Mozilla’s Prism Gets Some Competition on Macs

Some of you may remember a Mozilla tool released last October known as Prism. This prototype-stage software, originally released only for Windows, showed Firefox users where the evolution of web apps was headed; towards site-specific browsers (SSBs).

Although a Mac version was eventually released (as well as a Linux one), Prism's cross-platform intentions don't exactly make for a native-feel when run within Mac OS X. Now, to provide a more seamless desktop experience with SSBs for Mac users, Todd Ditchendorf has developed the Fluid app, solely for Mac OS X Leopard.

With Fluid, currently available in beta form, users can run any web app (i.e.: Gmail, Del.icio.us, Facebook, Flickr, etc.) as an independent desktop application, “complete with Dock icon, standard menu bar, and logical separation from your other web browsing activity.”

Ditchendorf admits that “Fluid is highly inspired by the excellent Prism project by Mozilla Labs,” but goes on further to say that “Prism forfeits one of the major benefits of Site Specific Browsers: making a webapp feel more like a native desktop app.” Where Prism is based Mozilla's Gecko web rendering engine, Fluid uses Safari's WebKit rendering engine, which creates seamless Mac integration by allowing each of a user's SSBs to run as a native Cocoa OS X application.

Additional features of Fluid include RSS/Atom feed detection, auto-software updates, optional tabbed browsing, browsing history, custom installation paths, and custom icons for each SSB. To keep SSBs dedicated to the specified site, clicking a link to an external site within an SSB instead opens the link using the default web browser.

As a friendly addition to get users started quickly, the Fluid download comes with Dock badges and Dock menus for Gmail, Facebook, Flickr, Google Reader, and Yahoo! Mail. 37signals has already provided custom icons for those who wish to use any of their web apps in conjunction with Fluid, and a Custom Fluid icons Flickr group has already been started as well.

More information about Fluid and a free download link can be found at the Fluid app homepage.