Ever fancied having an OS within a browser, so that there was a desktop waiting for you in every cybercafe or airport lounge in the world? If so, go to www.youos.com and grab yourself a free account. If you can’t be bothered to do that, just imagine a web page with a wallpaper background and a few icons you can click on, plus a drop down menu at the top left for icon haters.

Does this idea have legs?

I’m not exactly sure. It depends on how it evolves. It would be a good deal more impressive than it currently is, if it ran as the browser itself, rather than from within a window in the browser. The YouOS desktop has a (primitive) browser of its own and if you want to access Zoho you can put that url in the browser-within-a-browser and, at your request, it will open up a new tab in FireFox that displays Zoho. That’s fine, but it feels wrong.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that the idea doesn’t have legs – and it can’t swim either