We’ve heard for years that web-based applications accessed through a web browser (think the Writely word processor and GMail mail service) are soon going to replace applications installed on your PC (think Microsoft Word and Outlook). These thin-client applications hold the promise of allowing us to run complex applications on any operating system using any browser without having to install any bloated software.
Well, that’s the theory, at least. In reality things are a little more complicated. Many of these online applications require specialized plug-ins which means that they’ll only work on specific browsers running on specific operating systems. And, although these online applications are becoming more robust, they still have nowhere near the same feature sets that their thick-client cousins have. Still, though, those problems aren’t insurmountable. The plug-in problem is being addressed as more and more applications incorporate AJAX, and most of us use only the basic features of those applications, anyway.
Perhaps the biggest hurdle with using online applications is that, by definition, they’re only available when you’re online. Want to do some work during your 3-hour flight to Cleveland? You’re not online when you’re flying so you have to use the applications installed on your laptop instead of their web-based equivalents.
But what if there was a technology that would let you use your web-based applications when you weren’t connected to the web? There is, and it’s called Google Gears. Let’s take a look at what it is, what it isn’t, how it works, and what it can do.
Once in a while I wander across a PC utility that really saves me a lot of work. Recently I discovered a piece of software called “