Google have announced the release of Google Gears, a browser extension and set of Javascript libraries for offline web application support. Supported browsers are Internet Explorer 6.0+ and Firefox 1.5+.

The library provides support for:

  • Storing and serving application resources locally
  • Storing data locally in a fully-searchable relational database
  • Running Javascript asynchronously

Google Reader now has support for offline usage using Google Gears.