Mozilla Brings Webapps to the Desktop, Challenges AIR, Silverlight

Awesome. Another challenger in a market that doesn't exist.

You can do this on a Mac with<p><a href="http://fluidapp.com/" rel="nofollow">http://fluidapp.com/</a><p>which I believe runs on Safari/Webkit. It allows for Applescript and plugins.

One of the things I don't like about prism over AIR is that it doesn't allow you to use free form shapes for your widget. It's basically just another window. That may seem like a silly complaint, but I really enjoy the aesthetics that it allows.

I would really like to see each Prism instance maintain it's own profile. Right now they share the browser profile so you can't have two Prism windows open with different Gmail accounts for instance.<p>EDIT: It's on the wishlist, nice! <a href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/prism#Wishlist" rel="nofollow">https://wiki.mozilla.org/prism#Wishlist</a>

I used Prism for a bit, but I have dropped it. For apps like Gmail or Google Apps, I've found its easier to use Chrome instead, as the main goal is keeping Firefox's inevitable crashes from interrupting their function.<p>For Songza and Pandora, for which I was also using Prism, I've found Xenocode's Virtual Apps to be much better:<p><a href="http://www.xenocode.com/Music/" rel="nofollow">http://www.xenocode.com/Music/</a><p>I use their Pandora app on a daily basis.

Anyone have any ideas on redistribution? Fluid doesn't allow redistribution, but I love how you can create a "MenuExtra" that puts it into the Mac menu bar.<p>@ellyagg I can understand that not everyone thinks that this technology is a great idea, but for my audience this could be a huge win for me!

Silverlight doesn't have desktop apps as far as I know, so it doesn't compete in this realm.

Sounds interesting. But how does it add much more value than a website shortcut link on your desktop? Also, doesn't Windows XP have a "Links" toolbar option to access favorites from the toolbar?

I wish they'd put more effort into fixing the performance and font rendering issues with Firefox (esp. Mac version) instead. Sigh.