Is Google Gears safe?  Offensive dialog   I imagine that is the
question most users will ask when they see this dialog box:
google gears dialog box  There are a couple of things I don't
like about this dialog. First, the website is defined only by a
URL. The problem is, it's a plain http connection so there's no
SSL certificate involved, so I can't easily check the identity
of the site. This one is Google, so it's not too difficult; but
what if it is some other site? It is not particularly easy to
verify the ownership of a URL; whois information is not
reliable.  Second, what are the implications of my decision? If
you click "What is this", you get this page, which explains
offline functionality but doesn't mention security. It does
mention that Gears is a beta - personally I think this should be
up-front in the security warning dialog as well. Do you trust
this beta software?  If you go to the Frequently Asked
Questions, there is still no mention of security. Is nobody
asking about it? This article is the c