Google Gears is Google’s latest product, and it’s a bit different than what we’re used to receiving from the ubiquitous search giant. It’s a browser add-on which other online applications, such as Google Reader, can use to work offline.

By “work offline”, we mean the application can store resources locally, and store data locally in a relational database. It does this throgh asynchronous Javascript, which means that the user shouldn’t care much if he’s offline or online: the application will work in both states.

We’ve written quite a lot about the benefits of offline capabilities of online applications. Now, with Google Gears beta, it’s time to test it hands-on.

And, as I’ve suspected, there’s nothing much to it. I’ve installed Gears, rebooted Firefox, and the first application to ask me whether I want to use Gears or not was Google Reader. After I’ve accepted, Google Reader asked me whether I want to work in online of offline mode. Switching to offline mode will simply cause all the items from the Reader to be downloaded immediately.

After a short wait, I was able to plug out my network connection and read all the items in Google Reader without any problem. I was also able to star items and perform some other actions.

However, trying to change the Feed Settings caused this message to appear:

After going back online, everything was back to normal. Neat.

We’ve also tried several other Google services, but haven’t found any which could make use of Google Gears. Although what we’ve seen so far is nice enough, one important benefit of offline access - increased security - hasn’t been tackled yet.We hope to see some other examples of how this technology can be used, so we can do a better assessment of its usefulness.

Read R/WW and O’Reilly Radar for good overviews of Google Gears, too.