Is Browser an OS?

Nowadays we do most of our work within the browser than outside it. So a logical question would be - what is the need for any applications outside of the browser? When I can write, edit and save documents with Zoho or Google why do I need a seperate MSWord App? If sending emails through Web Outlook is as easy as sending it through desktop app why do I need a desktop version? Valid questions and I would say may be in future there would be no need for these desktop apps.

Then you go further and suggest that you anyway store all your data in google or skydrive and hence what is the need for a big harddisk on my comp? Fair enough and I would think in future when the world will be extremely connected (wired and wireless) there would be no need for a large local harddisk. Then you go further and say if there are no apps apart from browser and there is no need for any large local storage, then why do we need to think of OS and Browser as separate entities? It seems as if OS’s sole purpose would be reduced to running the browser effectively. The processor would be dedicated to doing just that. May be we just need an OS supporting a standards compliant effective browser which can just run javascript (not even plugins like flash and silverlight).

Who then gives those javascript? The apps you are runnin inside the browser.But then where are these apps running? In the browser and in the cloud using someone else’s processor cycles  (may be Google)  using someone else’s storage (May be Microsoft). So if you look at at current day webapps they would typically be rich UI mashups where sections in single page will be independently interacting with different service end points. Infact it is quite possible that in a single web page in the browser javascripts code elements from multiple cloud apps from different cloud endpoints could be running. Here we have an unique problem where one cloud app could get access to another cloud app using its javascript. Here we are in a sense talking inter process communication but without much safeguards wrt to security. There needs to be some kind of sandbox within which javascripts of a particular cloup app should function in. This is similar to domains inside a .NET process. This is a familiar problem much before cloud computing and is called cross-site scripting vulnerability. But this vulnerability attains great significance in the cloud computing age.

This issue have been analysed by Microsoft in its research division and they have come up with a proof of concept browser called Gazelle. I think we would be seeing an overhauling of browser standards and implementations in the changed cloud computing age.