Google Gears is Launched

Mister Inbetween writes "Google is rolling out a technology designed to overcome the major drawback faced by all web-based applications: the fact that they don't work without an internet connection. Google Gears is an open source technology for creating offline web applications that is being launched today at Google's annual Developer Day gatherings around the world."

Comments

For those who want to get started...

[FST]

There are some sample applications available here to help you get started using Google Gears. I found it pretty non-intuitive at the beginning but I think I'm starting to get the hang of it slowly.

Re:No Safari or Opera Support

[AKAImBatman]

So it looks like this is a browser plugin. Meaning that you'd need to install it with your web application. The API is reminiscent of the WHATWG Storage Specification, but appears to be a bit more sophisticated in its reach. If I'm reading this right, the biggest difference is auto-syncing of the data with a server (when you're online) rather than having to write your own synching software.

Thus this appears to be a competitor to Adobe Apollo, but without Google defining their own container format.

Interesting. I'm not quite sure what to make of it as it's not anything that hasn't been contemplated before. Personally, I'm hesitent to adopt anything that can't be used on a live webpage as well as downloadable "webapps". However, that may not stop others who have good ideas on how this might be used.

Re:No Safari or Opera Support

[compm375]

Did you or the mods read the GP link?

Google Gears works on the following browsers:

• Apple Mac OS X (10.2 or higher)
  • Firefox 1.5 or higher
• Linux
  • Firefox 1.5 or higher
• Microsoft Windows (XP or higher)
  • Firefox 1.5 or higher
  • Internet Explorer 6 or higher

Additionally, the team is working on supporting Safari on Mac OS X in a future release.

Re:No Safari or Opera Support

[ScottyH]

It seems that Google Gears can be used for more than offline applications. It includes tools for running JavaScript in background threads to prevent UI blocking, as well as a SQLLite database for storage and fast retrieval of any data you want, whether you're working offline or not.

Re:What's the Point

[misleb]

Why not just create a basic virtual machine client and load it with this fast, simple "Google OS"? The capabilities would be similar - it needs access to the local file system to store documents, and the app would run in a highly stable evironment that needs to do nothing but run apps.

Dude, I think you just described Java. ;-)

I hear Java Web Start even solves the problem of distributing app updates seamlessly. Not that I am a fan of Java for GUI apps as far as look and feel go, but it certainly meets to your requirements for a virtual machine and I'd probably take it over some of the HTML + JS shite that is out there.

Why is it that nobody can see that what everyone longs for was invented more than a decade ago. It is like the 900 gorilla in the room that nobody wants to talk about.

-matthew