Google Gears!

I had heard that the next major version of Firefox – The Gran Paradiso will support offline applications. Though it still is in aplha mode, Google has already started to embrace this feature in their recent release of Google Gears which, as per Google is an open source browser extension that enables web applications to provide offline functionality using following JavaScript APIs:

  • Store and serve application resources locally
  • Store data locally in a fully-searchable relational database
  • Run asynchronous Javascript to improve application responsiveness

Google Gears will enable you to read the most recent messages from Gmail while offline or to edit your documents in Google Docs even without a network connection.

Google Reader is the first Google application powered by Gears. To enter the offline mode, just click on the small arrow and all the recent feed items are downloaded to your computer. You can disconnect from the Internet or click on “work offline” in your browser and you will still be able to read your favorite feeds in Google Reader. Like in any feed reader installed on your computer. Well, almost, because Google Reader doesn’t download images or other multimedia files embedded in the posts.

Talk of offline support for web applications in browers? It’s right here!!!

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 31st, 2007 at 12:09 pm and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Google Gears!”

  1. Rohan Says:
    June 1st, 2007 at 11:07 pm

    I think there was a similar initiative by DOJO Open toolkit.
    And with this i guess there will be little difference between client server and web apps. We would have exciting, cheeper and more wonderful apps coming up soon on the horizon.

  2. Aadesh Mistry Says:
    June 4th, 2007 at 6:57 pm

    Yes Rohan, This is the beginning of a new era for Web.

Leave a Reply