Google Gears (beta) is an open source browser extension that enables web applications to provide offline functionality.
Gears provides three key features (from the developer knowledge base):
- A local server, to cache and serve application resources (HTML, JavaScript, images, etc.) without needing to contact a server
- A database, to store and access data from within the browser
- A worker thread pool, to make web applications more responsive by performing expensive operations in the background
The first application you can use offline is Google Reader. With Google Gears you can download the 2000 most recent unread posts and read them offline.
Very handy when you’re on the road and don’t have any internet.
Link via Download Squad
