I don't think web browsers will go away with the next big evolution of the web, but I wouldn't be surprised if browsers are re-invented at some point to better fit with how we surf the Internet.
Not that web browsers haven't changed since they first appeared. They have gone through massive changes, but it has been a gradual process with new ideas like Java, Javascript, ActiveX, Flash, and other add-ons creeping into the browser.
One thing I learned as a programmer was that when an application evolves in ways that it wasn't originally developed for, it starts to get clunky. At this point, it's often best to just start over from scratch and design something that takes into account everything you want it to do.
And it's high time this was done for the web browser. In fact, when I first started programming web applications back in the late 90's, I thought it was high time back then to create a totally new web browser. And the web has gotten a lot more sophisticated since then.
Web Browsers Are Ill-equipped To Do What We Want
It's true. Web browsers are horribly designed when you consider what we ask them to do these days. To understand this, you have to first understand that web browsers were originally designed to be, essentially, a word processor for the web. The markup language for the web is strikingly similar to markup languages for word processors. While Microsoft Word uses special character to designate to bold certain text or to change its font, it is doing basically the same thing: Start Bold. Text. End Bold. Which is the same thing we do with HTML.
What has happened over the last twenty years is that this word processor for the web has been modified to account for everything we want it to do. It's like a house where we've turned the garage into a den, and the attic into a spare bedroom, and the basement into a parlor, and now we want to connect the storage room out back and make it into a new room in the house -- but, we are going to run into all kinds of problems providing electricity and plumbing because all of our wires and pipes have gotten so crazy with all the other additions we've made.
Phew! That was a crazy run-on sentence. But, hopefully you get the point. That's what has happened to web browsers. Today, we want to use our web browsers as a client for a web application, but they really weren't meant to do that.
Ajax is a Band-Aid and Web Browsers are the Operating Systems of the Future
