I just came across Spoon. This site has nothing to do with kitchen utensils, but everything with running desktop apps from the web, without having to install them. (You do have to install a browser plugin, but then you’re ready to go)

I found them while I was searching for a so-called browser sandbox, a way to see what my website looks like in the various browsers used on the Net, without having to install them all myself. Google got me to this page where I can run ‘the big 5′ (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera & IE) straight from my browser. This alone already had me email the entire development department at the office since they quite often need a feature like that.

Then I noticed that browsers are only a small part of the possibilities at Spoon. All kinds of apps are supported, and also quite a game collection.
Granted, most of the apps & games offered are either free, or demo versions, but still…

A very cool feature, which IMHO Spoon does not mention enough on their site is that all settings from the apps are stored between sessions! So if you run for example Google Earth at Spoon, and create some placemarks, they will be there the next time you fire up the Google Earth app from the same PC!
(Would be interesting to make these locally stored settings also mobile… Perhaps with Dropbox? Worth giving a try…)

Kudos to Spoon for this refreshing take on portable apps! Keep up the good work