Some of us have been dreaming of the day we can finally press the delete button on Microsoft Word for good.

Nothing against Word, per se. It has served us well enough throughout the years. Maybe it is the challenge and change of view we’re looking for. The likelihood of a viable replacement grows stronger as you realize most everything you do on Word could also be done in Google Docs or Zoho …for free. However, the major hurdle of any web application is its reliance on an internet connection.

Now, with Gears recent beta release on Webkit-powered browsers, and webkit-powered Fluid for Mac which allows you to download local copies of websites to your desktop, have our dreams of keeping a desktop copy of a web app come true?

Almost.

We’re so close, we can taste it. As it stands, you can have a local copy of Google Docs which allows you to unplug from the internet and open, search, edit, tag, organize and save all of your documents.

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Google Inc is set to introduce on Tuesday a new Web browser designed to more quickly handle video-rich or other complex Web programs, posing a challenge to browsers designed originally to handle text and graphics.

officials confirmed news of long-rumored plans to offer its own Web browsing software, entitled Google Chrome, in a company blog post after it mistakenly mailed details of the plan to a Google-watching blog, called Blogoscoped.com.

The company statement calls the move “a fresh take on the browser” and said it will be introducing a public trial of the Web browser for Microsoft Corp Windows users on Tuesday. Details can be found at http://tinyurl.com/gchrome/.

The Internet search leader is also working on versions for Apple Macintosh users and for Linux devices, it said.

The launch of Chrome coincides with the recent introduction by arch-rival Microsoft of its Internet Explorer 8 last month. Internet Explorer holds roughly three-quarters of the browser market, followed by Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple Inc’s Safari browsers.

Google said its engineers have borrowed from a variety of other open-source projects, including Apple’s WebKit and the Mozilla Firefox open-source browser. As a result, Google plans to make all of Chrome software code open to other developers to enhance and expand, the company said.

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this February, Google released its Social Graph API, which allows developers to give users the option to easily find data on their social connections around the web. Google itself, however, hasn’t really implemented any of this technology yet. Starting today, however, it seems Google is starting to surface some of this information from your Social Graph in your Google Profile, which might be a first sign that Google is planning to do more with these profiles than it has done so far. Google has also started implementing the hCard microformat there. The first person to noticed this was Chris Messina.

Google’s Social Graph API harnesses this information from XFN and FOAF data that is published by Wordpress, Twitter, or any other social network or blog that wants to implement these open standards.

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Adobe Photoshop Express

Pros

• Visually based image editing helps newbies
• Easy to use

Cons

• Uploads limited by file size and dimensions

Express offers only a smattering of effects, compared with the dozens found in most of the services reviewed. You can’t even add text to an image, let alone frame your picture in a border. And you have no way to layer multiple photos. It feels as if Adobe has halfway completed a potentially top-notch photo editor (at this writing, Photoshop Express is still labeled as a beta). Read More

Picture 2 Life

Pros

• Jam-packed with features
• Collages, slideshows, photo sharing

Cons

• Frustrating user interface
• Sluggish

Picture2Life is full of stuff, including one of the longest special effects lists among the editors in our chart. A unique collage creator. Picture2Life’s Flickr-import interface is so confusing that I thought I’d failed to do the job when I’d actually succeeded. Picture2Life automatically downsamples your high-res photographs, a step that speeds up image processing; you can override it, but only up to 1600 by 1200 pixels. I wouldn’t bother, though, since other services match most of Picture2Life’s capabilities without the hassles. Read More

Pros

• Tons of photofinishing features
• Goodies such as fonts and clip art

Cons

• Byzantine interface
• No undo for some features

FlauntR is a veritable eye-candy store crammed with effects, fonts, clip art, borders, and other tools. It can create slide shows and prep images to be social-network avatars or cell-phone wallpaper. You can apply color schemes from famous paintings to your images, create electronic greeting cards, or even slap your photo on a mock magazine cover. FlauntR works only on Windows PCs. FlauntR is nowhere near as frustrating as Picture2Life, but it lacks the elegance and efficiency of FotoFlexer, Photoshop Express, and Picnik. At least FlauntR doesn’t claim to be ready for prime time: Although it appeared in 2007, it’s still labeled an alpha release. Read More

Picnik

Pros

• Integrates with multiple photo sharing sites
• Good selection of standard editing tools

Cons

• Color and exposure auto-fixes are conservative

Picnik certainly takes its name to heart: Its sleek tabbed interface has a blue-sky background and blades of grass, and it claims to be picking blackberries, buttering sandwiches, and cueing up birdsongs as it loads. But the service’s playful personality belies its serious capabilities. In fact, of the six online photo editors I reviewed for PC World, Picnik’s free version is my top pick–even without some features available only in the $25-a-year Premium edition. Read More

SplashUp

Pros

• Photoshop-like layer and selection tools.

Cons

• Relatively few effects; no online help
• Speed and reliability issues

If an award existed for “Web Image Editor Most Likely to Be Mistaken for Photoshop,” Splashup (formerly known as Fauxto) would win in a cakewalk. Drop-down menus, floating tool palettes, and multiple features are located exactly as in Adobe’s flagship product. That’s not an inherent plus, though–after all, Photoshop is notorious for having a less-than-intuitive interface, and I found FotoFlexer and Picnik easier to navigate.

Splashup was less sprightly and more glitchy than some rivals. Images in a Flickr album appeared slowly, and sometimes didn’t open at all. Splashup’s creators say a new version is in the works. But for now, unless you’re a fanatical devotee of the Photoshop approach to things, FotoFlexer and Picnik have more to offer. Read More

Every other applications has itz on pros and cons, FotoFlexer and Picnik seam to be leading the race with some better known features. Let us all wait for there final release to decide on the best from the list.