A software package a day: Prism

If you use a lot of web applications you may find that some of the best don’t have strong support for the “back” button and other browser chrome. They are usable, but all that extra user interface is actually “in the way”. Prism provides a way to run such applications while leaving the browser chrome behind. This creates a cleaner presentation and avoids accidental “back” button mishaps.

The software is simply a Firefox extension which allows you to create a shortcut on your desktop or elsewhere. When you run the shortcut Prism launches the URL specified in the aforementioned chrome free window. One of the nice side effects of this is that the web application appears in your task bar with a title that makes sense, making it just another application that you have open. So far I haven’t seen any incompatibilities and I have left applications running for days without issue.