Offline web applications – HTML5 and Google gears
Posted by sambasiva on February 20, 2010
One of the key requirements for web applications especially those that are written for mobile phones/devices is the ability to store as much information offline as possible without having to get information again and again from the servers.
A key example application is web-based email.
With HTML 5, there are two kinds of offline storage available
1. Session storage
Maintains a storage area that’s available for the duration of the page session. A page session lasts as long as the browser is open and survives page reloads and restores. Opening a page in a new tab or window causes a new session to be initiated.
2. Local storage
Maintains a storage area that can be used to hold data over a longer period of time (e.g. over multiple pages and browser sessions). It’s not destroyed when the user closes the browser or switches off the computer
Given the above standards based support for offline web applications, Google is no longer putting new resources into developing its Google gears as stated in their blog
