Mozilla’s Prism aims for a better web app experience
by Celine Roque
Unlike desktop applications, web apps run from servers far away from our computers, and to access them we need to use Internet browsers like Firefox. The problem with Firefox is that it was designed for viewing web pages, which it does very well, but not for running applications. If a web app running inside a tab were to freeze, for example, other tabs would also stop functioning and eventually crash, causing you to lose valuable work.
In its own way, Google Chrome was engineered to prevent these types of crashes. Mozilla’s Prism extension for Firefox uses a different approach to make web apps run separately from the browser for added stability. They are treated to work as virtual stand-alone applications, reducing the load on the browser itself and improving performance. Aside from this, Prism takes things even further to make the web app experience feel as familiar as possible.
Accessibility. Shortcuts can be created for web apps on the desktop or the programs folder like other desktop applications. They can also be accessed from the system taskbar or dock.
Start-up. For web apps that you’d like to be always on call, you can use prism to have them run automatically whenever you start your computer.
Minimize to tray. You have the choice between making the applications minimize to the taskbar or to the system tray for a more uncluttered view. Notifications pop up here when you have new emails or other alerts.
Links association. Prism enables special links to treat the web app as a normal application and open it instead of a browser. For example, mailto: links could only open desktop mail clients, but with Prism it can now be set to launch web-based mail clients like Gmail.
Others. Among the nice enhancements brought by Prism are font control and private data clearing for each window.
Mozilla’s Prism comes in two forms: a Firefox extension and a stand-alone program. Each has a short video demo and can be downloaded now for free on the Prism site.
Thought...
