Google Gears has been enabled on WordPress.com for a couple of weeks now for some members, but was only announced this week. Andrew Ozz (azaozz) added this feature a couple of month ago in the development version of self-hosted WordPress. I’ve been using it for about a month, and even though I have a decent internet connect (15156 kbps measured), I really notice how quick Gears makes the visual editor’s Insert Link popup pop. Over all, it feels a little quicker.
Reading some of the comments there is some confusion about whether this allows an offline mode of WordPress and also about the privacy of using this Google browser add-on.
People wonder if Gears will allow them to use the WordPress Dashboard to write posts while offline. We’re not quite there yet. Gears for WordPress 2.6 (coming soon!) uses Gear’s LocalServer API which basically is a persistent, smart cache allowing the static files to always be loaded from your local computer — turbo!
That takes me to the second concern I see in the blog posts and comments about this feature, specifically on the Weblog Tools Collection post. Some people are really concerned with the privacy of Gears. Understandably, they are leery of providing Google even more personal data. Gears isn’t a web service. It only talks to the mother ship to check for updates, unless you allow anonymous usage statistics:
- Your copy of Gears includes a unique application number. The unique application number and information about your installation of Gears (e.g., version number, language) will be sent to Google when Gears automatically checks for updates.
- If you choose to enable Usage Statistics for Gears, it allows Gears to send crash reports and to collect a limited amount of non-personal information about your use of Gears and send it to Google.
- If you use Gears for Mobile, we may collect certain information such as your device and hardware IDs and device type, the browser type, the request type, your carrier, your carrier user ID, and the content of your request, which does not by itself identify you to Google, though it may be unique or consist of or contain information that you consider personal.
If you still are concerned about the privacy of Gears, here are two more reasons to have confidence: open source and Brad Neuberg. Gears is open source. This means that anyone can pop the hood and scrutinize the code — and people do. A very highly regarded open source developer Brad Neuberg is very involved in Gears. He is a leader in web development, open source, and collaborative development. He’s a person that I admire greatly.
Wrapping this up. There is no WordPress dependency on Gears. It’s an optional browser plugin that can make for a faster experience. If you choose to use it, you should feel confident in your privacy.
