[mwcampbell]

On OS X, a little Cocoa application in Objective-C using the system WebKit framework would probably do the trick.

On Linux, a little GTK application in C using WebKitGTK would probably work.

On Windows... I don't know. I know from firsthand that embedding the IE engine via the WebBrowser ActiveX control really sucks. I'm going to see if the WebKit WinCairo port is any good these days.

If we must use CHromium, then the Chromium Embedded Framework is worth a look. It's a DLL, so in principle, it can be shared between applications. You'd still need some platform-specific code to create the window containing CEF, though.

[monkmartinez]

All these "little native applications" require lots of work. If I want to share these "little applications" with people that do not share my OS, I am forced to make at least 2 different versions of the "little application"... then maintain them.

Good enough, is good enough. Yes, the web is not as performant as native... the question becomes; is it good enough? The bonus in wrapping Chrome is that I don't have to dive into 3 or more system level API's to get a "little application" up and running.