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Don't be frightened, but evil and frustration lurks in your web browser. Yeah, that same seemingly benign and ultra flexible tool that you're using to read these words has a dark side. Something you probably don't think about much, because you're numb to it. It's hidden in plain sight, so hard to see because it's everywhere, filling your day on the web with a nameless angst. Lest you write me off as a nutty zealot, I cease my babble and reveal the little bugger:

Looks innocent, doesn't he? Melodrama aside, it's really a terrible experience using browse boxes to upload 20 pictures. My pictures are usually named IMG_4087.JPG or something equally descriptive, and furthermore they're usually tucked away in one or more places that I'm not used to browsing -- but often I can click over to them pretty fast. It's even worse when they stack these guys 10 deep and expect us to spend more time finding the photos than it takes to upload them!

A proposed solution

About a week ago Yahoo! proposed a solution to this mess. The PhotoDrop application lets you upload pictures to Flickr by dragging and dropping them into your web browser. You can drag any number of pictures at once, and without any delays you get a preview of the pictures you've selected. Furthermore you can rotate, scale, crop, and apply filters to these pictures all right on your desktop without talking to any servers or watching a spinning beachball (or rotating hourglass, if you're so inclined).

This solution is based on a new technology released by Yahoo! called BrowserPlus™. The cool thing about the technology is that it will soon be open for anyone to use, so that regardless of where you spend your time on the net, the folks who build the websites that you use will be able to make your uploads faster, and let you do a whole lot more right there in your browser.

Finally, BrowserPlus is a piece of software that you have to download and install, and a lot of us are weary about installing plug-ins. That's the bad news. The good news is that you only have to install it once. Having done so any number of sites that use it can run without interrupting your browsing. We're focused on making this first time install as painless as possible, and at the same time keeping BrowserPlus lightweight and secure. So check out the prototype and let us know what you think! till the next, lloyd

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