Browser is the OS? The other way around!

The slogan "the browser is the OS" has long become a cliche. However, the HTTP VFS proves that it is all the other way around: the OS is the browser!

Indeed, consider what happens when you enter "cd http:remote.host" in the MC, highlight an index.html file and try to view it. The OS (MC in this case) opens a connection to the remote.host, fetches the file, caches it locally, and launches lynx in the local mode to interpret the HTML content of this local file. Thus a back-end of a web browser that deals with networking, caching, etc. becomes a part of the OS itself. Just as FTP, DNS, DHCP are all a part of the "standard TCP stack", so should HTTP. An HTML formatter, the front-end of a web browser, becomes therefore a mere viewer of a particular (HTML) content, just as xv is a viewer of the image/gif content, and less is a default PAGER of text/plain files.

Thus

• let lynx do what it was designed to do in the first place: interpret a particular -- HTML -- content;
   
• let a file manager strive for its intended purpose: to present and manage collections and nested structures of things, without being concerned with their content and interpretations;
   
• let an OS do what it was meant to do: move chunks of things around, cache and store them -- oblivious to the content of the chunks and their hierarchy.