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BrowserPlus Offers Drag and Drop Uploads and More
Posted by Gina Trapani at 12:57 PM on May 29, 2008
Yahoo unveils a "sneak peek" of a new product that aims to bridge the gap between your web browser and desktop—BrowserPlus, a desktop utility that enables richer browser interaction, like drag and drop file uploads. The BrowserPlus utility is available for Windows and Mac at the moment and works with Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer 7. There are only three demo applications that use BrowserPlus: a Flickr drap-and-drop image uploader, an IRC chat client, and for the web monkeys, a JSON inspector. In short, BrowserPlus is more proof-of-concept than anything else. But, with Google ramping up Gears, Firefox 3 building in offline webapp support, and Yahoo busting out BrowserPlus, looks like your web browser and your desktop are going to be more than just friends in the coming months. The BrowserPlus sneak preview is a free download for Mac and Windows.
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
DoubleFelix
Posted 2:22 PM 29/5/08
I must say, it's pretty impressive so far. I haven't thought much of Yahoo until now, but I'm pleasantly surprised.
DoubleFelix
lordshippo
Posted 2:29 PM 29/5/08
Could this be the beginning of Web 3.0?
lordshippo
gyffes
Posted 3:03 PM 29/5/08
New Paradigm: The Webtop!
(now, can I copyright this ©Gyffes and have it stick?)
gyffes
Quine
Posted 4:11 PM 29/5/08
I've been wanting something like this for ages! I hope it grows to lots of apps (esp gmail)
Quine
skilled1
Posted 4:55 PM 29/5/08
hopefully it will work in reverse as well, from your browser window directly to your desktop initiating a download procedure.
skilled1
catchmeifyoutry
Posted 6:44 PM 29/5/08
For simple drag&drop file upload into web forms you can already use the dragdropupload firefox addon.
Featured on lifehacker in 2006: [lifehacker.com]
but the latest version is already firefox 3.0pre compatibe: [addons.mozilla.org]
catchmeifyoutry
dasinmd
Posted 8:39 PM 29/5/08
@lordshippo: I agree with you. I think the next generation of services should make the distinction between the desktop and the web more fuzzy... I can't until someone develops widgets you can drag from the web to the desktop and vice versa. No more coding/parsing/scraping to get the weather, a stock quote, whatever, where you want it...
dasinmd
joelena
Posted 12:05 AM 30/5/08
It looks like this demo app just embeds the Flickr Uploadr in the browser. It's interesting, but I just don't see why people want everything to run in their browsers. Mozilla's Prism and Zoho's Desktopize are steps in the opposite direction and I think it's the right direction - blur the distinction between a webapp and a dekstop app by moving things to the desktop, not by moving them into the browser.
joelena
TechTalk WRLR 98.3FM
Posted 12:17 AM 30/5/08
I agree with arrington on this one ... [www.techcrunch.com]
And, I think we'll see a lot more of this kind of thing as Yahoo flails about like a palsied squid trying to gain street cred and fend off Icahn's barbarians at the gates, while making a play to appear worth a lot more to MS.
Between now and end of July, I would guess we'll see at least 2 or 3 more early releases of 'hot' yahoo products. BTW I've put my money where my mouth is and have some yahoo stock, as I fully expect MS to pick up a signifcant portion of yahoo either with yang or icahn at the helm.
TechTalk WRLR 98.3FM
jchasse
Posted 12:55 AM 30/5/08
@skilled1: Safari on my Win Machine allows drag & drop of images from the page to your desktop/folder. Beats the hell out of righ click + "save as". Espcially when grabbing lots of "images" from certain sites. I don't use it as my default browser but it does cum in handy
jchasse
SergeGadison
Posted 2:08 AM 30/5/08
@gyffes:
you could if the term 'webtop' hadn't already been around for a while. There are already lots of pages that use the term, including a wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_desktop
SergeGadison
WadeCorvinus
Posted 8:43 AM 30/5/08
I've been using a Mac OS X widget (iShack) for drag and drop, sans password, uploading to Imageshack. It's smooth, easy and gives me a URL to paste in whatever program / browser I need to. So, seeing that mentality expanded to more broad use pleases me greatly.
WadeCorvinus
mjustin
Posted 11:08 PM 29/5/08
Check out the latest update to Java: [java.sun.com]
It includes a major upgrade to applet technology. They can now be dragged right out of the browser and onto your desktop, while they're running. You can then close the browser altogether and the applet will continue running on the desktop. It can then be re-launched from a desktop shortcut. This was demonstrated at JavaOne and can be seen in the videos here:
[java.sun.com]
This may very well lead to renewed interest in Java applet development.
mjustin
Unseen Ultra
Posted 7:29 PM 30/5/08
ugh, i wish more add-ons were compatible with camino.
Unseen Ultra
Jason
Posted 5:08 PM 31/5/08
Part of the reason I like Prism is because it splits out some of the memory-heaviest webapps into separate applications. For me, Google Reader performance in Firefox has always been horrible, and if I have more than one tab open (or 20) it's even worse to the point where it causes bad lags in the browser. But if I'm running Google Reader, gmail and google notebook all in Prism, there aren't any problems.
I suspect that this is because the multitasking is now handled by a more robust switching system (linux in my case but it could be windows or whatever) and not by whatever Javascript taskswitching engine is happening inside of firefox. Also, if one of the webapps could crash-- haven't had that problem yet-- it doesn't hardcrash Firefox.
Gina-- I'm real interested in seeing a good "10 best Prism webapps" column. Prism is, by the way, rather excellent for GTDTiddlyWiki and other such.
Jason