash, Adobe has freedom to add stuff in the future disguised as a Flash update or anything else and roll out new features.

That seems like the best model compared to Gears and BrowserPlus.

By: Stacey Higginbotham

Stacey Higginbotham — Sat, 31 May 2008 01:46:28 +0000

T, I spend a lot of time on airplanes and on corporate campuses with iffy 3G and no access to WiFi, which makes my web apps useless. These things can be really helpful. They also can add functionality beyond offline access.

By: T

Fri, 30 May 2008 22:20:31 +0000

Most people are connected to the internet all the time. Why should they download these things?

By: Marc’s Voice » Blog Archive » Final May blogging '08

Marc’s Voice » Blog Archive » Final May blogging '08 — Fri, 30 May 2008 20:02:55 +0000

[...] The new new browser wars [...]

By: andrew

andrew — Fri, 30 May 2008 13:26:02 +0000

These worries are probably only experienced by those who live on the edge of web development. If the idea of desktop app bound to the net is sound, then one or two players will shake out. Then most developers will write to whatever model and API that player uses.

I’m not sold on the hybrid app model, but we’ll know in a year or so if it is a viable business model.

By: Stacey Higginbotham

Stacey Higginbotham — Fri, 30 May 2008 13:17:48 +0000

Thanks quetwo, you’re right. Slverlight is a Flash competitor.

By: quetwo

quetwo — Fri, 30 May 2008 11:57:33 +0000

@reilly / @Nima,
Silverlight has nothing to do with the platforms that they mentioned in this article. Many people think Silverlight is a competitor to AIR. IT IS NOT. Silverlight is a competitor to Flash, the animation/interaction framework from Adobe. Silverlight allows for simple animations and video to play in Windows and some Mac based browsers. AIR is a desktop runtime that allows JavaScript or Flash/Flex developers to create online/offline and desktop applications. Competitors to AIR are Gears and posibally BrowserPlus. These allow some desktop functionality, akin to AIR.

AIR is opensource. The SDK is available from Adobe for free.

By: Nima Negahban

Nima Negahban — Fri, 30 May 2008 10:22:27 +0000

@reilly,

You are correct Silverlight is akin to air, but upon further investigation it has many of its own unique features and vice versa.

In reality only these ‘universe size’ sites can afford to experiment with these things ‘in-production’ simply because they have so much traffic and such a rabid user base that they can afford to. As sad as it is a large chunk of the web is using IE 6 still (some of my sites it ranges from 30% to 60% of total traffic). At a startup you simply can not afford to confuse the user or distract them from your core offering.

The developer will most likely go with the whatever becomes ubiquitous, or embed their own layers in javascript. ExtJS is a good example of this, as is Dojo. These are extremely rich presentation layers written entirely in javascript. Granted they don’t have everything that some of the others do but they’re getting exceedingly more powerful and could at the very least provide a meta layer to the new array of browser plugins.

By: Rogier

Rogier — Fri, 30 May 2008 06:59:41 +0000

When you look at all possible options to build desktop apps, most of them are based on building on top of platforms. We have seen this issue before when desktop widgets were starting to become popular. In the end of this game “webwidgets” became the more popular ones. But still the need for developing outside conventional screens and carriers is still there and keeps on becoming more of an issue.
All platforms are build as downloads on platforms, AIR, Gears etc.
Swoot created a solution based on a completely different perspective. Not a platform, but a plugin. The plugin reads objects build in the similar technology ( in the case of swoot, objects ending on .bdt). The best thing about this is the fact that all objects are server-sided. Every part of the App runs on the server, buttons, skins, functionalities etc. This provides a complete freedom of design and functionality in the way the App should act. It can act as a browser with full functionalities, it can act as a video player, rss reader and all other options….
It brings internet to a new way of experiencing webcontent, and the best it all takes place outside of the browser, directly on the desktop.
Looking from a different angle can create a solution sometimes for some issues. On the other hand the curiosity is there what will happen with desktop apps in general and the future of the webbrowser.
interesting post Stacey!!

By: Reilly

Reilly — Fri, 30 May 2008 03:03:52 +0000

I agree that it seems the options for development are growing, creating potential problems for users. Not to confuse the already confusing issue, but could you help me understand why/how Silverlight fits into this? To me it seems like it’s akin to Air, but not really. Is it even in the same context? Thanks.

By: The Web as Platforms « Changing Way

The Web as Platforms « Changing Way — Fri, 30 May 2008 02:53:57 +0000

[...] today at TechCrunch and at GigaOm explain the problem, and suggest [...]