Google Gears brings offline web apps earlier to Firefox

So what does Gears do? In great part it delivers what is currently under development for Firefox 3: it allows a web application to be usable even when the computer has no connection to the application server. To shows its characteristics, Google has Gears-enabled Google Reader, its popular online web feed aggregator.


I tried it and can say that it works as advertised. There is a new Offline link added to Google Reader’s top line. Click on it and you’re told you need to install Google Gears for the feature to work. Weirdly, the extension doesn’t install as a normal XPI would but you have to download a small downloader which will then run the installer outside of Firefox. After restarting Firefox, the Offline link is replaced with an arrow icon. Wisely, when I click on it I am asked to confirm I want to enable offline support for this web site and I can also ask to remember the setting to avoid been asked every time.



I asked to go offline and it immediately started downloading the feed items.



After a short while I was notified I could go offline. Which I did (File/Work Offline in Firefox) and was still able to read feed items.



Then I went back online and Google Reader synchronized read items with the server, again in a matter of seconds and with a nice progress bar to let me know how’s it going.

Definitely it looks more than promising (as it, well, already delivers) and I just hope two things: First, that Google’s implementation adheres to web standards already defined for offline applications and the way Mozilla is developing it. i think this is covered since the Google Gears blog reads: “We are working with Adobe, Mozilla and Opera and other industry partners to make sure that Gears is the right solution for everyone”. If positive, I would like to see some of Gears’ code (which is open source) in Firefox 3, just like Google Safe Browsing did last year, as this would speed things up for more spread offline web applications support. Again, from the quoted post, and past and present Google/Mozilla partnerships, I think it’s a reasonable expectation.

Personally, I can’t wait to have at least, an offline GMail and offline WordPress administration.

Google Gears is available for Internet Explorer as well. Safari support is expected to come soon but there’s no say on Opera support yet.