I know I am quite slow in posting my response to the above, life is very busy at the moment, but I wanted to make my feelings known. The story is that Mozilla has launched Prism as a Mozilla Labs project. Prism, carrying on from WebRunner, is a program that lets you take web applications to the desktop, with their own icons and windows. It is not meant to replace the web, but it has been created to blur the lines between the desktop and the web by allowing access to web services via icons on the desktop or in quick launch or the dock.

And...?

No, that is it. Prism allows you to access Gmail or Twitter, for example, in their own windows (like a browser but without the buttons or address bars) and with their own icon. The post on the Mozilla Labs site compares it to Adobe AIR and Microsoft Silverlight, but says that Prism is better as it is not a proprietary platform that is trying to replace the web. This is where I start to have a problem with the whole idea.

No-one Is Trying To Replace The Web

For a start, AIR and Silverlight are very different. From what I know, Silverlight is a competitor to Flash and has nothing to do with this argument as it relies on a browser plugin. Secondly, as Mike Chambers points out, "You could describe Adobe AIR in exactly the same way (just replace Prism with Adobe AIR and Firefox with Webkit).". In fact, I actually found a web site that produces AIR apps from URLs just like what I expect to get out of Prism and after a quick look I was disappointed.

As far as I can see, AIR is not trying to replace the web, it is trying to extend the web. Creating AIR apps allows you to use desktop functionality such as dragging and dropping files and saving to a local database for offline use. I was disappointed with my brief look at Airifier because it added nothing to the web experience and that is the same for Prism. If I had a desktop version of Gmail I would expect to be able to read my emails when offline, AIR can do that, Prism can't, do you see what I am getting at?

Web Sites For The Browser, Desktop Apps For The Desktop

I admit, I was excited earlier this month by the potential of Adobe AIR, but this isn't why I am bashing Prism. There is a lot of interest in bringing the web to the desktop at the moment, but I want it to be for the right reasons. Having an icon I can click to access my favourite sites in different windows doesn't really impress me, having a program that extends what I can do with my favourite sites does. Which is why I think that web sites should stay in the browser and if you can do more with them on the desktop then go ahead and make an app for it.

Perhaps Prism's simplicity will be what attracts users (especially since there may be a 1 click option in upcoming versions of Firefox to create a Prism app from a site), but I want more from my desktop/web hybrid apps and will stick to following the progress of AIR for now.

What do you think? Is an icon and a separate window for a web site an exciting prospect or, like Read/Write Web, do you need more?