The Blurring Line
Time is an interesting creature of change… The more things change the more they stay same?? To a certain degree I find that to be correct. Internet Explorer always seems to be a few revs behind its competition i.e. Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera and Safari. I find it interesting how Opera and Firefox are leveraging the Internet to enhance the browsing experience. It makes a lot of sense. This could also be attributed to the general nature of improvement – things evolve over time.
Opera’s Unite, the web server in a browser, is a good example of a web browser that is much more than a web browser. It is an application that uses Opera servers (or personal servers) to share content. That is a very vague overview, but it makes a point; web browsers today are much different than web browsers of yesterday.
I think this is a trend started by Firefox. Firefox plug-ins that integrate delicious, flickr, facebook, or any kind of social media that is web based – is a change from the norm. Even Mozilla is graying the line between desktop and webapp. The introduction of Weave lets users sync up their browsers across many PCs and mobile devices. Allowing for a more constant web experience – such a great idea.
Google Chrome lacks the plug-in features, but what it lacks in that area it more than makes up with speed. The Javascript engine is a beast. I’m certainly surprised by the lack of plug-ins for Chrome, but I do find myself using it more and more. It just starts up so fast; maybe that’s why there are no plug-ins. It renders things great and is just an overall great browsing experience. Sometimes I think Firefox lost sight of that over the development of the application.
Who would of thought that browsers would come back with such innovation? I remember back to the days of Netscape Navigator… Communicator… Whatever it was called! Internet Explorer was once a leader in this field surprisingly. The most exciting thing is that there is more to come! We are only beginning to touch the surface of the capabilities of browsers. HTML 5 will be revolutionary for the web. Google Wave is in the distance. Windows 7 is on getting ready for deployment.
This is an exciting time for the IT world. For the non IT world too because things renew so quickly. Innovation is not hampered by centuries of corruption. We are truly in the Wild West of Web Development. We are learning as we go and innovating on-the-fly. Treads come and go, but innovation is the key to what makes technology so appealing and productive.
