> > > In the meantime, I wonder what are the critical differences that > > > impede your efficiency? > > A browser cannot access card readers unless quite > > sophisticated add-on code is installed locally. > > What about USB-accessible cards? Most operating systems have built-in > support to read from these. And the browser accesses these, uhm, like, how ?
> > A browser does not offer sophisticated entry tools without > > requiring a lot of add-on code being installed locally. > Specifically, what do you mean by "sophisticated entry tools"? We have hashed that out before, please see the archives. I am talking context-sensitive phrase wheels etc. > > Then, why not install a "conventional" application if one has > > to install code locally anyways ? > 1) It remains easier to install/upgrade a few new web-browsers than all > the desktop (conventional) applications. > 2) It becomes increasingly unnecessary to install additional code locally > as web-browsers incorporate additional functionalities. Which is, what, Good(tm) ? > > > Would new browser features such as "access keys" > > > (http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/forms/accesskey.html) change your > > > opinion? > > No. If they are under the control of the "application" running > > inside a browser they can potentially conceptually compromise > > browser security. > > Desktop applications can just as easily (if not even more easily) > compromise system security. Sure, but the user is expected to know that. Contrary to that the user expects "browsing a site" to be safe (contrary, again, to what it sometime is). > Browser-based applications are no panacea. However, it is possible for > them to approach the behavior of current desktop applications. Note that > there is a time-lag between having capable browsers and having > web-applications make use of the features. Why would they be called "browser" then ? I suppose it'd be fair to rename them to "Mozilla-OS" or, perhaps more appropriate "MozillaDesk". I would then want to install a simple "browser" for browsing. Which begs the question why there should be two "browsers" on my system. The answer is that one of the two isn't a browser but rather a scripting-language-cum-integrated-UI. Karsten -- GPG key ID E4071346 @ wwwkeys.pgp.net E167 67FD A291 2BEA 73BD 4537 78B9 A9F9 E407 1346
