Close Menu
TechCentralTechCentral

    Subscribe to the newsletter

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    Facebook X (Twitter) YouTube LinkedIn
    WhatsApp Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn YouTube
    TechCentralTechCentral
    • News

      Beijing’s chip champions blacklisted by Taiwan

      16 June 2025

      The little-known company disrupting Eskom’s monopoly

      16 June 2025

      Chief sub-editor wanted – help shape South African tech media

      16 June 2025

      Public money, private plans: MPs demand Post Office transparency

      13 June 2025

      Coal to cash: South Africa gets major boost for energy shift

      13 June 2025
    • World

      Yahoo tries to make its mail service relevant again

      13 June 2025

      Qualcomm shows off new chip for AI smart glasses

      11 June 2025

      Trump tariffs to dim 2025 smartphone shipments

      4 June 2025

      Shrimp Jesus and the AI ad invasion

      4 June 2025

      Apple slams EU rules as ‘flawed and costly’ in major legal pushback

      2 June 2025
    • In-depth

      Grok promised bias-free chat. Then came the edits

      2 June 2025

      Digital fortress: We go inside JB5, Teraco’s giant new AI-ready data centre

      30 May 2025

      Sam Altman and Jony Ive’s big bet to out-Apple Apple

      22 May 2025

      South Africa unveils big state digital reform programme

      12 May 2025

      Is this the end of Google Search as we know it?

      12 May 2025
    • TCS

      TechCentral Nexus S0E1: Starlink, BEE and a new leader at Vodacom

      8 June 2025

      TCS+ | The future of mobile money, with MTN’s Kagiso Mothibi

      6 June 2025

      TCS+ | AI is more than hype: Workday execs unpack real human impact

      4 June 2025

      TCS | Sentiv, and the story behind the buyout of Altron Nexus

      3 June 2025

      TCS | Signal restored: Unpacking the Blue Label and Cell C turnaround

      28 May 2025
    • Opinion

      Beyond the box: why IT distribution depends on real partnerships

      2 June 2025

      South Africa’s next crisis? Being offline in an AI-driven world

      2 June 2025

      Digital giants boost South African news media – and get blamed for it

      29 May 2025

      Solar panic? The truth about SSEG, fines and municipal rules

      14 April 2025

      Data protection must be crypto industry’s top priority

      9 April 2025
    • Company Hubs
      • Africa Data Centres
      • AfriGIS
      • Altron Digital Business
      • Altron Document Solutions
      • Altron Group
      • Arctic Wolf
      • AvertITD
      • Braintree
      • CallMiner
      • CYBER1 Solutions
      • Digicloud Africa
      • Digimune
      • Domains.co.za
      • ESET
      • Euphoria Telecom
      • Incredible Business
      • iONLINE
      • Iris Network Systems
      • LSD Open
      • NEC XON
      • Network Platforms
      • Next DLP
      • Ovations
      • Paracon
      • Paratus
      • Q-KON
      • SkyWire
      • Solid8 Technologies
      • Telit Cinterion
      • Tenable
      • Vertiv
      • Videri Digital
      • Wipro
      • Workday
    • Sections
      • AI and machine learning
      • Banking
      • Broadcasting and Media
      • Cloud services
      • Contact centres and CX
      • Cryptocurrencies
      • Education and skills
      • Electronics and hardware
      • Energy and sustainability
      • Enterprise software
      • Fintech
      • Information security
      • Internet and connectivity
      • Internet of Things
      • Investment
      • IT services
      • Lifestyle
      • Motoring
      • Public sector
      • Retail and e-commerce
      • Science
      • SMEs and start-ups
      • Social media
      • Talent and leadership
      • Telecoms
    • Events
    • Advertise
    TechCentralTechCentral
    Home » James Francis » Next chapter opens in browser wars

    Next chapter opens in browser wars

    By James Francis15 April 2015
    Twitter LinkedIn Facebook WhatsApp Email Telegram Copy Link
    News Alerts
    WhatsApp

    James-Francis-180Back in 2009, Google released a fun video showing a team walking around New York, asking pedestrians what a Web browser is.

    The vast majority of those interviewed seemed to confuse it with their search engine. A good deal of people thought it was an operating system.

    Only 8% knew the right answer.

    That number may have changed a little since, but probably not by much. The browser is the digital equivalent of electricity: we use it every day, but few people even care to know how it works.

    Norway’s Opera wants to double its Android user base within the next two years, it said this past week. This statement got me thinking about browsers again.

    I’m a big fan of Opera, but mainly because I like underdogs. As far as browsers go, I tend to mix things up often. But with just 1,5% market share, some might ask why I bother with Opera.

    I can tell you why: because one day — and that day is soon — our browsers will be our operating systems.

    Several trends lead me to this conclusion.

    Firstly, the plug-in is dying. Nobody wants to run Java anymore, and even the once-ubiquitous Flash is losing ground. Looking at my browser’s plug-in list reveals only a few other names in the pack: one for VLC, to play a wider variety of movie files I never play through my browser, and one for PDF support.

    This last one leads me to point two…

    Browsers are adopting a lot of native capabilities. My favourite is WebRTC, which introduced built-in voice and video communications to browsers. It’s still pretty young, so applications are few, but the idea is that at some point you won’t need proprietary desktop applications such as Skype to have an online video chat; the application will be powered through the browser. The PDF plug-in reflects a similar trend: with the exception of secure PDFs, I open all of my PDF documents in my browser.

    Thirdly, browsers are carrying a lot of applications these days. Raise a hand if you use Gmail or Google Docs. Ditto. I also use Office 365 for work e-mail and such — and I don’t run a desktop app.

    It’s all in the browser. Head over to the Internet Archive to see DOSBox games stream through your browser or look up any of the numerous games emulators doing the same. Not a single piece of software lives on my machine to enable Amazon Cloud Drive, Dropbox, YouTube and so on. I don’t even know when last I installed an office suite and I’ve begun to use Pixlr for basic image editing.

    Fourth on my list of reasons is HTML5. In fact, we can throw this programming language and its peers at all of the above points, because these are the ones cannibalising the desktop software world.

    HTML5 appears to be incredibly powerful and versatile, and growing more so with every iteration. Already, many vendors who offer applications on any device are pinning their ambitions to HTML5, which allows rich applications to be created inside a browser.

    Caption
    Microsoft’s Project Spartan browser may light the fuse on a new chapter in the browser wars, says the writer

    Now you might argue: what about apps? But many apps are already being developed in HTML5 and complementary languages. Smartphones are highly reliant on being connected — that is how Siri and other artificial intelligence-based personal assistants work. Combine HTML with some back-end processes on a remote server and you can theoretically match anything a native app could do on your device. In fact, what developers often do is create a single core app using HTML5, then use “wrappers” to make it deployable on different devices. And offline support for HTML5 is fast approaching.

    Granted, my views are making a few assumptions. But there is obvious momentum towards the browser occupying more and more of our application workload. Now, considering that the end-user experience exists entirely out of applications, how long before someone decides to just make the browser the centre of it all? If that were to happen, you could run any app on any device (hardware permitting) as long as you have an up-to-date browser.

    This trend is probably at the core of Opera’s strategy. You don’t need even double digit market share to be relevant in the browser market, not with billions of users to pick from. Opera wants 275m users by 2017 — that’s more than a third of Europe’s population.

    Yet we’re only seeing the start of a new era in the browser wars. Microsoft’s Project Spartan browser in Windows 10 may light the fuse on a new chapter in the browser wars. If Microsoft doesn’t do it, someone will — and soon.

    • James Francis is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in several local and international publications
    • Read previous columns by Francis


    James Francis Microsoft Opera Opera Software Project Spartan
    Subscribe to TechCentral Subscribe to TechCentral
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email Copy Link
    Previous ArticleSA tumbles down global technology index
    Next Article Romeo Kumalo quits Vodacom

    Related Posts

    The future of database management is hybrid. Are you ready?

    6 June 2025

    How AI is rewriting the rules of software development

    4 June 2025

    Silicon slip-ups: the tech industry’s biggest flops

    29 May 2025
    Company News

    Huawei Watch Fit 4 Series: smarter sensors, sharper design, stronger performance

    13 June 2025

    Change Logic and BankservAfrica set new benchmark with PayShap roll-out

    13 June 2025

    SAPHILA 2025 – transcending with purpose, connection and AI-powered vision

    13 June 2025
    Opinion

    Beyond the box: why IT distribution depends on real partnerships

    2 June 2025

    South Africa’s next crisis? Being offline in an AI-driven world

    2 June 2025

    Digital giants boost South African news media – and get blamed for it

    29 May 2025

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    © 2009 - 2025 NewsCentral Media

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.