Gears (aka Google Gears) was utility software that aimed to create more powerful web apps by adding offline storage and other additional features to web browsers. Launched May 31, 2007; shut down November 22, 2011 — it lived 4 years. One of 26 Google products killed in 2011. Gears, formerly Google Gears, is a discontinued utility software offered by Google to create more powerful web apps by adding offline storage and other features to web browsers. Released under the BSD license, Gears is free and open-source. Gears was conceived at a time when a comparable alternative was not available. However, Gears was discontinued in favor of the standardized HTML5 methods that eventually became prevalent. Wiki link Data: Killed by Google (killedbygoogle.com, MIT).