I’m writing this post from a browser. If you know Wordpress that doesn’t seem ground breaking but it is. A couple years ago, I would have to open up a text editor, edit the text, save it, open a file uploader such as ftp, and upload the file to my site. A lot of steps compared to logging into my site and clicking a link to write my post. Once done writing my post I click the publish button and I’m on my way. Simple!
“But wait Clint!” I hear you say. “You missed a step. You forgot to open the browser!”
I didn’t miss a step and that’s my point. That would be like a couple years ago listing the step of booting up my computer. It’s assumed it is already done, just like I assume the browser is already open. I know that the first thing I open up on my laptop is the browser. I use it for most everything. I mean just check what I can do from my homepage.
My sweet homepage!
As you can see, I’ve got my favorite bookmarks listed, I can check the weather in my area, check my Folding@Home stats. I’ve also got my ToDo list and I can even check my Twitter and post to Twitter. All from my homepage! I’ve got a delicious plugin integrated to Firefox so I can check and post to my delicious account from the browser. With the flash plugin I can play video and music inside the browser. LogMeIn provides a plugin that allows me to login to remote desktops inside the browser.
Jeff Atwood on Coding Horror had a post on a similar topic a little while ago titled “The Web Browser is the New Laptop.” He even has a list of the top 10 most used apps, 6 of which are browsers or browser based. What I’m saying is that the browser is more entrinched than that. You can put your browser on a thumb drive and take it with you. Plug it in to any machine (what machine doesn’t have USB, not any I want to work with) and you’re good to go. In the future, I can imagine your computer pretty much being a thin client. Just a small box with ports for the monitor, keyboard, mouse, network, and a couple more USB ports. The bluetooth in the thin client will download your browser and configuration from your cell phone in your pocket (the new thumb drive) and you’ll be ready to go. No more reformatting your machine and redownloading all your programs.
Some will say that there will always be a need for an operating system. I would agree. There will always be the logical need for a set of files that can abstract away the low level actions such as writing to disk. But I imagine the OS of the future to be like the Linux kernel, small and lightweight. The browser rides on top taking you where you want to go.
“But the browser can’t play Crysis at full resolution. And it can’t run anything close to Photoshop.”
Not yet but it’s coming. VMware is working on their “thinstall” technology, which is basically running an app inside of a virtual machine on your machine. It doesn’t look like a full desktop, it looks like an app would look, acts like an app would act, except it’s virtual. Click a link and it downloads and runs on your machine. It’s not too far to think that instead of running the app on your machine, it opens up a remote desktop connection. Except instead of the desktop, it just shows the app. A remote app connection if you will. The real program is running on a bank of powerful servers and you are streaming a live video of you working with the program. With bandwidth speeds increasing and compression techinques improving, lag and stuttering video will no longer be an issue.
I know it’s alot to handle. Heck I may even be wrong 
But all these things are plausible. Most are reality now. It will be interesting to come back in the future and check to see if my predictions are correct.