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Adobe has a well documented lack of interest in fixing its bugs without charging its customers. For years now, Photoshop has ignored its placebo settings panel and attached itself to storage volumes despite the wishes of users (After three years, I can only assume the purpose is nefarious, and probably related to terrorism and or a desire to harm small animals). A spokesman claims the company has finally fixed the bug in CS6, but have told users they must http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/disk_could_not_be_ejected_because_photoshop_is_using_itpony up $800+ for the antidote. Most of us will never know whether it's fixed or not.

So they fix that particular bug, ignore the 100+ other bugs that have been hanging out since version 5 and create new bugs.

Hey, it's one way to make money.

Adobe has a well documented lack of interest in fixing its bugs without charging its customers. For years now, Photoshop has ignored its placebo settings panel and attached itself to storage volumes despite the wishes of users (After three years, I can only assume the purpose is nefarious, and probably related to terrorism and or a desire to harm small animals). A spokesman claims the company has finally fixed the bug in CS6, but have told users they must http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/disk_could_not_be_ejected_because_photoshop_is_using_itpony up $800+ for the antidote. Most of us will never know whether it's fixed or not.

Not all native applications. The company I work for still has a few. The organisation I worked for before had a few ActiveX only solutions.

Fair enough.

Everywhere I've worked has used Outlook.

Outlook Web App

World of Warcraft doesn't run in a browser

I'm afraid it does

and only has official clients for Windows or a much more expensive alternative.

If you are referring to OS X, you are gravely mistaken:

Windows 7 for $72 - $239

OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard for $29,
OS X 10.7 Lion usb drive installer for $69,
OS X 10.7 Lion App Store download for $29.99, and
OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion for $19.99

Photoshop doesn't run in a browser.

Photoshop in a browser. and here's 9 more alternatives of varying complexity and ability.

AutoDesk doesn't run in a browser and: "Note: The Autodesk Design Review Browser Add-in does not support scripting or automation in the browser because Firefox and Chrome do not support COM controls." - Windows only restrictions on their browser plugin.

Autodesk in a browser. Of the particular plugin of which you speak, that is true. But since you last looked, they have made a new, different, web based CAD application that indeed allows you to create, edit and use the familiar tools of the native application.

Hardware drivers don't run in a browser and again the alternatives don't always support hardware as well as Windows does - look at the criticism of both NVidia and AMD this week for worse support for Linux than Windows.

I don't see how this matters, but you got me! I can't find any browser based hardware drivers.

Face it. You and your hysterical friend below are wrong. Windows is entrenched. It's the 21st century mainframe. It might go away eventually but we're stuck with it for now and for a long time to come. There is no realistic alternative to it. That's realistic, not just another OS with a GUI and an slightly worse office suite, but an OS that can run whatever people want and need it to. That is Windows largely.

I think you might be a little out of touch... stuck in 2002 perhaps.

These days, that Windows is still most popular among commercial installations is, again, incidental. All it takes is a progressive CIO or CTO to unseat Windows from any particular installation. It is a desktop... it is not essential. Any desktop will do.

Mac OS X is great but the devices it runs on are far more expensive than Windows machines. No corporation will be spending twice as much on computers that won't run all their software and Mac home users tend to have a Windows machine/partition as well.

I don't know why this myth keeps getting perpetuated. Feature for feature, Apple's hardware is always proven to cost within 10% of the competition or less. This is

FYI, similar service offered by others:

        http://pixlr.com/
        http://fotoflexer.com/
        http://pixenate.com/
        http://snipshot.com/
        http://www.lunapic.com/editor/
        http://editor.pho.to/
        http://aviary.com/tools/phoenix
        http://www.imageeditor.net/
        http://editor.pixastic.com/
        http://www.phixr.com/
        http://www.picture2life.com/
        http://www.pixlr.com/
        http://pixer.us/
        https://www.photoshop.com/
        http://www.splashup.com/
        http://www.flauntr.com/
        http://www.pizap.com/
        http://www.photofunia.com/

The iPhone (and many other smartphones) can do "way better than that" – take a look: http://mobile.photoshop.com/

The "Photoshop 1.0" app was not intended to be serious... it was just created for fun to mark Photoshop's 20th anniversary.

Have they forgotten about www.photoshop.com ?
Of course, it's a very light version of photoshop, but Adobe is also moving towards online version of its software.

These days it seems absurd to talk about running Photoshop or AutoCAD through a web browser... But in another dozen years it may make perfect sense.

You are right, absolutely absurd... Oh wait : https://www.photoshop.com/express/landing.html

Photoshop and Final Cut Pro aren't moving to the web anytime in the short to medium term

That's not even entirely clear. There are multiple attempts already to provide something like Photoshop in a web application, including one from Adobe. Now I don't expect most graphic pros to abandon their client version of the application, but it's also not as though there aren't web based graphic editors.

but a web browser should still be a relatively lightweight application by itself...i should be able to have a web browser running in the background while i'm working in Photoshop, Illustrator, or other memory-intensive applications.

The idea behind Chrome is that "under the hood, [Google is] able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today's complex web applications much better".

In other words, if you want a lightweight browser that can simply browse simple web pages, there probably are better browsers out there. But Google is saying (and I agree) that as time goes on, browsers are being asked to do more and more, and we need something a little better to serve not just as a lightweight web surfing application, but an actual application platform itself. Pretty soon, your Photoshop, Illustrator, and other memory-intensive applications will probably run within your browser, not as stand-alone applications on your OS of choice. (In fact, Adobe has already launched an online "express" version of Photoshop with some photo editing capabilities that are limited, but well within the realm of what used to be handled by stand-alone applications. And Adobe is not alone in doing this.)

Some people disagree, and say that a web browser should be a web browser and leave other applications stuff to, well, applications. I can see advantages both ways. Javascript, Flash, Silverlight, or whatever your Web 2.0 platform of choice is aren't the most robust of development of platforms, but that may change over time. Browsers will undoubtedly get more bloated, but as long as it's not as fast as low-end computer capabilities grow, I don't really see that as a problem. And of course, most of these platforms (well, most not developed by the company that has a vested interest in you being locked into its operating system) will work under any OS. In the end, I guess it just boils down to what all you'll be asking of your web browser. Fortunately, web browsers tend to play nice with each other and you have choices galore for which one(s) best suit your needs.

I no longer use Photoshop (despite working for Adobe) because I'm not that interested in photomanipulation. I do use Photoshop Express though, which works fine on Ubuntu and does all that I need. You should give it a try:

https://www.photoshop.com/express/landing.html

If I have an application which I have to use and doesn't run on Ubuntu, it is statistically far more likely to run on Windows, which I run in VMWare just fine. Quite a number of my collegues also run Ubuntu at Adobe. You can be assured that Linux support is _very_ important to Adobe's management.

To put it this way, can you imagine writing something like GIMP, Abiword, Entourage or Firefox in Flash?

Photoshop Express
Fotoflexer
Buzzword
SlideRocket
Premiere Express
Goowy

Note the absence of *a single* significant Silverlight application.

So don't post your images to public areas of the service, otherwise they do not have the right to do anything with them. From their ToS which someone else already pointed out (emphasis mine):

Bottom line: just don't post your images to publicly accessible areas of the service and you'll be fine. For those who this is targeting, I doubt they would care. For anyone else, you wouldn't be using this service anyway and would already have Photoshop installed (legally or otherwise) on your workstation.

In Adobe Photoshop Express, check out the Asian girl at the top-left, whose title says "Smile".

Notice that the "Exposure" filter that they claim "Made you Look" actually made you look at how racist the tool is, they made her coloured from white.

This is on the Adobe website at https://www.photoshop.com/express/terms.html

Please pay attention to this - fully sublicensable license

8. Use of Your Content.

1. Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed.

Adobe's Online Office Productivity Suite:

Photoshop Express (Photo Editor)
https://www.photoshop.com/express

Buzzword (Word Processor)
http://www.buzzword.com/

Sliderocket (Presentation Software)
http://www.sliderocket.com/

Blist (Spreadsheet)
http://www.blist.com/

***

Did you buy stock? I did a while ago... :)

From TFS:

will be completely Web-based so consumers can use it with any type of computer, operating system and browser.

Except, of course, operating systems or browsers which don't have flash...

Can we invent a new term for sites like these? "Web-based" is misleading -- it makes you think of open standards and compatibility. I propose "Flash-based."

Read the ToS:

Section 8 (a):

Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed.

Thanks I will stick with GIMP instead.

Of course, if you need free stuff, there is always The Pirate Bay.