Google Says Goodbye to Gears In Favour of HTML5

Google has announced that they will no longer continue development of Google Gears and will instead focus on HTML5, according to the LATimes.

Google Gears is a small utility that lets you navigate on compatible websites offline and synchronize when going back online.

Many of its features are being adopted in HTML5 and so the company has decided to stop its development.


"We are excited that much of the technology in Gears, including offline support and geolocation APIs, are being incorporated into the HTML5 spec as an open standard supported across browsers, and see that as the logical next step for developers looking to include these features in their websites," wrote a Google spokesman in an e-mail.

"We're continuing to support Gears so that nothing breaks for sites that use it. But we expect developers to use HTML5 for these features moving forward as it's a standards-based approach that will be available across all browsers."

LATimes notes that HTML5 will likely be ready to go in Mac browsers even before a final draft of the language is complete since Apple's David Hyatt is an editor on the HTML5 specification, along with Google's Ian Hickson.

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