I think creating a small application that is really just a wrapper for a browser engine could fix a number of Free’s issues. The window chrome with address bar, tabs, links and all that noise would be cleaned away. Shortcut collisions would be solved, and, maybe most of all, it would feel like a proper application and not a web app.
I think Spotify uses this technology.
For users this could be an alternative to run in in a tab in their browser.