Aral Balkan: Historical Archive — The browser *is* a plugin

The browser is a plugin

I was reading Scott Barnes' interesting post on Ajax being a one trick pony (I'd rather call it a "one trick hack", but hey) and found myself stuck on the following line:

"More and more of what you traditionally do on the desktop will be done on the web, in your browser (not in a plugin)."

Here's a somewhat radical concept: Isn't the browser, today, nothing more than a plugin to the operating system?

Looking forward to the future of the web, we have to realize that the operating system is where web applications are going to be, not in the browser. "Installing" (perhaps purchasing) and using a web application will be no different than using a desktop application from the user's perspective. Today, the fact that web applications (RIAs, smart clients, [insert catchy marketing phrase here]) run in a browser is a limitation of the state of the art rather than an indication of it.

Perhaps it is a bit premature to announce the death of the browser but I predict that within the next ten years we will look back at the browser wars and try to remember what all the fuss was about. In the Internet-as-application-platform era, the Operating System *is* the browser.

Comments

i agree, i absolutely think that is the way everything is going. All you need to do is look at 'widgets' (dashboard/konfabulator) to know that.

by flashape on 2005-10-01 17:01:47
Agreed, a Browser is certainly a plugin (well look at the ActiveX controls that actually drive IE to get clarity on that).

Yet, we could also fall into the trap of arguing that office is a plugin to the operating system, or File Explorer etc and then we are left with this murky definition of what is a plugin vs what is a operating system.

I'm not one with the answers thats for sure, i just see the entire AJAX movement as this foolish attempt to rebadge old technology as new and hope it holds water with scale?

The only reason Flash is successful was the fact it ran in the browser, so the "browser" still has a need and will be inplace, its how it implements aggregation of content - thats - where we look at change. We need to also clarify that "browser" is more then Firefox and IE, it can now today take on a whole new dimension, it just needs more corporate marketing behind whatever it is we want in its place (ie Konfabulator is one such concept used on OSX right? is that not a browser?)
by Scott Barnes on 2005-10-02 06:43:08