June 8th, 2007
Google continue to blur the divide between offline and online applications with the beta release of Google Gears: a browser extension that enables web developers store and retrieve data locally.
Importantly the extension is available on all platforms: using Internet Explorer on Windows, or a Firefox Extension on Linux / Mac (Safari is not currently supported without installation of the WebKit).
SQLite, the big shifter in this venture, isn’t called Lite for nothing; so the whole extension can be downloaded in little time, even on a dialup connection.
Security remains a concern as the databases and files are stored locally, though Google have taken precautions to safeguard your system, notably only allowing cache / database access from the origin that created it. Also on visiting a website that uses Google Gears, a dialogue box will prompt you whether you want to allow it access to the extension.
The Google Reader is one website that has been developed to take advantage of this technology. It caches your blog feeds so that you can read and interact with them offline.
Currently this type of site seems the best candidate for Google Gears: it only stores data that would be publicly available anyway. As of yet there is no way to encrypt local database content, so I shouldn’t expect you’ll be seeing an offline version of Google Mail too soon. In the documentation it also suggests that all applications may not benefit from offline storage: take for example a roaming Google Mail user who doesn’t want to leave a profile behind.