There's been talk of the browser being a dying breed when RIAs come along, and while I agree partially, I still believe there's a place for it in the short-mid term for browsing webpages, and information, as well as for testing out RIAs. I mean, imagine if you had to download a desktop app everytime you wanted to try out a new web app. It may not be in its current form, though.

The guys behind Trillian, the multi-platform instant messaging client, have created a Flash based version of their instant messaging tool, but given it the ability to break free from the browser once its launched, allowing it to act as if it were a desktop app, complete with tray icons. Check out their blog post, along with the demo video - it's a pretty cool example of the blurring lines between the desktop and the browser.

It works by leveraging Firefox as a platform, installing a Firefox plugin that allows it to break free from the browser. There are some security issues probably, e.g. how to make the plugin onlt allow the Trillian client to 'break free', and not spyware/advertisements, especially because it seems to have pretty deep access into the computer.

It's a demo of things to come though, and really just morphs Firefox into Adobe's Apollo platform, which is pretty cool and should please the open-source fans, plus it'll allow more than just HTML/JS/Flash, unlike Apollo.

http://www2.jeffcroft.com/blog/2006/dec/17/iso-funny-acronym-for-flash-revival/

After web devs have been putting up with 'web standards' being implemented slightly (or in some cases, grossly or not at all) different in the various web browsers out there, a combination of web bandwidth and computer performance improvements have resulted in a new viable competitor, Flash.

Gone are the days when we'd have to wait 5 or so minutes just to wait for a flash site's menu to load, before having to wait another 5 when you select a menu item. With the bandwidth most net users have nowadays (there are exceptions, like my friends in Berwick who are still stuck on 56K dial-up), its feasible to have flash sites for the general public, that is, websites entirely driven by flash (in fact, a lot of the newer movie and car websites already are). There are still some issues with a lot of flash sites out there which can't handle bookmarking and browser history moves, as well as inhibiting search engine crawling and accessibility access. However, Adobe is addressing these and the advantages are apparent, in particularly, the fact that each flash renders in nearly the same fashion on every browser, across all platforms. No more ugly CSS/Javascript browser detection hacks.

And for those who argue about standards being better than proprietary formats - here's proof that standards are no where near as effective as proprietary formats. There are so many variations on web standards possible as more and more people interpret it, no browser out there is perfect (which itself is subjective) and there probably won't be, especially with something as complicated as a HTML/CSS/JS. Standards have shown to be useful in many instances, but it's difficult for something as fast-moving as web design.

(Even attempts at an open-source web standards rendering library, including WebKit and Mozilla's Gecko, aren't working out because the issue here is getting the browser devs to decide and use one. Given the work that's gone into both, and also into IE and Opera's engines however, that's unlikely to happen. The W3C, which maintains the standards also don't seem to be doing their job either...that or browser devs are just rebels.)

With Adobe's Apollo platform coming to take flash apps to a new level (along with Flex), as well as WPF and WPF/E arriving as Microsoft attempts to crack into the market, not to mention the open-source OpenLaszlo's effort (essentially an open-source equivalent to Flex), there's no doubt where the web is heading. With respect to Rich Internet Applications (RIAs), AJAX is currently the technology of choice, but it is really just an in-between technology, still bounded by the eccentricities of HTML/CSS/JS implementations of browsers. In fact, the humble web browser itself may not be the web browser we know and love(hate) in the near future.

The problem now is to wait and see an increase in crazy, annoying Flash animations and unworkable, confusing flash navigation systems, as flash abuse continues to grow, except this time, there'll be no turning it off...

More:
http://blogs.msdn.com/shanemo/archive/2006/12/22/designer-crunch-time-2007-the-year-of-the-rich-internet-app.aspx
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Stewart/?p=204

Ever since Microsoft gave me one of their fingerprint readers, I have never used it for anything more than logging on and off on my computer (which is quite convenient), even though it can be used for authentication on websites, programs etc. Why? Because the software doesn't work with Firefox. Ok I thought, Microsoft is the big aggressive monster that consumes everything in its path, and Firefox is an obstacle. After all, I got it for free anyway - I'd be returning it if I had bought it though as Firefox is probably the most used app on my computer. Interesting, it didn't even work with MSN Messenger/Windows Live Messenger, which I thought was odd.

Just recently however, to coincide with the release of Windows Vista, Microsoft released version 2.0 of the fingerprinting software which included Vista support. They also made an effort to make sure Mozilla Firefox worked well with Windows Vista way before this, to the point where they invited the Firefox developers to their campus to work on issues.

Guess what - the fingerprinting software still doesn't work with Firefox 2.0. It works perfectly fine with IE7 (which is a great leap from IE6 - and by the way, please upgrade if you're using IE6, for one, my site will look much much better ) but again refuses to see the Firefox window as a login screen.

Where was the hardware division when the Firefox team visited? Or was it really all just a show...

What makes it worse is that apparently before Microsoft re-branded the fingerprint reader from DigitalPersona, the software actually worked with Firefox!

There is a workaround however - the FingerFox extension, which detects the login forms on websites and re-exposes them in a seperate window so the fingerprint reader's software can work with it. This is ridiculous however - great initiative and solution shown by the extension developer - but it's still clunky and nowhere near as smooth as the IE7 implementation. As the second most popular browser out there, its a shame that the hardware division didn't see it as imperative that their devices worked with it - maybe Microsoft hasn't changed that much after all...