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You have arrived at the web home of Noah Brier. I currently run Alephic, an AI-first strategy and software partner for marketing's most complex challenges. You can read more about me or get in touch. If you want more recent writing of mine, most of that is in my newsletters BRXND marketing x AI and Why Is This Interesting?, a daily email for the intellectually omnivorous.

April, 2005

Aha Moment: Firefox is Becoming My OS

Yesterday I installed another extension for Firefox. This one is called Foxytunes and allows you to control your MP3 software from Firefox. Installing the extension wasn't that big a deal and, honestly, the extension isn't that big a deal either. What was a big deal, however, was the aha moment I had right after I installed.

All of a sudden I realized that my browser was looking more and more like an operating system. The more extensions I installed, the less I ever had to go anywhere else. I could have lots of programs running in the background, all controlled with Firefox. It's a pretty amazing idea.

Then, this morning, as I was sitting on the toilet (where I do some of my best thinking), I realized that I've installed more extensions onto my computer than software. Thinking about the software I use at work, it's not a long list: mail, Word, PowerPoint (occasionally), Excel (occasionally), iCal, AIM, MSN Messenger, TextEdit and of course Firefox. That's nine programs. You know how many extensions I have installed at the moment? 13. Kind of interesting. Imagine five years ago telling someone you have installed more programs on your browser than you have on your OS.

Wow.

April 22, 2005
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Noah Brier | Thanks for reading. | Don't fake the funk on a nasty dunk.