As a developer of web-based application, I sometimes wish that there were a new type of browser out there. One that will be a hybrid between a standalone application and the true browser type. Not that I don't like what we have right now. I think the development of browsers have come very far(considering the fact that it started out in 1980s and the first browser came out in 1991) and what we have nowadays is very fitting to our needs. But there're some areas where the idea of a browser is not suitable to use. This is coming from my first hand experience of developing web applications.
The idea of a browser is to share and retrieve information in a big network. Most web pages in 1990s were passive in data representations. As we entered into the new century, the idea of internet was changed and browsers became more sophisticated. They supported a variety of functions, plug-ins and multimedia. As we are on the end of two decades since our first browser, we've reached the dawn of cloud-computing, in which browsers play a significant roles.
Now, the question is if current browsers capable of supporting cloud-computing? Granted, there're a lot of web applications out there such as our online banking systems and social networking site that requires the use of browsers. But the idea of browsers as applications is somewhat inconsistent and inappropriate. Therefore, developing of web applications is somewhat different and sometimes complicated.
I don't have a specific list in my mind of what the new application browser should be. But I like the idea of one of Mozilla's add-ons called Prism. It completely removed the annoying buttons such as the back button and therefore, made the web applications more like standalone applications. However, Prism is not very popular and people are still scared to replace Firefox, IE and Chrome with something like Prism. Hopefully, there'll be something out there that will be sophisticated enough to start browser revolution.
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