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Online Replacements for Desktop Apps?
Jon_Aquino asks: "I'd like to share this Google Groups thread of free online replacements for desktop apps. Some of the gems are: an online UML diagrammer, an online Paintbrush app, online Post-It notes, an incredibly realistic text-to-speech converter, and an online spreadsheet. What are other cool online desktop-app replacements?"
i dont know about you guys but i dont think i would use those apps... if you dont have access to excel/mspaint, i would always rather have a flashdrive with them or variations on there rather then relying on third party web page being online to get something halfway useful done...
One of the reasons Microsoft fought so hard in the browser wars was because it was felt that the *real* platform could well become the browser, which you could then access applications via, not the underlying OS.
Looks like they won...
Those online apps are very useful. Really who is going to use paint to make a picture. Or that online spreadsheat program when you can just install the program on your hardrive and use it their where it's faster and more fully featured. Pluss if you are a secure network then you couldn't use them anyways. I just don't really see the point.
I thought the much-hyped application server revolution never happened, because people just don't want to share personal or proprietary information or need the guaranteed availablility of a locally-installed app. The only real popular web apps I can think of are the search engines of various types (web, real estate, personal ads, etc.) and, perhaps, those on-line tax services (you give them your information at a store front, too). Otherwise, the WWW is still mostly just a place to share information, mail-order stuff, and post flamebait to forums like this one.
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
I've never been one to rely too heavily on online apps.
Something about trusting my data (confidential or not) to some unknown, faceless entity, for lack of a better term, has always kept me away from such services.
Not that I'm a paranoid guy or anything ("even paranoid people have enemies!"), but who knows who's really seeing what your data, and who knows what they might do with that knowledge. Whether it's initially (mis)used or not, the danger is there. And if it's archived anywhere along the way, the potential for misuse is even greater, as now anyone down the road can come along and find/sell/misuse it.
"See this killer app that everyone's talking about? That was my idea! But no sooner had I began sketching out my flow on gmodeler then 'Boom!' it was patented and being marketed everywhere. That shoulda been me...." (Not that GModel would ever do this, but it's a good example of my point).
Not to mention the confidentiality issue... I work for a financial services company, and a few years ago, we were looking at ways to quickly re-purpose a bunch of PDF documents to HTML, and one proposed solution was a web service that offered online conversion of such documents for free. Clearly though the privacy issues, not to mention potential for misuse of the data made us choose a different avenue!
Plus there's always the fear of relying on the online apps. If I become dependant upon it, either for my work, or for the convenience it offers, what am I to do if suddenly the site goes under, becomes a pay site, or simply changes URLs due to a provider going down.
Not that there aren't any valuable services out there, there are! It's just that I feel safer relying on local software, and homegrown solutions. Am I alone with this perception?