Google gooses Apple's Safari with Gears beta
As promised in May, Google has brought the open-source Gears technology to Apple's Safari, augmenting some browser abilities such as using Gears-tailored Web sites while offline.
The company announced a beta version of Gears for Safari (DMG file download link) on the Gears users mailing list Monday.
"We would love for you to install it and test it and file bug reports so we can polish it and find all the corner cases," said Google's Jeremy Moskovich.
Gears extends a browser so, for example, some Google Docs can be edited or viewed while the user isn't connected to a network. It also can speed up use of the WordPress blogging software and some operations at MySpace, and Google is expanding its scope to geolocation services and other areas, too.
The software requires Safari 3.1.1 on Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11 or Leopard 10.5.3, he said.
Gears already works on Firefox and Internet Explorer; Opera is working on a version for both its desktop and mobile browsers.
(Via Google Operating System.)
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank. 
"Google Gears cannot be installed on this computer.
Google Gears requires Safari 3.1.1 or later"
***** I have Safari 3.1.2!!!