An Internet operating system, or Internet OS, is any type of operating system designed to run all of its applications and services through an Internet client,[ citation needed ] generally a web browser. The advantages of such an OS would be that it would run on a thin client , allowing cheaper, more easily manageable computer systems; it would require all applications to be designed on cross-platform, open standards; and would not tie a user's applications, documents, and preferences to a single computer, but rather place them in the Internet cloud. The Internet OS has also been promoted as the perfect type of platform for software as a service.
Talk of an Internet OS began to surface in 1995 as the browser war started heating up between Microsoft and Netscape.
In response to the limited capabilities of HTML at the time, Microsoft began developing an online content authoring platform that would be based on distributed OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) which it codenamed Blackbird. Using OLE, applications put on the web would contain their own processing logic, so would act similar to applications in a typical desktop environment. [1] Immediately, there were concerns that this would tie the web to proprietary Microsoft technology that wouldn't be guaranteed to run across different systems. [2]
As a challenge, Marc Andreessen of Netscape announced a set of new products that would help transform their browser into what he called an "Internet OS" that would provide the tools and programming interfaces for a new generation of Internet-based applications. The so-called "Internet OS" would still run on top of a regular OS – being based around Netscape Navigator – but he dismissed desktop operating systems like Windows as simply "bag[s] of drivers", [3] reiterating that the goal would be to "turn Windows into a mundane collection of not entirely debugged device drivers". [4]
Andreessen explained that the newest versions of Navigator were not just web browsers, but suites of Internet applications, including programs for mail, FTP, news, and more, and would come with viewers for a variety of document types, like Adobe Acrobat, Apple QuickTime, and Sun Java applets, which would give it programming interfaces and publishing tools for developers. Netscape also would continue to sell its server software, and Java applets would run cross-platform on both its clients and its servers, and as a scripting language in the form of JavaScript. They would also provide facilities for backend transaction processing, elaborating the client/server model with navigating clients and application servers and database servers. [5] He pointed out – because of the broad capabilities that all of this gave their browser – the only difference technically between Netscape Navigator and a traditional operating system is that Navigator didn't include device drivers. [6]
Technical problems with Blackbird, the growth of the web, and what they saw as competitive statements from Netscape, soon led Microsoft to rethink their strategy and they began to position OLE as a primary tool within Netscape's proposed ecosystem. [7] OLE would now be embeddable in web pages using an ActiveX plug-in, and would be easily integrated on the server side using ASP (Active Server Pages) development.
Opposition in the industry to Microsoft began to grow, as did the concept of an "Internet OS", and this led to the formation of an alliance around developing Java as an alternative to Windows – the chief partners being Netscape, Sun, Oracle, and IBM. These companies were informally referred to in the industry press as the "Gang of Four". Novell later joined the alliance, leading it to be called the "Gang of Five". [8]
In May 1997, the group published a position paper which discussed integration of software component models within CORBA – a commonly used architecture allowing computer applications from different vendors running on different systems to work together over networks. From this, they then issued several RFPs (Request for Proposals) to the Object Management Group (OMG), the standards body responsible for managing CORBA, meant to help integrate different aspects of Java. The proposals included support for JavaBeans – the serialized, component architecture of Java – and for JavaScript. [9] In what was called the "Java-tization of CORBA", the group was positioning Java to be a distributed object architecture, similar to what Microsoft had intended with OLE in Blackbird. OLE would only exist as a second-class technology that would interface through CORBA using JavaBeans. [10]
The group also promoted the idea of a JavaOS – a minimal, Java-based operating system – which would in turn run Netscape's web browser, and through the browser run JavaBeans components. This would be the front for a new ecosystem based on open standards; first, HTML in the web browser; and second, Java, which they hoped would become widely adopted through CORBA. JavaOS would be hosted on a Network Computer (or NC), a concept long advocated by Oracle. The NC would be a thin client designed only for Internet use, leaving it to access applications and documents stored entirely online. Oracle saw its role as providing tools for the server layer, where network-hosted applications would be provided through the Network Application Server, which in turn would make use of both Oracle7 relationship database management system and the Oracle Web Server. Oracle also outlined what was referred to as the Network Computing Architecture (NCA), which would separate presentation, application and data access logic into Java applets or NCA cartridges. [11]
Microsoft and Intel in response to this challenge put forward a standard for a competing model called the NetPC, a diskless PC that would be primarily adapted to web browser use and would run a simplified version of Windows 95, codenamed Pegasus. Later down the road, this idea evolved into the Netbook. Microsoft publicly criticized the idea of an Internet OS, and instead argued that the traditional desktop OS should be Internet-enabled, the beginning of the idea for Active Platform, an Internet strategy that culminated later in the release of Windows 98. This strategy, which involved tightly bundling Internet Explorer in Windows, became the center of a United States antitrust suit against Microsoft. All of the Gang of Five – Netscape, Sun, IBM, Oracle, and Novell – were involved in lobbying for antitrust action against Microsoft. [12]
By 1998, the Java alliance started to fall apart. Oracle continued developing server-side Java databases but had given up the idea of the network computer and Netscape had given up on their Java browser efforts, instead aiming to position themselves as an Internet portal. Pressure from investors was given the blame. [13]
Google revived the idea of the Internet OS in 2009 with the development of ChromeOS, a Linux-based operating system designed to work exclusively with AJAX-based web applications. The operating system was designed to look and operate like the Chrome web browser and be sold on laptops developed with partners, called Chromebooks. They also promoted G Suite, their suite of web applications, as an alternative to traditional desktop software such as Microsoft Office.
Google has tried to address standard criticisms of the Internet OS concept with its development projects. Google Native Client allows a browser to run Intel x86 native code in a sandbox, so that more complex programs could run that more fully take advantage of a system's hardware. Google Gears was also created to allow offline access of online applications, although this is being deprecated in favour of web storage, a model in the process of standardization by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
ChromiumOS is the development version of ChromeOS, but until ChromeOS, ChromiumOS principal user interface is the Chromium web browser rather, which is fully free and open-source, rather than the commercial Google Chrome web browser version. As such ChromiumOS does therefor not ship any of Google's branding and proprietary cloud services preinstalled.
Java applets were small applications written in the Java programming language, or another programming language that compiles to Java bytecode, and delivered to users in the form of Java bytecode. The user launched the Java applet from a web page, and the applet was then executed within a Java virtual machine (JVM) in a process separate from the web browser itself. A Java applet could appear in a frame of the web page, a new application window, Sun's AppletViewer, or a stand-alone tool for testing applets.
Netscape Navigator was a proprietary web browser, and the original browser of the Netscape line, from versions 1 to 4.08, and 9.x. It was the flagship product of the Netscape Communications Corp and was the dominant web browser in terms of usage share in the 1990s, but by around 2003 its user base had all but disappeared. This was partly because the Netscape Corporation did not sustain Netscape Navigator's technical innovation in the late 1990s.
Netscape Communications Corporation was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California, and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was once dominant but lost to Internet Explorer and other competitors in the so-called first browser war, with its market share falling from more than 90 percent in the mid-1990s to less than 1 percent in 2006. An early Netscape employee Brendan Eich created the JavaScript programming language, the most widely used language for client-side scripting of web pages and a founding engineer of Netscape Lou Montulli created HTTP cookies. The company also developed SSL which was used for securing online communications before its successor TLS took over.
A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on a range of devices, including desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. In 2020, an estimated 4.9 billion people used a browser. The most used browser is Google Chrome, with a 65% global market share on all devices, followed by Safari with 18%.
ActiveX is a deprecated software framework created by Microsoft that adapts its earlier Component Object Model (COM) and Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) technologies for content downloaded from a network, particularly from the World Wide Web. Microsoft introduced ActiveX in 1996. In principle, ActiveX is not dependent on Microsoft Windows operating systems, but in practice, most ActiveX controls only run on Windows. Most also require the client to be running on an x86-based computer because ActiveX controls contain compiled code.
A browser war is competition for dominance in the usage share of web browsers. The "first browser war," (1995-2001) pitted Microsoft's Internet Explorer against Netscape's Navigator. Browser wars continued with the decline of Internet Explorer's market share and the popularity of other browsers including Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, Microsoft Edge and Opera.
Spyglass, Inc. was an Internet software company. It was founded in 1990, in Champaign, Illinois, as an offshoot of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, and later moved to Naperville, Illinois. Spyglass was created to commercialize and support technologies from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). It focused on data visualization tools, such as graphing packages and 3D rendering engines.
A rich web application is a web application that has many of the characteristics of desktop application software. The concept is closely related to a single-page application, and may allow the user interactive features such as drag and drop, background menu, WYSIWYG editing, etc. The concept was first introduced in 2002 by Macromedia to describe Macromedia Flash MX product. Throughout the 2000-s, the term was generalized to describe web applications developed with other competing browser plugin technologies including Java applets, Microsoft Silverlight.
Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface (NPAPI) was an application programming interface (API) of the web browsers that allows plugins to be integrated.
Push technology or server push is a style of Internet-based communication where the request for a given transaction is initiated by the publisher or central server. It is contrasted with pull/get, where the request for the transmission of information is initiated by the receiver or client.
In computing, Java Web Start is a deprecated framework developed by Sun Microsystems that allows users to start application software for the Java Platform directly from the Internet using a web browser. The technology enables seamless version updating for globally distributed applications and greater control of memory allocation to the Java virtual machine.
The World Wide Web is a global information medium which users can access via computers connected to the Internet. The term is often mistakenly used as a synonym for the Internet, but the Web is a service that operates over the Internet, just as email and Usenet do. The history of the Internet and the history of hypertext date back significantly farther than that of the World Wide Web.
Oracle Secure Global Desktop (SGD) software provides secure access to both published applications and published desktops running on Microsoft Windows, Unix, mainframe and IBM i systems via a variety of clients ranging from fat PCs to thin clients such as Sun Rays.
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. It further provides for the capture or input of information which may be returned to the presenting system, then stored or processed as necessary. The method of accessing a particular page or content is achieved by entering its address, known as a Uniform Resource Identifier or URI. This may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content. Hyperlinks present in resources enable users easily to navigate their browsers to related resources. A web browser can also be defined as an application software or program designed to enable users to access, retrieve and view documents and other resources on the Internet.
A site-specific browser (SSB) is a software application that is dedicated to accessing pages from a single source (site) on a computer network such as the Internet or a private intranet. SSBs typically simplify the more complex functions of a web browser by excluding the menus, toolbars and browser chrome associated with functions that are external to the workings of a single site. These applications are typically started by a desktop icon which is usually a favicon.
Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS, iOS, and also for Android, where it is the default browser. The browser is also the main component of ChromeOS, where it serves as the platform for web applications.
Blackbird was the codename for an online content authoring platform developed by Microsoft in the mid-90s. Intended to be the online publishing tool for the first version of MSN, "Blackbird" was born of a Microsoft acquisition of Daily Planet Software, and the tool was first conceived prior to the advent of the Internet and Web as we know it today. At the time, AOL and CompuServe were the primary online venues, and the introduction of the Web to mass consumers was about to begin, even as low-bandwidth, dialup connections dominated. "Blackbird" was based on the concept of an object-based backend file system in Microsoft Data Centers, a low-bandwidth-streaming rendering client with page-based layout and embedded interactive client-side ActiveX objects. Fundamentally, it was based on the SGML standard for client-side layout. It became a Microsoft-promoted alternative to HTML for a brief time, just as the commercial Internet and Web Browser were born. But with scripting capability for HTML yet to be demonstrated, it was to be a means to serve dynamic, media-rich applications and documents that contained processing logic, similar to what a user would experience in a desktop environment. Pages in a "Blackbird application" would be able to contain video, audio, graphs, and other OLE based document formats without the need of plug-ins.
The Active Platform was the name of a development platform released by Microsoft in the 90s for creating web applications and delivering them to a PC desktop environment. The platform consisted of three parts: ActiveDesktop, which would use push technology to deliver the web applications to the desktop; ActiveServer, which would provide server side scripting; and ActiveX, a set of technologies created to allow software components on different machines to communicate with each other using COM and OLE.
Chrome Remote Desktop is a remote desktop software tool, developed by Google, that allows a user to remotely control another computer's desktop through a proprietary protocol also developed by Google, internally called Chromoting. The protocol transmits the keyboard and mouse events from the client to the server, relaying the graphical screen updates back in the other direction over a computer network. This feature therefore consists of a server component for the host computer, and a client component on the computer accessing the remote server. Note that Chrome Remote Desktop uses a unique protocol, as opposed to using the common Remote Desktop Protocol.