Apollo Makes Firefox 3′s Offline Feature Irrelevant

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Richard MacManus has some interesting news about Firefox 3: It’s going to support offline web applications. There aren’t a lot of details, and the original post is from Rod Drury who was listening to Robert O’Callahan from Mozilla talk about the new features.

To me, the excitement seems a little misplaced. Both posts seem to focus on how bad this is going to be for Microsoft, and obviously Firefox is building out quite a platform. One that Google makes heavy use of. But the unanswered question is are offline web apps the best way go go? When Firefox 3 comes around, will they still be? I understand the development effort that has gone into web applications and I understand the benefits of a “click to” model where you can just dial up an application in your address bar. But I don’t see why anyone would want to use Mozilla’s browser to run their web applications offline when Apollo gives more features for basically the same level of work, with both Flash AND Ajax. The browser is not the platform. The browser is the problem.

[tags]Mozilla, Apollo, Flash[/tags]

Related posts:

  1. Would Google Use Firefox as a Rich Internet Application Platform?
  2. Firefox 3 Requirements – Better Support for Add-ons
  3. I Don’t Get Apollo
  4. What Is Apollo For?
  5. Feeling Out Apollo
  • http://eokyere.blogspot.com Emmanuel Okyere

    “the browser is not the platform. the browser is the problem”

    a lot of hand-waving here; care to expand on exactly what you are trying to say?

    – eokyere :)

  • ion gion

    Indeed, please extend on this!

    I am building flash applications for the browser since flash 5(not sites, but flash apps).

    I also know that the “biggest unknown secret” of web is gecko’s support for XUL(the first wave, from which technologies like MXML and XAML got inspired) and the backend technology that is mostly overcomplex and that didnt allowed the developers to take it to a higher level.

    Except fancy animations and that vector UI rendering, Apollo is yet to surprise us with something really inovative. But also remember that the vectorial UI rendering its moving aside from the platform, and into other technologies (like quartz/compiz/the one in vista whos name i dont know :P ) that are more low level.

    Flash should tackle the multimedia area entirely.
    Not only the audio/video/2d graphics, but also the 3d graphics, the hardware accelerated graphics, the things that vrml promissed, the web is going to social activities, and we as developers, will go to those technologies that allow us to do it the best way.

    And not just wait and accept to be locked in by a certain company, to use only one video format with no encoder (except the gazillion dollars ones(on2)), only one data compression system (only amf), only one live enconding audio format(the trillion dollars nellyhorser).

  • Bob Weston

    Wow, Ryan, your Apollo fanboy-ism is reaching new heights. Apollo looks interesting for sure but your unchecked enthusiasm is making you sound like you’re on the Adobe payroll. Simmer down.

    There is a place for both web apps that work offline and desktop apps that on the web. Must you use language like “Apollo makes X irrelevant” when it is quite obvious that both should co-exist?

    With our without Apollo there will continue to be a huge amount of browser based apps, and having an offline store for those apps will bring lots of innovation to the world of the lowly address bar.

  • http://faser.net faser

    Firefox is not a browser is an application platform. You can develop standalone application (using xulrunner), browser application (extensions) and remote application.
    Currently there are hundreds of “off-line web application” developed using Firefox. Sure Apollo seems interesting but with Firefox (XUL and XPCOM) you can use easily a database (SQLite) and this will not be possibile with Apollo.

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  • http://codeodor.com Sammy Larbi

    “Apollo Makes Firefox 3’s Offline Feature Irrelevant”

    Well that’s a bold statement.

  • http://www.brandonellis.org/ Brandon Ellis

    Firefox 3 will have off line support. That’s great if you have helper applications you use and are disconnected from the internet. But, build a branded desktop app for a client then tell them, “and all you have to do is open Firefox for off line use.”. How many seconds do you think it would be till you get booted out the door?

    An app that runs in the browser(connected or disconnected) is not a desktop app. Running occasionally connected apps on the desktop is the whole point of Apollo.

  • faser

    Brandon, your statement is not correct, because *today* you can run a Firefox application without opening the Firefox browser! An application written for the mozilla platform can run:
    a) As a normal HTML page (XUL pages)
    b) As a Firefox Extension (open the browser)
    c) As a Firefox Extension launched from a desktop shortcut (without opening the browser. write a simple windows desktop shortcut and in target put firefox.exe -chrome chrome://myapplication)
    d)As a regular desktop application (using xul runner)

    So, Apollo doesn’t have anything more than Firefox, probably will have a lot less because you Firefox can be better integrated with the OS and you can use a database.
    Probably the difference is in the development environment because AS3 and Flex are better documented and organized than JS, XPCOM and XUL, but Firefox will have more features for a long time.

  • Johnny

    you are not helping Adobe, you are always damage Adobe and Flash image by posting FUD article

  • http://www.brandonellis.org/ Brandon Ellis

    Faser,
    I don’t think this post is talking about XUL. We’re talking about Firefox (which is built on XUL). I’ve been asking why folks don’t use XUL for a few years now. But I’ve come to the conclusion that it must be a fairly steep learning curve if hardly anyone is using it.

    So, aside from a few examples (like songbird), show me where developers are leveraging XUL as a shell wrapper for desktop applications. :)

  • http://faser.net/mab faser

    As I wrote Firefox is not just a browser, but a development platform.
    Here there is a list of few “full-desktop” applications written using the xulrunner engine
    http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/XULRunner_Hall_of_Fame
    There are more based on the Mozilla Platform, I remember Komodo (http://www.activestate.com/products/komodo_ide/) and NVU (http://www.nvu.com/).
    As I wrote a lot of Firefox Extensions can be launched without opening the browser, so I can say they are desktop applications. Few lines of code, a desktop shortcut and your application will open without Firefox. You can read and write local files, use ftp, connect to a database etc
    Folks continue to use XUL (see The Venice Project), but you are right about the learning curve. IMHO the problem with Firefox is not the technology itself (you develop using web languages like javascript, xml, css, “ajax” etc, the same technologies that every web developer knows), but the documentation and the lack of any IDE.
    Another problem is a cultural problem. I think that the main target of the mozilla developers is the browser and web applications, they don’t push to use Firefox for desktop or remote XUL applications. So, you could find bugs or some missing features and they will not be fixed/added because, for the time being, desktop applications are not a priority.
    In my opinion Apollo has a lot of potential because it is focused on desktop application using web languages, the documentation and IDE will probably be very good and you will save a lot of time, but as far as I know at the beginning I don’t think it will be more “powerful” than the mozilla platform.

  • http://www.brandonellis.org/ Brandon Ellis

    Hmm,
    well aside from Chatzilla, Joost, Songbird and Democracy Player, most are widgets and ‘proof of concept’ utilities.

    I’m not taking anything away from their usefulness or purpose but through the simplicity of wrapping existing applications in Apollo or even Zinc for that matter, It seems like user adoption of applications built on XUL will quickly fall further behind as a desktop application wrapper.

  • http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com Ryan Stewart

    Oye, that’ll teach me to post and then go to bed. Here’s the main point: What kinds of apps are going to use this technology? Are we going to take digg offline? Is it only going to be Google apps?

    Also, how is this thing going to work? Are developers going to be able to program right to the filesystem through Firefox? Isn’t that going to make the problem of programming applications for both browsers even more difficult? Or is Mozilla going to take care of all of that behind the scenes?

    As for XUL, I think one of the main problems is that it’s hard to make good looking apps. I’ve seen a lot of “powerful” applications, but nothing that looks like a good Flash app, or even a good Ajax app.

  • Michael Brent

    Firefox’s offline feature has nothing to do with XUL. It is a service for plain ol’ HTML applications.

    No, this isn’t going to expose the file system to Firefox. It essentially provides a hash table where HTML apps can store information and retrieve it again even when the computer is offline. While the hash table is stored in the file system, that does not mean the file system itself is exposed to JavaScript.

    Use your brains for a second, people. Does it make sense to take digg offline? Digg is all about links to websites. If you’re offline, you can’t browse the links, and so you can’t make very informed diggs now can you?

    The offline store is useful for applications that are largely solitary, such as word processors or anything that involves a single person composing something.

  • Woody

    If anything it’s the other way around.

    Firefox 3’s Offline Feature makes Apollo Irrelevant.

    I don’t know why I read this blog any more. Ryan has to be getting paid by Adobe. No objectivity whatsoever .. it’s gone … game over.

  • http://www.brandonellis.org/ Brandon Ellis

    To the best of my knowledge, Adobe doesn’t pay outside sources to like their products. But I do have some nice tees and a Central Development Team lunch box to show for it. :)

  • http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com Ryan Stewart

    Heh, No, no payments here.

    And sure, this post wasn’t one of my best. I threw it up right before I went to bed. But I learned a lot from the comments, so I think it worked out pretty well.

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  • http://geekgaucho.blogspot.com Fernando

    “And sure, this post wasn’t one of my best. I threw it up right before I went to bed.”

    Translation: I’ve been punched in the face repeatedly by commenters, it’s time to begin the “pull-out” strategy… “I didn’t mean it”, “perhaps I was wrong”, “I didn’t know what I was doing”… “I wrote it just before going to bed”. Yeah, the latter sounds better.

    ;-P

    Sorry, couldn’t resist.

    PS: XUL apps run immediately on every OS where you can compile the engine… even those where Flash is not available for whatever reason Adobe has choosen not to. As others said, also you don’t need a browser, and you can create apps that load and function even without a browser instance or network connectivity.

    Game over.

  • http://www.brandonellis.org/ Brandon Ellis

    @Fernando -
    Like I said way above and a long time ago..
    If XUL is so good, this discussion is a mute point and user adoption of XUL as a development platform will take off.

    BTW, this post is roughly six months old, and in that time I haven’t really seen anything new come out based on XUL development, nor have I seen much growth in developer adoption of the technology. Can you point me to some new XUL applications built in the last six months?

  • http://www.jagtapinfotech.com Yogesh

    Did anyone try mozilla add – on like web developer and firebug..Adds a menu and a toolbar with various web developer tools. Try this I found it very useful. and easy…

    Have a nice try