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Googling Google

Christopher Dawson
Home / News & Blogs / Googling Google

Google pulls plug on Google Gears, leaves developers stranded

By | February 19, 2010, 4:30pm PST

Google Gears was a plugin for modern browsers that gave developers a great way to bring their web applications offline. An example of this would be offline support in Gmail — where you would be able to basically use the service regardless of your internet connection status. Unfortunately, this is the end of the road for the feature.

Pulling the plug, is the responsible thing for Google to do, though it’s not going to be popular. Browsers are natively beginning to support new web standards, like HTML5, that basically make Google Gears functionality extraneous. Keeping such a product alive simply adds unnecessary fragmentation.

Why won’t it be popular? There are lots of companies that embraced Google Gears. They spent a lot of time and effort developing applications that take full advantage of the plugin — and now it’s being discontinued. Google will support Google gears, but it doesn’t sound like there will be any active development on it.

It will be interesting to see what kind of feedback we get from this move from developers!

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Topics

Google Inc., Google Gears, Internet, Web Browsers, Garett Rogers

Garett Rogers has always had a deep interest in computers and the Internet, which led him to a degree in Computer Information Systems. He is currently employed as a programmer for iQmetrix.

Disclosure

Garett Rogers

Garett Rogers is employed as a programmer for iQmetrix, which specializes in retail management software for the wireless industry. He has no other formal associations with any software or hardware companies.

Biography

Garett Rogers

Garett Rogers has always had a deep interest in computers and the Internet, which led him to a degree in Computer Information Systems. He is currently employed as a programmer for iQmetrix, which specializes in retail management software designed specifically for the cellular and electronics industry.

Garett's journey into Google started with his employer asking him to "get a better rank on Google." Diving into search engine optimization sparked his curiosity for how things work and led him to create a blog dedicated to what interests him most--Google.

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No offense but...
tkchan007 23rd Feb 2010
Is that why they added Extensions to Chrome?

Please be careful when drinking koolaid. Be it from the MS camp or the Google camp. Both are companies out there to make money and not purely good.

Google's tag line of 'Do no evil' is just a marketing spell they use to attach the technies.

If you don't think Google has a lot of the 'Big Brother' things going on underneath you're drinking way too much Google branded koolaid.
View in thread
0 Votes
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Question...
Tragic 19th Feb 2010
If Google Gears plugin was intended to allow working offline why does the compliance with HTML5 render that possibility useless?
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Re: Question
eslachance 20th Feb 2010
Tragic,

HTML5 has offline storage integrated in it. So,
just as the tag will render flash for
videos useless, so will the offline database
feature render Gears useless.

Of course, I'm still wondering how Google can
justify pulling the plug now, especially since
HTML5 isn't even a true standard yet, it's
still in development! And then, I remember that
Google is always in Beta, so might as well use
Beta stuff, right? Just to make their websites
only accessible through Chrome which currently
has the best HTML5 support I guess happy
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Re: Question
eslachance 20th Feb 2010
Tragic,

HTML5 has offline storage integrated in it. So,
just as the "video" tag will render flash for
videos useless, so will the offline database
feature render Gears useless.

Of course, I'm still wondering how Google can
justify pulling the plug now, especially since
HTML5 isn't even a true standard yet, it's
still in development! And then, I remember that
Google is always in Beta, so might as well use
Beta stuff, right? Just to make their websites
only accessible through Chrome which currently
has the best HTML5 support I guess happy
0 Votes
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Thanks! (nt)
Tragic 20th Feb 2010
NT
0 Votes
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RE: Google pulls plug on Google Gears, leaves developers stranded
wizard57m@... 19th Feb 2010
I guess Google Gears is no longer in "beta"!
{;-)
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RE: Google pulls plug on Google Gears, leaves developers stranded
Loverock Davidson 19th Feb 2010
LOL yet another service that Google abandons? Its amazing people still use them considering they drop their services after 6 months, their employees don't care because they are too busy playing with office toys, and the mere fact that they steal your data and sell it while you don't see a dime. You would have to be a pretty ******** Google fanboy to let this one go, but I'm sure a certain ZDNet blogger will claim how its ok they did this and how its good for everyone.
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@Loverock...
prof123 21st Feb 2010
Google doen't like plugins, they like open standards.
Now that HTML5 is being adopted widely, Gears is no
longer necessary. It was a way to influence W3C to
adopt offline storage and how it's implemented. Google
is a great innovator and I admire them. As for the
nonsense that they "steal your data and sell it", read their
Privacy policy... btw, your comments are moronic.
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While I normally regard LD as a whack-job,
Palmetto_CharlieSpencer 22nd Feb 2010
he's not far off the mark regarding Google's treatment of personal data. Stealing and selling are exaggerations, but not all potential violations are covered in their privacy policy. Inadvertent disclosures are still disclosures. See TR's "Why Google Buzz confirmed our worst fears about Google" at:

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=3822&tag=content;leftCol

The
0 Votes
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No offense but...
tkchan007 23rd Feb 2010
Is that why they added Extensions to Chrome?

Please be careful when drinking koolaid. Be it from the MS camp or the Google camp. Both are companies out there to make money and not purely good.

Google's tag line of 'Do no evil' is just a marketing spell they use to attach the technies.

If you don't think Google has a lot of the 'Big Brother' things going on underneath you're drinking way too much Google branded koolaid.
0 Votes
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RE: Google pulls plug on Google Gears, leaves developers stranded
quidpro 19th Feb 2010
Offline storage is part of HTML5 which both Apple and Google are working together to flesh out. I suppose you'll just avoid any browser that supports HTML5 then, judging by your tone and insightful conclusion. If you were in charge, you'd spend the rest of your time and money furthering development on a hack when the feature is going to be native to the browsers that support it. Genius. Definitely executive material. You don't have to be a fanboy at all. Even someone who despised Google would have to give them credit for this move. So...this leaves you where, exactly?
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I'm still confused
crazydanr@... 19th Feb 2010
Gears was for offline app use - html needs to be served by a server, hence online only, no? I ask because I live in a rural area - very little wireless outside of town, and cell coverage is very spotty. We have crews that work out in the field, so they may not be online all the time.

I thought gears would be a great solution, but it's being shelved. I guess I don't understand how HTML5 will help in this situation?
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What the whole thing is
codefisher Updated - 20th Feb 2010
Google is dropping Google Gears because of http://dev.w3.org/html5/webstorage/ and http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/offline.html

Jointly they do what I understand gears does. The technology is supported in the latest versions of Firefox, Google Chrome, and Safari. You have to go online to actually download the pages (just like a page that uses gears) but once you go offline the web app should still function.
0 Votes
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The true executive material were the people that allowed gears.
Bruizer 20th Feb 2010
Google does some pretty cool stuff. However, and this is huge, they
are a very immature company. This shows in many areas.

1) The disaster of the Nexus One launch.

2) Touting Gears and then pulling it 6 months later.

3) Buzz.

4) Google Books rights grab. OK, that is just "evil". Actually, I think it
started out by some kids saying "Wouldn't this be great" and they sold
the idea to others in Google. The company then convinced themselves
it would be great. They just never considered the impact (or
convinced themselves it didn't matter) on the people that actually
wrote and developed and created the works they planned to steal. In
the end, immaturity.

They are a company that lives in a continuous public Beta period of
product release. As a developer, would you consider using Go now?
They might get distracted and pull support and development (and it
has a long way to go before it is ready for prime time) at anytime.
0 Votes
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Gears was proprietary, but so is HTML5
Joe_Raby 20th Feb 2010
HTML5 isn't due for final ratification until 2022. Yes, seriously!

It's a brain-child of Apple and Google's Webkit development, and something that Mozilla and Opera are pushing away from because of lack of motivation from the W3C to take sides with 2 companies that have time and time again tried to implement proprietary technologies as standards (and vice versa), and have been unfriendly to the open source industry. Mozilla doesn't like the proposed HTML5 standard, and Opera is holding off. Meanwhile, Adobe and Microsoft want to innovate with their own stuff until the W3C moves their ass and either approves or disapproves of any new HTML proposals.

Apple has a love-hate relationship with Google too, so if the end up breaking up with Google, Webkit will fall, and the HTML5 proposal will end up in the wastebin. Google could always fall back to their OSS hat with Mozilla though. They are the #1 investor in Mozilla, after all.
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I heard it was done because of
Linux Geek 21st Feb 2010
the legal threats from M$ regarding their obvious patents.
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No, what I heard was...
rrh65 Updated - 21st Feb 2010
....that the Pink Elephants, Pixies and the Fairy's at the bottom of the garden were all launching a legal crusade against the major Linux distributions and that had the Klingons and those nasty bad tempered Martians (and you know those Martians have a bigger beef with us poor humans than the hairy Klingons do) all rally against poor poor Google as a result (for reasons known only to them and their legal consul).

You know that sounds just as believable as your usual 'Anti-MS' drivel. Amazing that yet again you have managed to bring MS into a story that's plainly nothing to do with them.

Still, what else to expect from a rampaging moronic zealot who has 5 brain cells all jostling for attention in that cramped skull of yours...
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No, it was a half baked idea to begin with.
No_Ax_to_Grind 22nd Feb 2010
But then, even you know that much.
0 Votes
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Now I'm shocked! I mean DonnieBoy had told me that
John Zern Updated - 21st Feb 2010
Gears is the future, that it was pretty much the end of Sharepoint.

Now I understand why he told me that MS was extremelly worried about Google gears.

http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-3513-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=34439&messageID=634297&tag=content;col1

http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-10741-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=34808&messageID=640092&tag=content;col1

http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-10741-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=34808&messageID=640215&tag=content;col1

At least there is one consolation, I understand that Gears made Sharepoint a money pit, since MS made really little to no money from Sharepoint:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=4262


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Another great Google initiative bites the dust
marksashton 22nd Feb 2010
When will people realize that Google has only one product that they really care about: AdWords. AdWords generates more than 90% of Google revenue and will for the forseeable future. Everything else is an experiment. Anything that is not tied directly to Google's core business - selling ads - is subject to cancellation at any time. Get used to it.
0 Votes
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Surviving Googleland
A Gray 22nd Feb 2010
Rule #1: Google controls everything so don't get upset when they do what they want
Rule #2: You must always be on the current version or you get no helpful support. New version of something breaking your app? Change your app.
Rule #3: If our API you use doesn't help AdWord, we really don't care about that API.
Rule #4: Cardio - as in keep trying to keep up with us. We're smarter than you are so let us make decisions (like security features in Buzz).
Rule #5: Its better us that Microsoft. Remember, Microsoft is that big evil empire that told everyone else how to do things. We're.. um... did we mention AdWord? Now that's some sweet revenue from nothing.

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