Google has released a new extension called Google Gears for both Firefox 1.5+ and Internet Explorer 6.0+. The extension itself won’t do you any good. But with application like Google Reader, which already utilizes Gears’ API, will let you to take your data offline – in case of Google Reader, it means you can read your latest feeds (2000 items) without any Internet connection. This is such a great news for users.
For developers, it means that you can use Google Gear’s APIs to develop web applications with offline functionality:
Google Gears (BETA) 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
Great work there, Google. Now please release a new version of Gmail, Google Docs and Gcal with offline functionality, soon.
Any other web applications (Google, or non-Google) would be cool to have this offline functionality? Comment them below!
