Offline websites using Google Gears or HTML5

Question

I have been reading about creating offline websites using Gears and using HTML 5. Im curious as to advantages and disadvantages of the two in regards to an ASP.Net MVC2 applcation with a SQL Database Backend. It seems to me that since Gears supports offline Database functionality. It would be the only way to go. But with some creativity you could probably get HTML 5 to handle some of this.

What Im looking for?

• Pros and cons
• Expeirence in Gears and or HTML 5 off line content.

Answer 1

Google are phasing Gears out in favour of HTML 5, which makes it something of a no brainer for me, at least as far as future proofing goes.

The browsers used by the target audience are the only reason I would use Gears … although "Use a different browser" is only moderately more hassle then "Go install this plugin"

It seems to me that since Gears supports offline Database functionality. It would be the only way to go. But with some creativity you could probably get HTML 5 to handle some of this.

Who needs creativity? http://www.w3.org/TR/offline-webapps/#sql