10 Reasons The Browser Is Becoming The Universal OS

Extensible, mutable, and rapidly evolving thanks to open source roots, the Web browser reigns as a platform for users and developers alike, making it as near a universal operating system as you can get, InfoWorld’s Peter Wayner argues. ‘Despite these very legitimate plaints from OS geniuses, the browser is the dominant layer, the one nexus for software, the one switchboard where all power lies. It needs from the operating system a rectangle to draw the Web page, a bit of storage space, and a TCP/IP feed. It does everything else in a cross-platform way that is, when all is considered, relatively free of bugs and other issues. … Here are 10 reasons why the browser is now king.’