Google Joins the Offline Web Application Bandwagon

GooglegearsGoogle has released an interesting new open source browser plug-in named Gears, which holds the potentially to take any web application offline. As a first example, Google has implemented offline functionality on Google Reader. Once you’ve installed Gear plug-in, you’ll be able to run Google Reader in an offline mode by downloading the last 2000 items. Your actions will be automatically synced with the Google Reader whenever you go online again, which means, if you’ve started an article in an offline mode, it’ll be started in the online mode as well.

With Gears, Google has just joined the Adobe and Microsoft in solving the offline web application problem. Apollo from Adobe and Silverlight from Microsoft are both projects with similar goals, but unlike both of them, Google Gears is an extension for IE and Firefox which doesn’t require web developers to learn a whole new platform, since Gears is just a set of three new simple APIs for Javascript. One gripe is that Opera and Safari aren’t supported yet.

Speaking about the three new APIs, Gears basically introduces a simple programmatic caching interface for caching the frequently used interfaces, an embedded SQL database (a thin wrapper around the SQLite database) and finally, an API for light weight process.

I don’t know if it’s just me and people around me, but I happen to use atleast three different computers (including my laptop) almost every day, thought I primarily work off my laptop. One of the coolest things about web apps, as far as I’m concerned is that I can use Gmail from any machine, despite the fact that a rich email client like Thunderbird ( or god forbid, Outlook ) can give me a gazillion more features and extensions. With something like Gears or Apollo or Silverlight, I think, it becomes a tad bit too easy for developers to go over board and tie users down to single machine. Used wisely, Gears can enhance the user experience for rich internet applications considerably, but there is also a significant potential for mess use by developers. Like all new technologies, it seems to be a double edged sword.

This post was published by on June 1, 2007

About the Author: Thilak Rao works as a Social Media Expert. He is one of the first professional bloggers from India, and he loves to write, travel and click photos. Follow him on Twitter @thilak

  • http://sindhu-s.com sindhu

    http://www.technospot.net/blogs/how-to-read-offline-feed-with-google-reader/

    i like this post better. to the point and informative. whats gmail go to do with offline /google gears and your three laptops

  • http://www.sindhu-s.com/archives/65 Sindhu-S.Com » Early bird, hands on first!

    [...] only other stuff I loved today was the new Google offline browser. Not really a stand alone browser as the name seems to indicate. but a silent tool that integrates [...]

  • http://www.technospot.net/blogs/ Ashish Mohta

    The Gear is good but the limitation of 2000 items will not work well if you are reading lot of blogs. Moreover It has lot of installation problem. Luckily i got a clue, install another add on which restarts your web browser and it will start working.

  • http://blogs.mysites-advisor.com Ken Xu

    Cool, Thilak! I will use it too! ;)

  • http://www.kylescove.com Kyle Eslick

    I was kind of hoping for a desktop version of Google Reader that syncs automatically.

    I prefer my desktop feed reader, but I like the idea of having a web-based one like Google Reader because I also use at least 4 different computers on a daily basis between work, home, and my hobbies.

  • http://spotgeeek.com/geekbytes/ knight17

    I just made Google reader to work offline, seems nice

  • http://mahercubed.com Labanon

    tq for review it.. it’s cool :)

  • http://blog.shankarganesh.com Shankar Ganesh

    Finally there’s a way to read my feeds when I get disconnected. Thank God!

  • http://www.techmantra.net/2007/06/01/reading-offline-feed-with-google-reader/ Vikram

    [...] Via Tech-buzz [...]

  • http://www.techlivez.com latest technology news

    so slowly google is moving out from the online market to the offline world ….to cast its spell on microsoft..its just the starting…

  • http://lagopi.blogspot.com Ramanathan

    I agree with you thilak, offline browsing is not of much use for those who uses multiple system.

  • Ben Newton

    Folks, just to clarify something. Silverlight does NOT support offline apps. You are thinking of WPF. Silverlight (formerly WPF/E) is a web only delivery platform, and cannot work offline.

    Don’t worry, there are still lots of people getting this wrong.

  • http://spotgeeek.com/geekbytes/ knight17

    I just made Google reader to work offline, seems nice