DailyTech - Google Ditching Google Gears, Moving Apps to HTML 5

Submit News

Internet Google Ditching Google Gears, Moving Apps to HTML 5
Jason Mick (Blog) - December 2, 2009 10:46 AM

21 comment(s) - last by Boze.. on Dec 7 at 8:00 AM

It's out with the old and in with the new at Google's app headquarters

When it was first released Google Gears, a collection of several open source APIs published under the BSD license, offered something new -- offline access to Google's wealth of free web applications. At the time other browser manufacturers didn't have the resources (as in Mozilla and Opera's case) or the willingness to offer such a plethora of free offline applications.

Google's gambit, however, caused the major players to change their tune and now offline application support is coming to the HTML 5 standard. As a result, Google's Linus Upson, manager of both the Chrome browser and Chrome OS engineering teams, announced in an interview with PC Magazine that Google would be phasing out Google Gears.

He describes, "We are not driving forward in any meaningful way [on Gears]. We are continuing to maintain it, so that applications will continue to work; we don't want to break anything out there."

Instead, Google will be hard at work re-implementing its offline application framework as standards-based HTML 5 APIs. HTML 5 is an advanced web markup language that adds support for complex audio and video, providing an open standards alternative to Adobe's Flash and Microsoft's Silverlight.

Google concedes it forced the hands of rival browser makers. Mr. Upson describes, "When we started the Gears project, three years ago... we did it because we couldn't get the browser vendors interested in building offline applications. [Now they are] very interested in adding capabilities to build offline applications."

Mr. Upson also revealed in the interview that his company was on track to launch a Mac version of the Chrome browser by the end of the year. Mac owners, though, will be left without Google Gears support, says Mr. Upson. He would not confirm or deny rumors that this was because Apple's OS X did not provide the necessary support for its APIs.

Comments

Threshold

Username
Password
remember me

This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

open standards

By Soulkeeper on 12/2/2009 11:28:42 AM , Rating: 5

I love it when companies choose to embrace industry/open standards instead of making their own version of everything

RE: open standards

By invidious on 12/2/2009 11:55:01 AM , Rating: 5

I agree that adopting open standards it is usually better for the consumer.

But at the same time we shouldn't frown upon a company for trying to do things their own way if they think they can do it better and make a profit off of it. For instance I don't think the internet would be a better place if Adobe had never developed Flash.

Parent

RE: open standards

By Motoman on 12/2/09, Rating: -1

RE: open standards

By Spivonious on 12/2/2009 12:28:55 PM , Rating: 2

Open source is a lot different than open standards.

Parent

RE: open standards

By Motoman on 12/2/2009 2:22:43 PM , Rating: 2

So it is...not sure why I read that that way.

Parent

RE: open standards

By Spivonious on 12/2/2009 12:28:21 PM , Rating: 5

I agree with your point, but Adobe had no part in developing Flash. It was a company called Macromedia that created it, that Adobe purchased around version 6.

Parent

RE: open standards

By Cheesew1z69 on 12/2/2009 1:20:49 PM , Rating: 3

Actually, per Wiki, Macromedia even bought it from someone else.

Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash) is a multimedia platform originally acquired by Macromedia and currently developed and distributed by Adobe Systems. Since its introduction in 1996, Flash has become a popular method for adding animation and interactivity to web pages. Flash is commonly used to create animation, advertisements, and various web page Flash components, to integrate video into web pages, and more recently, to develop rich Internet applications.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash

Parent

RE: open standards

By Boze on 12/7/2009 8:00:38 AM , Rating: 1

People that didn't live through the turbulent times of the 1990s Internet and computing revolution won't remember those sorts of things... but good on you for remembering.

So many amazing companies have come and gone.

MetaTools, which became MetaCreations, for instance.

Good ole Kai Krause... the world still needs you my friend...

Parent

RE: open standards

By wifiwolf on 12/2/2009 2:16:08 PM , Rating: 2

I agree, but adobe and microsoft won't give it up easily and that makes them do it better over time.

Parent

RE: open standards

By SiN on 12/2/2009 7:06:33 PM , Rating: 2

as far as my memory serves me, adobe has some deal with some television makers to deliver iptv directly into television sets in the future via the broadband pipes.

sounds like a very lucrative deal if it became standard, but then adobe flash would become the standard format for delivery. (not like it hasn't been for a while anyway)

Parent

RE: open standards

By ZmaxDP on 12/3/2009 1:44:06 AM , Rating: 4

I think it would be a much, much better place...

Parent

RE: open standards

By amanojaku on 12/2/2009 11:58:55 AM , Rating: 4

In this case Google did better than that. No standard existed for the features it wanted, and no one else wanted to make it. So Google went ahead and built a prototype, and made THAT open source. So people had the option to implement it as is, or make it better. HTML 5.0 was edited by a Google employee, among others, so it's possible that the offline features came from Google Gears.

Parent

RE: open standards

By omnicronx on 12/2/2009 4:43:03 PM , Rating: 3

I agree with the statement, that being said, Google is essentially making their own version of HTML (they had a bigger hand in HTML5 than anyone else by far and are definitely its biggest supporter). I'm not saying its a bad thing, but they definitely curtailed HTML5 to their needs, if this were not the case, they very well may have stayed with google gears.

Very rarely does a Big company like Google have this much say in an open standard.

Parent

RE: open standards

By bug77 on 12/2/2009 6:36:57 PM , Rating: 2

Standards based in needs are not a bad thing. Imho, that's the very reason of a standard to exist - to tell the world: this approach is working for that problem.

Usually, when large players come together and start figuring out what the industry will need 5 years from now, the result is a huge, complicated standard that dies in 4. UDDI comes to mind.

Parent

RE: open standards

By Skelum on 12/2/2009 8:04:01 PM , Rating: 2

I don't understand your comment...

I've seen alot of great standard dying because of lack of support. If Google influenced the standard it's probably because they have the biggest impact on today's world wide web. I still think that this is fair... It's not like we'll have to pay royalties or licenses to google for using HTML5...

Parent

In the Meantime?

By blaster5k on 12/2/2009 11:34:50 AM , Rating: 2

Google Gears still hasn't been updated to support Firefox 3.6. As it stands now, you still need it for offline access to Google apps. Until they roll out new HTML 5 versions, I wonder if we'll at least see regular updates to support new browser versions.

RE: In the Meantime?

By Bateluer on 12/2/2009 11:41:38 AM , Rating: 2

Course, there is no stable release of Firefox 3.6 yet, just betas and nightly builds. When its actually launched, you'll probably see support.

Parent

RE: In the Meantime?

By Lerianis on 12/3/2009 2:08:29 PM , Rating: 3

Uh.... most SMART developers start supporting new browsers in the public beta stage.

Parent

What really grinds my gears

By dark matter on 12/2/2009 10:52:18 AM , Rating: 5

can HTML 5 compete with Flash/Silverlight?

By ashtonmartin on 12/2/2009 12:06:43 PM , Rating: 2

The two main software development tool maker are Adobe and Microsoft. Without top notch devloper tools, HTML 5 will have a tough time gaining traction against the likes of Flash and Silverlight.

Completely necessary for ChromeOS

By heulenwolf on 12/2/2009 5:03:36 PM , Rating: 2

This step is completely necessary for success of ChromeOS. If developers can't support offline apps through an open standard, a strong majority are not going to bother to make the necessary mods and ChromeOS will be released as a platform the solely runs Google apps - not terribly compelling. If, instead, dev's write their webapps with offline capability in mind, ChromeOS will have a strong set of apps at launch.