Gears (software)

There were several major API components to Gears:

• A Database module (powered by SQLite), which could store data locally.{{cite web|url=https://code.google.com/apis/gears/api_database.html|title=Database Module AI|access-date=2007-05-31 }}
• A WorkerPool module, which provided parallel execution of JavaScript code.{{cite web|url=https://code.google.com/apis/gears/api_workerpool.html|title=WorkerPool Module API|access-date=2007-05-31 }}
• A LocalServer module, which cached and served application resources (HTML, JavaScript, images, etc.).{{cite web|url=https://code.google.com/apis/gears/api_localserver.html|title=LocalServer Module API|access-date=2007-05-31 }}
• A Desktop module, which let web applications interact more naturally with the desktop.{{cite web|url=https://code.google.com/apis/gears/api_desktop.html|title=Desktop Module API|access-date=2007-05-31 }}
• A Geolocation module, which let web applications detect the geographical location of their users.{{cite web|url=https://code.google.com/apis/gears/api_geolocation.html|title=Geolocation Module API|access-date=2008-08-27 }}

Several web applications from a variety of companies used Gears at some point, including Google (Gmail, YouTube, Docs, Reader, Picasa for mobile, Calendar, Wave), MySpace (Mail Search), Zoho Office Suite, Remember The Milk, and Buxfer.{{cite web

|url=https://code.google.com/p/gears/wiki/GearsHistory

|title=Gears History

|access-date=2008-06-28

}} WordPress 2.6 added support for Gears, to speed up the administrative interface and reduce server hits.{{cite web | url=http://trac.wordpress.org/ticket/6965 | title=WordPress Trac ticket - Gears Support}} However, after Google announced in February 2010 that there would be no further development of Gears (see End of life section), several of these applications discontinued their support for Gears, including Google Reader{{cite web | url=http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2010/05/spring-cleaning-comments-offline-and.html | title=Google Reader blog - end of offline support}} and WordPress.{{cite web | url=http://codex.wordpress.org/Tools_Tools_SubPanel | title=WordPress documentation - Tools Subpanel}}

Gears could be enabled on sites where it was otherwise unsupported, by using a Greasemonkey user script that one of the Gears engineers created.{{cite web|url=https://code.google.com/apis/gears/articles/gearsmonkey.html|title=Gearsmonkey: Gears + Greasemonkey|access-date=2009-08-13}}

Gears was supported on Internet Explorer 6 and 8 on Windows XP, Vista and 7; Internet Explorer Mobile 4.01 and later on Windows Mobile; Safari 3.1.1 and later on Mac OS X 10.4 and later{{cite web

|url=https://groups.google.com/group/gears-users/browse_thread/thread/36537d4f47c5495c/59c3950739b83da6?show_docid=59c3950739b83da6

|title=Gears for Safari beta

|access-date=2008-08-26}} (though not Safari 4 on Mac OS X 10.6{{cite web

|url=https://code.google.com/p/gears/issues/detail?id=847

|title=Issue 847: Mac: Gears not working Safari 4 - Snow Leopard

|publisher=Google Code

|access-date=2009-09-05

}}); Firefox 1.5 and later on multiple platforms; and the native browser on BlackBerry OS 5.[https://code.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=69201&topic=11629 ] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111125025416/https://code.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=69201&topic=11629 |date=November 25, 2011 }} There was only limited 64-bit support from third parties.

Gears did not support attachment files with sizes greater than 2 GB under Mac OS X Leopard or Snow Leopard due to a bug in the Blob handling code.{{cite web|author=Massive Kangaroo|url=https://code.google.com/p/gears/issues/detail?id=960&q=snow%20leopard&colspec=Version%20Milestone%20Owner%20ID%20Summary%20Component |title=Issue 960 - gears - Appears to be a 2Gbyte limit on blob upload on Mac OS X Leopard - Improving Your Web Browser - Google Project Hosting |date=2009-10-21 |access-date=2013-06-16}}{{cite web|url=https://code.google.com/p/gears/issues/detail?id=958&q=snow%20leopard&colspec=Version%20Milestone%20Owner%20ID%20Summary%20Component |title=Issue 958 - gears - Appears to be a 2Gbyte limit on blob upload on Mac OS X Snow Leopard - Improving Your Web Browser - Google Project Hosting |date=2009-10-19 |access-date=2013-06-16}}

On May 29, 2008, Opera Software ASA announced that Opera Mobile 9.5 would support Gears.{{cite web

|url=http://www.opera.com/pressreleases/en/2008/05/29/

|title=Opera extends Gears support

|publisher=Opera Software

|access-date=2008-05-29

}}

The technology preview release of the browser was published on February 20, 2009.{{cite web

|url = http://labs.opera.com/news/2009/02/20/

|title = Technology preview: Gears-enabled Opera Mobile 9.5

|publisher = Opera Software

|access-date = 2009-02-21

|url-status = dead

|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090223145639/http://labs.opera.com/news/2009/02/20/

|archive-date = 2009-02-23

}}

It was available for touchscreen devices running Windows Mobile 5 and 6 only.{{cite web

|url=http://www.opera.com/mobile/download/?man=Windows+Mobile+5.0+Pocket+PC&ver=9.51b2_gears&heading=Windows%20Mobile%205/6%20Pocket%20PC&img=/bitmaps/products/mobile/platform/951b2.gif&extra=Touchscreen-based%20devices%20only.%20Visit%20http://gears.google.com%20to%20download%20the%20Gears%20plugin%20for%20Opera%20Mobile.%20Last%20updated:%2019.%202.%202009

|title=Gears-enabled Opera Mobile 9.51b2 download page

|publisher=Opera Software

|access-date=2009-02-21

}} Gears was not built into browsers other than Google Chrome and had to be downloaded separately.

The Ruby on Rails framework supported interfaces to Gears without needing to understand the Google Gears API.{{cite web

|url=http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Application-Development/Google-Gears-takes-Ruby-on-Rails-Offline/

|title=Google Gears Takes Ruby on Rails Offline

|date=15 July 2008

|publisher=eWeek

|access-date=2008-07-15

}}

In late November 2009, numerous online news sources reported that Google was going to migrate to Web Storage rather than use Gears in the future. A Google spokesman later clarified that Google would, however, continue to support Gears so as not to break sites using it.{{cite web|url=http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/11/google-gears.html|title=What's powering Web apps: Google waving goodbye to Gears, hello to HTML5|date=2009-11-30|work=Los Angeles Times|access-date=2009-12-02}} On February 19, 2010, the Gears team at Google announced that the development of Google Gears had stopped, as they are working on bringing all of the Gears capabilities into web standards like HTML5. Although development of new features had ceased, Google was planning to continue supporting Gears until they have developed a "simple, comprehensive" method for users' data to be migrated to HTML5 features.{{cite web | url=http://gearsblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/hello-html5.html | title=Hello HTML5}} On 22 November 2011, Google announced that on 1 December 2011, Gears support would be removed from Gmail and Google Calendar.{{cite web|url=http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/more-spring-cleaning-out-of-season.html|title=Official Blog: More spring cleaning out of season|date=2011-11-22|publisher=Googleblog.blogspot.com|access-date=2013-06-16}} Gears was removed from Google Chrome on June 7, 2011.{{cite web|url=http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2011/06/chrome-stable-release.html|title=Chrome Stable Release}}

• Rich Internet application
• Adobe AIR

{{Reflist|2}}

• {{Blogspot|gearsblog|Official page}}

{{Google FOSS}}

{{Web interfaces}}

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Category:Discontinued Google software

Category:Discontinued Mozilla plug-ins