Mozilla Prism : Install WebApps on your computer!

If you are a person like me, who prefers to stay online and who wants to ensure that the power of web is utilized in full but still want the feel of using a local desktop software then Mozilla’s Prism is the solution for you.

It’s currently under active development and was taken up from a different project called WebRunner but has now turned into Prism. Adobe is doing the same thing by making AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime).

Prism is a simple XULRunner based browser that hosts web applications without the normal web browser user interface.

Anyway, it seemed to me that Mozilla was not really serious about the Prism project because the installer was corrupted and even after alerting them for 3-4 times, they were not able to provide the proper working installer. However, now the working installer is available to download.

Well, the software helps you in creating the shortcuts for your favorite web service and lets it open in its dedicated window. And if you are like me, this is how your start menu may look like after some time :

(image credit : Mozilla labs blog)

To be honest, I used Prism and it sounded pretty cool but then I realized that it needs more and more development and then only it will be make any difference. In order to ensure these services become really popular and useful, the whole interface of few websites needs to be changed because the BACK and FORWARD button are still required when it comes to accessing the web applications.

I’ll rather say that the problem is not with Prism but its the way the applications have been created. The web applications creators have not used the full power of Prism and provided the basic option of opening up the website in Prism and that’s a 2 min. job. The web applications (prism based) like Orkut or FaceBook need much more work if they can be run properly in Prism.

All in all, I’ll love to use Prism in future but it’s just not perfect at this time and needs lot more focus. I think Adobe AIR is going to be better thing and at this time impresses more than Prism.

* Download Mozilla Prism Version 0.8 (Windows)
* Download Mozilla Prism Version 0.8 (Linux)
* Download Mozilla Prism Version 0.8 (Mac)

In order to ensure that you download the latest version of the software please go and download the Prism from here.