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10 Web Operating Systems Reviewed
Stan Schroeder writes "Waiting for GoogleOS? Why not try some of the WebOS applications that are already available? Believe it or not, there's already over 15 of them, and here you can find a review of the 10 most promising WebOSes. Most of them might not make you want to ditch your desktop OS just yet, but some are very good and can be used on a day-to-day basis. Highlights include DesktopTwo, Goowy, YouOS, EyeOS and Glide. You can find the whole bunch here." Note: for the purposes of this article, "WebOS" is defined as "a set of applications running in a web browser that together mimic, replace or largely supplement a desktop OS environment."
Sure you do, but then you wouldn't get first post if you bothered to devote 10 seconds of time to saying so, would you?
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Ever heard of those computers that come pre-loaded with a ROM containing only Microsoft Bob and a web browser?
Well... me neither, but it doesn't hurt to be prepared.
One simple answer: shared documents. Sure, I have five+ computers at home and one of them is a dedicated linux machine that I use for file storage and whatnot. The problem is, it is a multi-step process for anyone living in my house to access these files at work. While I have no problem of whatsoever establishing file shares and so forth, not everyone is as comfortable with the idea.
Luckily Google spreadsheets solved at least one problem for me - maintaining a shopping list. I can pop on any computer with internet access and be able to see what my better half added to it. Any other features? I don't need or want them.
It's a desktop environment or, at the very least, an application suite. Not an operating system. Until some website is handling process and memory management, it's no OS.
But I guess "Online Desktop Environment" doesn't quite sound as cool does it?
I can see one reason for a Web OS, and that's that it makes it easy to access your desktop from anywhere. However, from a technological point of view, the web browser has to be pretty much the worst choice of interface - the only compelling reason for using it is that it's ubiquitous.
Browsers were never meant to do this sort of thing - AJAX is a hack that's hard to get working 100% reliably across all browsers at the best of times - just look at the hoops one has to jump through to get the back-button working properly, not to mention handling the differences between Firefox and IE. Why on earth would you want to base an entire desktop on such a shaky foundation?
(Bearing in mind that 74% of all statistics are made up on the spot...) I suspect that 99% of internet users access the internet from the same machine (or at most 2 machines) 99% of the time. The cost in increased bandwidth, sluggish response, lack of high-bandwidth media support seems to me a heavy price to pay for portability. Even if we do decide that it's worthwhile, there are technologically better ways to do it.
How is this an operating system?
I guess "WebOS" sounds a lot sexier than "crappy useless Flash programs that just barely work".
Sounds like the spanish word for testicles...
Can I get an eye poke?
Dog House Forum
The main use is that it's a new area to explore. It's a growing application, that doesn't have many uses today, but you never know when it'll finally have a good use. As webos's develop, people might find new innovative ways to use them.
Imagine a company that had a Webos, and hundreds of thin clients, which would probably be a operating system whose user interface is only the web browser window pointed at the the webos. You could probably load it up all to ROM and have no hard drive, making the boot up take all of about a second.
While I think there are probably already things that do this today(that is, thin clients), that's only one random idea I had, maybe one day someone will have a truly great idea on how to apply a Webos.
Or it might just never take off and be a flop, who knows, but the point is, it's worth a shot to see if it's any good later on.
Back in the day, one of the arguments for the "personal computer revolution" was to free computer users from central control. The idea was for the user to own their own basically self-sufficient computer, rather than sharing that stuff. But as time has gone on the the Internet has become ubiquitous, computer users are voluntarily being re-centralized with things like GMail, IMAP, web-based applications, etc. Are we voluntarily surrendering the freedom of personal computer ownership?
Surely we now have a Turing machine equivalent for webOS.
A sufficiently advanced webOS is able to run itself.
Well, because Windows and OS X users rarely if ever have needed to separate between the OS and Desktop Environment, if they at all understand what Windows is then it's as an operating system. So when you make an online desktop environment, you call it WebOS people actually think right even though it's technically wrong. It's the same way people think a 10/100 Mbit Ethernet connection would be "broadband", when it's technically not. But in their minds they get the right idea of "fast internet". Still, if I wanted anything like a WebOS, I'd much rather have a remote login to a real desktop.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I don't even know where to start.
First off, these aren't "operating systems." An operating system is the system of software that interacts with the hardware of the computer and provides an interface for regular application software to use and share that hardware. Most operating systems do quite bit more than that, but at it's heart, that's what an OS is for. These "Web operating systems" don't do anything like that, by any stretch of the imagination. At best these would some kind of user interface.
Second of all, they're SLOW. Way to go, guys, your "WebOS" makes my 2+ Ghz Athlon 64 and gig of memory run like a slow 386.
If that's not bad enough, there's really no use for these things. At best they're remote desktop for people who are too stupid to setup a regular remote login or VPN. I mean, shit, I can tunnel X over ssh and log in to one of my home machines from work, and get full access to a regular X session and all of Linux. It's not as fast as being logged in locally, but it's still much faster than these "Web OSes"
And finally, it's an abomination of the underlying technology. Somebody really needs to have a little talk with these people about using the right tool for the job. This isn't even like using a hammer to pound in a screw, it's more like using a jack hammer to to fix a watch.
Maybe not
This might be interesting to use on the Wii, which has a browser but no real 'OS' to speak of.
People in bamboo houses shouldn't throw pandas...Jesus said that! -Ninja
The term "Browser System" or BS suits them better, I'd say.
By the way, if you wonder about having a box that only boots and get everything from network, you'd be surprised to discover BootP (bootstrap protocol) and others, used for diskless workstations.
ilex paraguariensis for all
There are also browsers in some of them :)
This actually does make sense, things like bookmarks and history can be kept online without requiring any bookmark synchronizers or needing to be accessed from a special bookmarks site, other than the initial webOS connection, also you could enable access to the bookmarks through such a portal site and enable synchronizers to get the best of everything.
With that said, I think that webOSes them selfs are kind of pointless. It would be much better to have a web based NX client (like the one VNC has) and just virtualize an entire trimmed down operating system. Although possible it might be useful to be able to click on files in the webos filebrowser and have them downloaded locally, although I'm sure with some basic java script hooks on the browser side and some modification to the file manager being virtualized it could be done.
cat
I'm sure the current crop of WebOS solutions are silly or novel (or both). But I do see potential for things to move in this direction. Assuming hardware can be considered essentially an appliance (you don't seriously think custom, clunky, incompatible rigs are going to be gold standard forever?) whats really important? Your environment, your applications and your data.
But aside from laptops (which you have to lug around, break, etc) as far as the average person is concerned their data is tied to their hardware.
Now periodically I see the whole thin-client argument revisited and maybe that is how it will be played, but at the very least I see a possible market for true network-based OS's that will allow you to access your *real* systems from just about any piece of hardware you have access to. Airplanes, pay phones, hotels, friends houses, etc.
I mean bandwidth aside, is there really any reason I can't have my systems run across a multitude of hardware and provide me with *my* working environment?
Quack, quack.