A decade-old concept of moving a desktop computer's everyday tasks onto the Web is gaining steam.

The idea of <A HREF="http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6174111.html?tag=nl.r23660">treating the Web like an operating system</A>--and loosening dependence on Windows desktop applications--dates back to the Netscape browser's debut in the mid-1990s.

Technically, so-called Web OS software still relies on an underlying operating system, like Windows or Linux, to translate a user's actions to hardware functions. But proponents of the Web OS or "Webtops" are bringing more end user computing into the Web browser, arguably making the choice of operating system less important.