Fluid.app
I'm not going to lie. I thought it was a completely stupid idea to have a site specific browser. I started using Fluid.app about 2 weeks ago and it have grown to really like it. Over the last year, the advent of browser based RIA interfaces has made Firefox crash more than once when I was doing some work within the browser. I am a big google apps user along with a the Zimbra Suite for school. These tend to take up a lot of browser memory and over time, firefox tends to take up a significant amount of memory and becomes extremely choppy. This is where the SSB(site specific browser) comes in. I have mine setup for quick access to a few websites I use a lot.
Here is what it looks like:
- Gmail
- Wordpress-Admin!
- Google Reader
Some other sites I use with the SSD are Mint.com and Youtube ( This one actually saves me more memory than firefox would).
The Good : It is a fairly easy setup. Put the URL in for the app and put the application wherever you want on your
computer. It has also been well integrated with Gmail and Facebook and it shows badges of unread email or messages from
each inbox.
The feature that I really like is the option of converting the app from a normal window based app into a MenuExtra SSB - an SSB that exists only as an icon in your OS X system Status Bar and displays when you click the icon into a resizable window. This is very useful if you want to have Facebook chat or google chat within the SSD Frame. There is also an option for setting the web-app to a fullscreen window. I love having this feature for accessing my Wordpress dashboard. Blogging feels a lot better on a full screen as you have less things to distract you. In fact, I wrote this review from within a Fluid SSD! There is a library of icons available to give the SSD icon the custom look. You can always search through flickr or the internets to find what is right for you.
The Bad : I noticed if I have a lot of these open, they tend to eat similar amount os memory as a firefox window would, which sort of defeats the purpose of the SSB. It needs more frequent updates. Also I would like to see a more active plugin development system. The current plugins are pretty good, but it would be nice to implement something like Mozilla since this program is originally based from their Prism project.
Overall: This a great piece of software if you are all about the web-apps. I wish it were supported on multiple Operating systems as that would help manage web-apps better between,say Windows and Mac OS. The program is extremely easy to use and adds some color to my dock. Best of all the taskbar with multiple webapps running makes my life easier by instant access rather than having to open a browser.
Rating: ★★★★
Download Fluid @ www.fluidapp.com