So, the web is dead.  Or so says the latest cover of Wired Magazine.  I must admit, seeing this pronouncement (in bright orange!) pop out of my mailbox caused me to stop in my tracks.  But the hot Arizona sun soon had me scrambling for the cover of my comfortably AC’d house and I continued my pondering there.  Wired may just be onto something…

I have a fairly long history with internet-enabled apps.  My college days were full of telnet, FTP, and terminal-based email.  Then there were Gopher clients, some x-windows-based network apps, and Eudora.  Finally the web browser showed up.  I stopped using internet-aware apps and, like the rest of the world, fell into the laziness of believing that the web was the internet. All internet-enabled applications would from this point run within a browser – the defacto “operating system” of the internet.  This delusion continued until one day, when I was browsing the Apple App Store on my iPod Touch, I realized  I was looking at thousands of internet-enabled applications – none of which needed a browser.  The pendulum has started its swing back. The World Wide Web and the web-browser are slowly losing ground as the mobile world opts for more efficient, narrowly-purposed applications. 

What implications could this pendulum swing bring for internet security? Would the internet be a more secure place if the browser disappeared into obscurity?  I believe so.  Here’s why. 

1. I have one absolute, top security rule:  browser = insecurity.  Period.  While there has been a concerted effort by the browser community to make browsers more secure, you only need a brief glance at the breathtakingly long list of critical security updates for browsers.  Web-facing firewalls are one of the hottest IT security markets.  “Browser security” has been, and continues to be, an oxymoron. 
2. Internet-enabled apps running in Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android are showing much higher levels of security performance than their browser-base counterparts.  Apple and Google aren’t stupid.  They saw the debacle created by the lack of security in the browsers’ architectures.  While not perfect, their respective walled-garden approaches to managing internet-enabled applications are definitely a huge improvement over browser-based apps.
3. More cloud clients for the PC/Mac are appearing.  Just like their counterparts on the iPhone and Android platforms, security-conscience PC/Mac developers seem to be abandoning the insecure quagmire of browser-based AJAX and java script.  I admit that momentum here is slow and HTML 5 may go a long way to address developer angst.   However, with so much on the line for cloud computing, I believe that overtime, cloud providers will pitch the browser over the rail.  They are being held to providing near-perfect security, and browser insecurity will become a risk to high to bear. 

OK, back to the original question.  Is the web dead?  Wired’s hyperbole aside, no it isn’t, and it won’t be for a long time.  But as alternatives to the web browser arise, the internet becomes a safer place.  Of this, there can be no doubt.

So, the web is dead.  Or so says the latest cover of Wired Magazine.  I must admit, seeing this pronouncement (in bright orange!) pop out of my mailbox caused me to stop in my tracks.  But the hot Arizona sun soon had me scrambling for the cover of my comfortably AC’d house and I continued my pondering there.  Wired may just be onto something…

I have a fairly long history with internet-enabled apps.  My college days were full of telnet, FTP, and terminal-based email.  Then there were Gopher clients, some x-windows-based network apps, and Eudora.  Finally the web browser showed up.  I stopped using internet-aware apps and, like the rest of the world, fell into the laziness of believing that the web was the internet. All internet-enabled applications would from this point run within a browser – the defacto “operating system” of the internet.  This delusion continued until one day, when I was browsing the Apple App Store on my iPod Touch, I realized  I was looking at thousands of internet-enabled applications – none of which needed a browser.  The pendulum has started its swing back. The World Wide Web and the web-browser are slowly losing ground as the mobile world opts for more efficient, narrowly-purposed applications. 

What implications could this pendulum swing bring for internet security? Would the internet be a more secure place if the browser disappeared into obscurity?  I believe so.  Here’s why. 

1. I have one absolute, top security rule:  browser = insecurity.  Period.  While there has been a concerted effort by the browser community to make browsers more secure, you only need a brief glance at the breathtakingly long list of critical security updates for browsers.  Web-facing firewalls are one of the hottest IT security markets.  “Browser security” has been, and continues to be, an oxymoron. 
2. Internet-enabled apps running in Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android are showing much higher levels of security performance than their browser-base counterparts.  Apple and Google aren’t stupid.  They saw the debacle created by the lack of security in the browsers’ architectures.  While not perfect, their respective walled-garden approaches to managing internet-enabled applications are definitely a huge improvement over browser-based apps.
3. More cloud clients for the PC/Mac are appearing.  Just like their counterparts on the iPhone and Android platforms, security-conscience PC/Mac developers seem to be abandoning the insecure quagmire of browser-based AJAX and java script.  I admit that momentum here is slow and HTML 5 may go a long way to address developer angst.   However, with so much on the line for cloud computing, I believe that overtime, cloud providers will pitch the browser over the rail.  They are being held to providing near-perfect security, and browser insecurity will become a risk to high to bear. 

OK, back to the original question.  Is the web dead?  Wired’s hyperbole aside, no it isn’t, and it won’t be for a long time.  But as alternatives to the web browser arise, the internet becomes a safer place.  Of this, there can be no doubt.