What next for browsers and cloud computing?

The Future of Web Apps event discussed the prospects for the web and the cloud

The Future of Web Apps conference in London this week heard several theories about the future of browsers and cloud computing.

Mozilla's head of user experience, Asa Raskin, said that the web is changing. First it became more social and now it is becoming what he described as "you centric".

The comments come just a week after Yahoo's launch of its $100m (£63m) global rebranding campaign, dubbed Y!ou, geared to delivering more personally relevant online experiences to users.

The browser world will develop similarly, with Mozilla leading the way, according to Raskin. Unlike Microsoft's Internet Explorer, still the world's most popular browser, the direction of Mozilla's development has always been led by people, Raskin said, claiming that 40 per cent of the code comes from outside the organisation.

Raskin suggested that future browsers will deal with a lot more of the complexities users face on a day-to-day basis. For example, browsers will soon remove the need for users to log in to as many web sites, offering just one general login instead, he said.

More security will be built in to protect users from fraud and phishing scams, Raskin added, and browsers will be programmed to know a user's contacts scattered through a variety of social networks and emails, as well as a user's preferred method for connecting with each contact.

However, Raskin said that this changing internet environment will see the breaking down of traditional security models and the formation of new ones. A browser programmed to know a user's contacts can allow that user to "turn their security problems into people problems", he said.

"For example, if an application is used by three of a user's contacts, they are likely to have more trust in it," Raskin claimed.

Browsers will also put people in contact with information more quickly. For example, applications will be able to be translated a lot faster. "Tasks at the moment are disjointed, with information far apart," he said. "No wonder there is a digital divide!"

Meanwhile, Simon Wardley, software services manager at free software firm Canonical, discussed the future of the cloud at the conference.

He suggested that standards for cloud computing are inevitable as users need standardisation in order to switch between providers. Wardley said that it made most sense for the standard to be developed on Amazon's EC2 cloud architecture, as this is the most common in the industry.

He also warned attendees that open-source cloud standards are vital if the internet is to remain free, and to avoid one vendor controlling the internet.

"Either the cloud is based on open source or you'll risk losing internet freedoms," he said.