Hello.

There's a growing interest in using socket APIs directly within web browsers for various applications, both client-side and server-side. This post lists potential use-cases for outgoing and incoming socket connections, eliminating the need for proxying through web servers. Examples include email clients connecting directly to IMAP/POP3/SMTP, SSH/RDP clients, real-time communication tools like IRC and XMPP, P2P applications like BitTorrent, and direct connections to servers for various purposes like video streaming, Bitcoin, and game multiplayer functionality. For incoming connections, use-cases include hosting servers for many of the aforementioned services (IRC, BitTorrent, HTTP) directly within the browser.

Google Desktop Beta 2 is slowing down my computer significantly, affecting web browsing, IE7 tabbed browsing, and Blogger's editor. It also hogs CPU and makes Outlook integration and IMAP usage very slow. While the What's Hot widget and Gmail integration are nice, the lack of UK news and email ordering issues are disappointing. I plan to uninstall it soon.