Gallery: Get free web tools from the internet

Download the latest version of Mozilla Prism (version 0.9 at the time of writing). Do this by launching your web browser and typing http://wiki.mozilla.org/WebRunner into the address bar. Now scroll down the page slightly and click the Installer link in the Contents box. In the ‘Latest Version’ section, click the link for the version of Prism with the highest number, ensuring that the Windows edition of the program is selected. We advise choosing the ‘.exe’ version rather than the compressed ‘.zip’ file, because it will save a step. Save the installation file to the Windows Desktop, then double-click it to run through the installation.

After completing the installation process, launch Mozilla Prism from the Start menu. In the text box at the top of the dialogue box that appears, enter the address of the website that is to be converted into an ordinary application, such as www.googlemail.com for Google Mail. In the ‘Name’ box, enter a label that will make the shortcut easy to identify in future. Beneath this box are a number of tick boxes that can be used to choose which browser-like elements should be displayed in the program window (the online applications will still be running online: Prism makes them look like a normal program).

In the lower half of the dialogue box, tick any of the boxes in the ‘Create Shortcut’ section to indicate where shortcuts to the current web application should be placed. Beneath this is the ‘Icon’ section. In most instances, once the URL of the web application has been typed, a picture will be detected and displayed as the program’s icon. This will be the picture that appears to the left-hand side of the website address in the Address or Location bar of the browser - but not all sites provide one. If this isn’t the case, or an image stored on the hard disk would make a better icon, click the Settings button and select ‘Choose image’ from the menu that appears.

Now click one of the shortcuts you’ve created to launch the web application. Rather than loading in a traditional browser window, the application will instead launch in its own separate window. This not only means there are none of the distracting buttons usually found in a web browser, but also that when several web applications are running, they can be treated just like any other program. It’s possible to switch between web applications using buttons on the Windows Taskbar, or by using the Alt and Tab keyboard shortcut.

While application shortcuts can be manually created using the method mentioned in the previous steps, an automated method is available through the use of Prism Bundles, which are preconfigured Prism shortcuts that can be downloaded and customised to save time. Pay another visit to http://wiki.mozilla.org/WebRunner, scroll down the page and click the ‘Bundles’ link in the Contents box. Click one of the bundle links to run or open the file. It’s then possible to customise the name of the shortcut and choose an icon.

Although Prism runs web-based applications in a cut-down browser window (based on Firefox), it is still possible to access basic browser features such as printing. In the status bar of the Prism window, in the lower right-hand corner, click the cog icon. From here, pages can be printed out when required. Because Prism is based on Firefox, the Tools menu provides access to Firefox Add-ons (previously called Extensions), which can be used with Prism just as they can with the full version of Firefox.

Although Prism runs web-based applications in a cut-down browser window (based on Firefox), it is still possible to access basic browser features such as printing. In the status bar of the Prism window, in the lower right-hand corner, click the cog icon. From here, pages can be printed out when required. Because Prism is based on Firefox, the Tools menu provides access to Firefox Add-ons (previously called Extensions), which can be used with Prism just as they can with the full version of Firefox.