We’ve got something special for you this week! The first ever Free Line Three Part Report. During the next three days we’re going to cover productivity tools you can use online. All of them for free, and all web 2.0 powered. For the first part we’re going to explore Online Desktops, or “web tops” These are desktops similar to Windows, Linux and OSX that you run right in your web browser, but without downloading software or partitioning your hard drive.

First up is EyeOS. EyeOS is completely free in every sense of the word. You’ll never pay to use this system, and it’s built completely on Open Source code. You can even download the source code to EyeOS and put it on your company’s own server, providing your LAN with a shared desktop experience. Of course, Eye OS is clunkier than the other web operating systems, and sports some useless applications, including a web browser to be viewed inside your web browser. Just thinking about that makes my head hurt.

Then we’ve got YouOS. This web-top has all the features of EyeOS plus some extra tools like an application editor, that lets you write programs especially for the YouOS environment. So far over 700 applications have been written with its API. The downside is the graphics- YouOS has one of the worst looking interfaces I’ve ever see. It even makes Windows 95 look pretty.

Next up is the iCube Online Operating System. It’s the easiest Web OS to use and its look and functionality will be very familiar to Windows users. One unfortunate similarity to Windows however, is all the unknown errors that popped up when we tested it in Firefox. Maybe Microsoft isn’t the best role model for creating a stable operating system.

Glide OS on the other hand, probably considers itself more of a Mac than a PC. The look and feel is very similar to OSX, but it’s built to be technology independent, with different GUIs for different platforms. For instance, when you log in from your computer, the interface is a beautiful Flash environment. But when you log in through your iPhone or other mobile device, the interface is built in HTML, so it looks a little different, but all of the functionality is still there. With Glide OS you can do everything from creating Word documents, to editing photos, to blogging and web design, as well as hold meetings from the online desktop. And to top it all off, you can now run it offline, directly from your real Mac, Windows, Linux or Solaris desktop, multiple desktops in fact, and all of your data stays synchronized. Glide offers a free account which gives you up to 5 gb of space for storing files, and paid accounts if you need more room. So far Glide OS is the winner in the next generation of Desktop Software.

And finally, bringing the evolution of operating systems full circle, check out this online emulation of DOS. That’s right MS DOS. Kids, go ask you grandpa. This is what home computing looked like before there even was a desktop concept, or windows for that matter. It’s built with AJAX, and along with many of the old MS DOS commands, it includes some new tricks, like using Google’s API to perform a search. I command prompt you to check it out.

Tune in Tomorrow to check out our Part 2 in this three part series!