OStatic

Though the Opera browser isn't open source, it's free and its new server-in-a-browser feature, Unite, is really making significant inroads toward online collaboration. If Chrome and Firefox are to keep their edge over Opera, their development teams had better sit up and take notice.

Opera's Unite technology lets users run chat rooms, host Web sites, and share files that even people not using Opera can access. The interaction is all done via a central Opera Unite server ? Opera Unite uses a proxy between the server and its clients (found at operaunite.com) to avoid the need for any special firewall configuration, writes the development team. Unite launched today with six features but is calling on the Opera community to design and create any new services they'd like to see available.

Read on to have a look at what Opera unite can already do and why Google and Mozilla haven't cornered the market on browsers just yet.

The Flock browser is one of those things you either get right away or scratch your head and wonder why anyone would use it. It's not as visually clean as other browsers, but if you're steeped in social media or crazy about Flickr and YouTube then you'll love Flock the second you fire it up. It's also just the answer if you're tired of juggling dozens of apps, tabs, or windows to keep track of what's happening on Twitter and Facebook while watching a video of a cat playing piano and flipping through pictures of penguins.

Fresh out of the Mozilla Labs oven this week is a beta version of Prism, a new incarnation of WebRunner that integrates Web applications with the desktop. The idea behind Prism starts with from the premise that as more people move their computing activities to the cloud, users will become increasingly dependent on Web apps designed to replace locally-based email, calendaring, and word processing.

According to Mike Arrington at TechCrunch, several sources say that the Mozilla-based social browser, Flock, will soon shed its Mozilla code base and start using Google's Chrome framework for future releases.

Flock's CEO, Shawn Hardin, responded to Arrington's post, saying that the browser's upcoming 2.1 release is being developed, and will be released with, its traditional Mozilla underpinnings. Hardin does not explicitly say that Flock will move to Chrome, only that the browser space has been heating up rapidly in the last few months, and that the Flock development team will continue to make architectural decisions that balance what's best for our users and what's best for Flock as a business.

By way of PCWorld comes word that Mozilla Labs will release its Test Pilot project in the next few weeks.

Test Pilot's ultimate goal is to collect data on how people use Firefox (or any Mozilla based code, extension, or add-on). While word-of-mouth and formal usability testing are effective in developing and improving features, they rely heavily on getting the word out, getting feedback in return, and tend to attract the same demographic (power-users, or early adopters, for instance). Test Pilot aims to make usability testing private, open, and easy -- with participation and the type of information shared remaining completely optional and up to the user's discretion.