Whatever Happened To the Integrated Web Browser for the Second Life Client?

Once upon a time, [w:Linden Lab] talked about integrating a web browser with the Second Life client. This, I thought, was big news - but then they mentioned that it was outsourced to a third party before they made the client [w:open source]. This, they said, was more difficult than they had thought, and seems to have been lost behind recent announcements of Voice and Windlight.

But then, avatar profiles have a working web tab. The help system uses a web browser. Isn't that an internal web browser?

I don't have the time right now to dig into the client's architecture (nevermind the charlie foxtrot of JIRA, worth an entry on its own when I need material) - but it would seem to me that breaking the functionality from the profile/help system would at least initiate a working web browser in SecondLife. Some would say that it is already there, but lacking a location bar.

Stick a location bar in. Suddenly you have a web browser that is actually... semi-useful. No bookmarks, etc.

Why am I so interested in this? It would make my life easier, and a fully integrated web browser like SeaMonkey was integrated, email and tabbed browsing would simply be right there. The client is [w:open source], it might be easy to run Seamonkey as a child process... but the trouble is in interprocess communications. Then it might get buggy.

It probably isn't that easy since that third party failed to integrate FireFox, but... this is a feature that would be good in a lot of different ways.

Filed under, "When I have time to work for free." Starving open source programmers are self-defeating. :-)