Thoughts on web apps

I recently read this article on MyBroadband. It's all about the browser, and how it's evolved from a mere window to the web to the computing platform it is today. The author talks about how he accesses all his e-mail from www.gmail.com, he uses ChromeDeck for his social networking needs, and is using Google Docs more and more.

My response? I always did, I still now, and I think I will probably always, hate web apps!

In fact, I'm always looking for ways to spend less time in a browser.

• Why visit www.gmail.com when you can have the super-fast super featured Thunderbird (and use IMAP) running natively in your Operating System of choice?
• Why use an extension of your browser when you can have the super-fast TweetDeck running natively (well, under AIR) in your Operating System of choice?
• Why visit docs.google.com when you can have OpenOffice (or any number of other free office applications) running natively in your operating system of choice--saving to your DropBox folder, of course (for which you have the native client installed and never visit www.dropbox.com)?
• Why use a web chatting service when you can have KVIrc/mIRC/IceChat/whatever your favourite IRC client is, and chat on IRC servers?

The list goes on and on. It even grates me to have to open my browser to write this blog post, except that Linux does not yet have a suitable alternative to Windows Live Writer. This is not what the web was designed for!!

An (native) app for everything, and everything to its own app, I've always said!