Google Gears

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Improving your web browser huh? I don’t know about that yet, coz I haven’t really tested anything.

This discovery came as a surprise you know. All I remember is that I stumbled upon another site (something to do with ranking blogs), stumbled upon one of their features called pinging, read that my blog tool may have it, checked WordPress and then saw this instead:

Of course, because I wasn’t really thinking clearly yet earlier this morning, I didn’t get to capture a screenshot of it BEFORE I installed, but whatever. It forwarded me to this page where you can install Gears.

Now, what the fuck is Gears anyway?

If you clicked that link I placed above, I don’t think I need to tell you, but if you didn’t (scared that I’ll forward you to some porn site??), Gears adds additional features to your browser (may it be Firefox or IE) that’ll make browsing a little more joyful in some sites. Yep, some sites, because not all sites incorporate the use of Gears by default. The features I’m talking about here, may include downloading files onto your computer, so you can browse a site like, say, WordPress, offline, enabling you to do what you need to do first, and then allow you to synchronize later on (once you decide to connect to the Internets).

What’s even more amazing is that it seems that Gears is a cross-platform thingy, because it works on Windows, Windows Mobile, Mac, Linux and of course, Android (well, at least Mac is in on it too, thank goodness).

So, how do you start using this Gears thing? Simple (because everything Google-related is fucking simple), just go to http://gears.google.com/ and click where it says you should:

** sorry,like I said, I didn’t get a screencap BEFORE I did the thing.

It will then make you download an installer/executable file that you’ll have to install, after which will then ask you to restart your browser. If you’re using more than one browser (like me, I use Firefox for browsing and then IE for playing Pet Society), it’ll close both the apps. Funny coz it said restart but then it didn’t reboot Firefox again.

Enabling Gears for some sites:

Please note that Gears is just installed, but you have to enable it’s use for the websites that does intend to use it, for example, WordPress. To enable it (for WordPress), go to your Dashboard and click Tools (see pic):

When you’re inside Tools, you’ll then see an area there that says something like:

Do not enable Gears if this is a shared/public computer. Click here to enable/allow this site to use Gears.

And that’s it. You’ll then see that WordPress is copying files to your computer. Leave it alone. It’s like what I said earlier right? This will enable you to access WordPress (your posts and I suppose, the whole WordPress app) offline. This is all good, coz then you don’t have to be online just so you can access your posts or make a new one. You can try creatiing a post right there, and then just connect to the Internets if you’re ready to publish the post.

Of course, since this is a Google app, all Google related sites like Google Reader may have it too. In the case of GReader, you have to click on a small icon beside the Settings link (see pic) to enable Gears:

After which you’ll see this next image, asking you to confirm the use of Gears for this site:

When you click Allow, GReader will then start downloading the items (see pic) so that the feeds can now be viewed offline:

Disabling Gears on Firefox

If in time you feel like the thing didn’t change anything for your web browsing experience, you have the option to disable it, on Firefox.

Google Gears shows up as a Firefox Add-on, which here means you can disable it via the Add-Ons window. Go to Tools > Add ons (see pic) and click the Disable button:

Now.. the Options button for Google Gears is obviously disabled, so there’re no other tweaking involved with this – which kinda leaves me wondering how you’re gonna manage/see which sites are using Gears at the moment. So, because of that, when you disable Gears from the Add on window, that means you’re disabling it on all sites that you allowed access to it – I think you can’t filter which sites stop using and which can still use it.

Conclusion

I have none, and this wasn’t intended as a review. I’ll have to try and see first.

UPDATE: Okay, I changed my stance. It improved the speed – how fast the site loads. I enabled Gears for WordPress, and I didn’t feel the need to transfer to another tab as a way to wait for the page to load. It loads lots faster, and even Plurk (which is kinda slow nowadays), loaded lots faster than before I installed Gears.

You should give it a try.

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Tags: gears, google, how, is, to, use, what