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Google Phasing Out Gears For HTML5

Posted by timothy on from the toothless-grin dept.

Kelson writes "Have you noticed that there haven't been many updates to Gears in a while? That's because Google has decided to focus instead on similar capabilities in the emerging HTML5 standard: local storage, database, workers and location cover similar functionality, but natively in the web browser. Of course, since Gears and HTML APIs aren't exactly the same, it's not a simple drop-in replacement, so they'll continue supporting the current version of Gears in Firefox and Internet Explorer. I guess this means the long-anticipated Gears support for 64-bit Firefox on Linux and Opera are moot."

9 of 35 comments (clear)

  1. Support not ending for IE by eihab · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This just goes to show how much IE is holding us back. According to the Blog post, Google won't be dropping Gears' maintenance support for IE for the foreseen future:

    We will not be investing resources in active development of new features. Likewise, there are some platforms that would require a significant engineering effort to support due to large architectural changes. Specifically, we cannot support Gears in Safari on OS X Snow Leopard and later. Support for Gears in Firefox (including 3.6, which will be supported shortly) and Internet Explorer will continue.

    I'm guessing they'll want that around as a fall back for IE when they start depending more and more on HTML5's new features.

    Had IE been keeping up with HTML5's development, we wouldn't be in a situation where we need external plug-ins to make sure our Apps are cross-platform.

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    1. Re:Support not ending for IE by stimpleton · · Score: 3, Funny

      "This just goes to show how much IE is holding us back

      I work for a small DNA services company and that is a burgeoning industry. We are pretty young but we match the advancing industry with our own very aggressive, but smart style.

      One of our young team in a meeting the other day, said in regard to a particular DNA trait technology: "Let come down off the top rope with an elbow to the throat of {our competitor}. They are like the Internet Explorer of DNA. Lets fuck 'em up.".

      I do like our meetings. But yeah, if we were google, we wouldnt be able to hold back our your pit bulls. And I bet Google have a few that are chewing their chains to hit MS and Flash with HTML 5. Off the top rope so to speak.

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    2. Re:Support not ending for IE by the_womble · · Score: 3, Interesting

      My money making site, which most people read from work, is getting 18% IE 6 - almost as much as Firefox and not far behind IE 7 or IE 8, and a lot more than Chrome, Safari or Opera.

      My blog traffic is 48% Firefox, with IE6 down to less than 2%.

      It depends on your audience.

    3. Re:Support not ending for IE by Daengbo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There's a difference between implementing proposed components of yet-to-be-gold standards or specifications and implementing whatever the hell you feel like and expecting everyone else to conform. You can see that, can't you?

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  2. Glad I didn't skill up on gears by symbolset · · Score: 3, Informative

    W3.org, though, they've got some serious heft in web standards. It probably would not do to ignore their new standard version unless you're Microsoft, in which case interop is a negative and ignoring the new standard is an implied part of "ignore standards".

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  3. ADHD? by pitchpipe · · Score: 4, Funny

    I know that it's good to for a corporation to explore new avenues, but sometimes I get the feeling that Google has ADHD.

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    1. Re:ADHD? by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Agility is not a defecit of attention. They're quicker than other big tech to catch on, ballsy enough to take risks, savvy enough to remain a powerhouse, and honest/polite enough to alert users of a change of direction.

      Or Google could be utter crap. But crappier and less trustworthy competition makes Google look like Robin Hoods and all-stars in comparison.

  4. Re:Standards are great.... by eihab · · Score: 4, Informative

    But honestly I hope they are actively evaluating the standards. Just because it's a "standard" doesn't mean it's good and worth using.

    Evaluating? They're effectively making it.

    Ian Hickson, the author and maintainer of HTML5, is a Google employee.

    Not that this is a bad thing, I mean, I'm very excited about some of the stuff (like background workers) that are basically Google's finger print on the draft. But make no mistake about it, they are evaluating it very well as they're writing it :)

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  5. Dupe? by grouchomarxist · · Score: 4, Informative

    Isn't this article a dupe of this one: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/12/02/139243/Google-Abandoning-Gears ?