Something that strikes fear into both the hearts of Microsoft and Apple are web apps, and it’s a huge reason why both companies are pushing for smartphone technologies so viciously (read: popular proprietary platform = profit).
The question of the moment per this article is: If you chose to do so, could you survive on nothing but web apps?
Before answering, if I asked this same question in 2007, the answer would be a flat-out no, but three years later now in 2010, the answer for most people is yes.
Let’s take a look at some common things people do with computers and see how well web apps fare out.
Office Apps
Google Docs was the online office suite of choice for a while, but a standard complaint is that it’s simply not feature-rich enough. Microsoft has answered this with Office Live. You do get Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote – all of which have the ribbon interface, speedy interface and an experience that truly does say “app” and not “watered down web version”. It’s true that Office Live does not replace the fully installed Office 2010, but for a free product, it’s tough to beat.
Possibly the best part about Office Live is that if someone sends you a DOCX file in email and you don’t have a locally installed Office Suite, no problem. Load up the DOCX into Office Live and you’re good to go.
An alternative to Office Live is ThinkFree. This option is as easy as it gets. As long as you have Java installed, simply click the big .doc button on the right sidebar, and an editor pops up. No signup needed. The only drawback is that ThinkFree is a rather large Java app, so the first time it loads will take time. Once loaded however, it’s darn good.
Instant Messaging
Every popular instant messenger has a web version. All that’s required to get to it is to simply login to the appropriate email account. For Windows Live Messenger, it’s Hotmail. For Yahoo! Messenger, it’s Yahoo! Mail, for Google Talk it’s Gmail.
If you’d rather have an all-in-one IM solution, the two best that I’ve seen are Meebo and Trillian Astra. Some of you may read that and say, “But Trillian is a program..” Yes, it is – but they also have a web version. Head on over to their site and check it out for yourself.
It also should be noted that smartphone users will particularly appreciate Trillian Astra, as it has native iPhone and Blackberry options.
IRC
IRC web-only solutions have been around for a long time, with one of the best being Mibbit. If your favorite IRC provider doesn’t allow Mibbit, it’s usually the case that they will offer their own web-based solution. For example, a popular IRC provider, EFnet, has a web-based login right on their home page. Other IRC providers have similar web-based options.
Video Conferencing
This is an area where using web apps to get this done is do-able, but not exactly convenient.
Y! Messenger and Windows Live Messenger web versions do not (as far as I’m aware) have video capability. Google Talk does have it, however it’s very limited.
The program o’ choice for most people that like video conferencing is Skype, however they do not offer a web version.
Your other choices for basic video conferencing are to use “stream” sites like Stickam and Ustream. Both allow for easy setup and have the ability to set private chat/video areas. It is 100% web-based, but the issue is that some may find setting up the whole thing to be a bit of a bear.
Part of the reason why there aren’t more web-based video conference options is because Flash is more or less the only way for a browser to access your webcam. Local apps like Y! Messenger and Windows Live can do direct-access to webcam hardware, but in the browser it needs Flash as the engine.
Photo Editing
A free online image editor that I recommend often is Pixlr Editor because it does not feel like a web-based app at all. When using it, it looks and acts just like a locally installed program – and those are the best kind of web apps to use.
Another popular option is Picnik. Flickr users already know Picnik very well, but even if you don’t use Flickr, there is no signup required to use the Picnik service. Just hit the big green button on their home page, upload a photo on the next page and you’re good to go from there. One huge perk about the Picnik service is that it’s accessible from Picasa, Flickr (obviously), MySpace, Facebook, PhotoBucket and several other major sites.
Video Editing
At this stage of the game, video editing via web apps hasn’t arrived just yet – but – this isn’t to say however that online video editing doesn’t exist. YouTube launched it just over a month ago – so right now this is brand spankin’ new bleeding-edge stuff.
If you want to try out the YouTube editor, login to YouTube then head to http://www.youtube.com/editor. Bear in mind it is very basic, very lightweight and very limited as to what you can do with it. Remember, it’s brand new. Be gentle. 
Can you survive on web apps alone?
Absolutely.
I’ll end this by saying that web apps do not outrun nor outgun local apps, and probably won’t for a good long while yet, but it’s not a bad idea to set up a “cloud-only” computing setup for yourself. All it takes is bookmarking a few choice sites and actually using the web apps on those sites to see if you can live 100% inside an environment like that.
Another really good reason to see if you can survive web-only in the app department is that if you can, the OS doesn’t matter at that point. In other words, it makes it much easier to dump Windows if you can do everything on the web.
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