It is an online version of Firefox 3.0 Alpha 2, codenamed Gran Paradiso. Among the novelties announced (the final version is expected by end 2007) there is the possibility to use the browser in offline mode. All this reminds Adobe Apollo which, despite not standing as a browser, it evokes the essential features.

Adobe invests in Web Design (Adobe Photoshop CS3, Dreamweaver), in Rich Internet Application (Flex, Flash and short-Apollo), in developing various web applications. Why not propose its own browser? Because they probably have already done!?

Currently, the Web Application exploit the environment provided by the browser to be run. They are in effect simple HTML pages (php or asp), JavaScript, and interactive through the use of the channel XMLHttpRequest (Ajax) to communicate seamlessly with the Web Server. However, this dependence on the browser continues to be a real stumbling block in the development and dissemination, because of incompatibilities still exist between the various browsers available. Some experiments require a very specific web browser to be used, such as: Ajax3D, Primera, Amiga Emulator in Javascript, and others. All require FireFox!

How can we reconcile all this? The forthcoming implementation of JavaScript 1.7 and the powerful structures canvas will make the difference between the browser even more clearly, a real Digital Divide Browser!

So technologies such as Java or Adobe Flash find fertile ground to test and propose real alternatives to the development Javascript / Ajax (HTML and CSS included). Developed in ActionScript, for example, that with the 3.0 release becomes in effect an ECMAScript (ECMA-262) with extraordinary potential (see for example the emulator Commodore 64), certainly has its advantages:

• Language ECMAScript (ECMA-262) (in fact identical to JavaScript)
• Significant reuse of code written (as an swf movie or component in Flex or Apollo)
• No problem of compatibility between browsers (Cross Browser)
• Using off-line (both with the simple swf movie player, both in the new environment Apollo)
• Cross Media (see applications for mobile)
• Excellent support Video and Audio
• Developer community very broad and diffuse
• Several years behind ...

Flash also allows some time for direct communication with the Web Server (XML is incoming and outgoing - with a decent parser), then replaced it with Ajax techniques, as demonstrated by projects such as Fjax (which offers even web2.1 !).

We do not enter, at least in this post, the details of the unprecedented capabilities of version 3.0 of ActionScript, which offers a very complete collection of extremely powerful and a new virtual machine (AVM2) able to run the code 10 times faster capitol of previous versions !

Choose the development environment of a Web Application becomes more articulate and there really is not an optimal solution, as often happens. The type of project, the type of project, then, is the first element that can show us the way forward, before deciding whether to use JavaScript / Ajax or Flash or other ...

However, it is clear that the use of off-line Web Application sari ¿½ an important element in the future and we hear about more often. In my view, however, a true RIA today is only possible with the use of special technologies like Adobe Flash, up to a sudden and unexpected developments (and standardization) of the browser!

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