Google is pulling the plug on Gears

THE SOFTWARE HOUSE at Google is pulling the plug on Gears as it refocuses its efforts on HTML5 instead.

Gears consists of web application code that allows things like offline access and parallel computing, but with Google working hard to implement many of these features in HTML5 with Chrome, it decided there is little reason to keep the older code in place.

There are a number of main additions to HTML5 that sealed Gears' fate, including application cache support, which allows an offline mode similar to that of Gears.

Google also worked with Mozilla and Microsoft to develop the IndexedDB API, a replacement for the Gears Database API. An HTML5 File API will replace the Gears Blob feature, while gelocation, notification and web worker APIs will all work in Chrome without Gears in the near future.

Google said it will not be releasing new versions of Gears and it will end support for it in Firefox 4, Internet Explorer 9, and Chrome 12.

Despite Google ending the Gears project, the code will continue to be open source, so developers can use it to create newer versions. The lack of browser support might be a big obstacle for those wishing to continue the project, however. µ