Google got Gears

Introduction

Google has launched Google Gears (BETA) which is an open source Browser Extension that can be used by developers to create Web Application that can run offline. Google Gears is cross-platform, cross-browser and will work with all major browsers (currently Firefox 1.5+ & IE 6+) and is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS.

How Gears will Work?

Google Gears' APIs will allow you to store and cache application data (HTML, JavaScript, images etc) locally on your desktop, store and access data from within the browser in a database. There will be a worker thread pool module for performing operations in background making web applications more responsive. The first program created with the Gears API is the Google Reader feed-reading application, which is available as of now.

Is it Useful?

One of the biggest drawback of an online applications like Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Gmail, Google Reader etc is that you need a fast and reliable Internet connection to use them. No Connection, No Data. With Google Gears APIs, any developer can can make their own online web applications to work offline. For Users, it would be seamless whether they are connected to the internet or not.