Google Reader has quickly become one of the most used feed readers especially by bloggers and other tech affine people. Usually more than 35% (for yesterday it has been 39%) of readers subscribing to this blog’s feed use Google Reader. While it has become a very stable product it just offers online use. So far.
Google Reader Offline
As of today Google Reader can also be used as an offline reader. Users are able to download 2,000 items for offline use which should be enough to keep them busy when being on the beach, on the plane, or on the train.
To get things started click on the Offline link in the menu on the top right. You will be prompted to download Google Gears, which is a plugin for Firefox and Internet Explorer 7 running on Windows, Apple, and Linux platforms.
After downloading the plugin, re-start your browser and go to Google Reader again; you will have to confirm a warning message and allow Google to use Google Gears.
Then you will be right back to Google Reader, though you will discover a green icon next to your email address in the menu on the top right. Clicking it will start the download.
When finished downloading the items you will be notified that you can disconnect from the internet now and can read your feeds offline.
Downloading items seems to be pretty quick and the offline mode is working stable as well already, although it is still a developer release. This should be a really interesting feature to many people who are travelling a lot and it will make the use of both an online and offline reader obsolete in most cases.
Tags: Google, Internet Explorer, Linux, Microsoft Windows, online and offline reader, online use, stable product
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marcel weiss
