This Online Paint Program's As Good As Any Windows App

If you need evidence that the humble web browser, and the HTML language, has finally grown up, look no further than online drawing/painting programs such as Picnik (www.picnik.com).  No longer is the browser simply a program to display text and the occasional image, but it's now a complete environment in whch to run complex programs.  Hence Google's forthcoming Chrome OS, of course, which in reality is little more than a bootable browser and a TCP/IP stack.

The first generation of online hosted apps, such as Google Docs, were mostly text-based.  But nowadays they can do graphics too.  The aforementioned picnik was one of the first, but there are now many others.  One of the best, in my opinion, is Sumo Paint (www.sumopaint.com).  As you can see from the screen shot below, you'd be hard-pressed not to think that this isn't a locally-installed Windows or Mac application.

But it's not.  It's just a web site, which you can use for free in order to create new images or upload/edit existing ones.  If you have an account on the system you can save your work there, otherwise just download the file to your PC when you've finished editing it.

Sumo Paint is a stunning example of just how far the web has evolved.  My thanks to user "AJ" for pointing it out to me.