It seems that the Google Chrome browser which has (at the time of writing) already been downloaded by 14 million people is likely to be part of the base Android platform. I have heard rumours that this will be a cut down version with much of the desktop version’s ‘thread safe’ tab browsing but that early versions may not have Google Gears. Here’s hoping that later versions integrate Gears as it would probably be of more benefit in a mobile environment than anywhere else. One of the benefits of Gears is that it allows the use of the web in offline mode and reduces the number of calls to servers by using a local cache. However, this in turn may raise further security issues as to how that local data is protected (i.e. should it be encrypted).
Chrome itself has also been the subject of attacks by the media for lauching with code based on an insecure version of Webkit. Expect a patch soon.
