Applications
An early example of an SSB was MacDICT, a Mac OS 9 application that accessed various web sites to define, translate, or find synonyms for words typed into a text box. A more current example is WeatherBug Desktop, which is a standalone client accessing information also available at the weatherbug.com website but configured to display real-time weather data for a user-specified location.
The first general purpose SSB is believed to be Bubbles which launched late 2005 on the Windows platform and later coined the term "Site Specific Extensions" for SSB userscripts and introduced the SSB Javascript API.
On 2 September 2008, the Google Chrome web browser was released for Windows operating systems. Although Chrome is a full featured browser using a WebKit based engine, it also contains a "Create application shortcut" menu item that adds the ability to create a stand-alone SSB window for any site. This is similar to Mozilla Prism (formerly WebRunner), now discontinued, but which is available as an add-on to the Firefox browser version 3.
Examples of applications of SSBs in various situations include:
- Social networking: dedicated application to access and use sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, or personal blog pages
- Email: dedicated to webmail sites such as Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo! Mail
- Business: customer relationship management (CRM) or ERP client for sites such as Salesforce.com, specific web/browser hybrid implementations such as Elements SBM or intranet pages from suites like those sold by Oracle or SAP
- Mapping: SSB specific to maps from providers like Google Maps, Mapquest, or Yahoo! Maps
- Retail: desktop portal to major retailers that are accessed frequently or consumer services such as Carfax or CNET
Read more about this topic: Site-specific Browser