It gives your browser the ability to create local databases, store files locally and run javascripts in the background to speed up gear enabled web applications.
Yes it is google gears they call it gears now. It allows the Os to properly work with your browser such as java script loading it also caches information a lot better this will be the first step to a better browser . Go download google gears for your desktop browser and see what happens on more advanced pages (facebook,gmail, etc)
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