Google Gears - A Free Download For Windows, Mac, and Linux
Google Gears is an open source tool that can be used in a number of different ways. In its most basic form, it is a browser extension that adds offline support to Web applications. The application is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It provides users with a SQLite database, a local server, and a way to run asynchronous JavaScript.
A recent update to Firefox 3 includes support for Google Gears. When the user has the application installed, a small menu item appears on the top of the browser window. Users have to select a checkbox before the application begins writing data to their hard disk.
Google Gears is a bit of a mixed bag. While it seems to be fairly stable, it does have some shortcomings. Some aspects of the software, such as loading YouTube videos, are slow. And the feature that Google Gears best demonstrates - being able to sync data from a mobile device with a desktop computer - does not work as well as it could.
However, the fact that Google Gears can do some things that other web applications can't is a nice thing. For example, the Gears plugin for Safari is the first of its kind outside of Internet Explorer and Firefox.
Besides displaying the Mail icon on the Menu bar, the Gears plugin is also capable of loading up to 2,000 articles from subscribed feeds. It also allows for tagging and staring portions of the feed.