Getting Google Gears To Work With Firefox 3.5.1

Google Gears works fine with Firefox's most recent security update, 3.5.1, but you actually have to convince it of that as of the current release of Gears (0.5.29.0).

In order to "convince" Gears that it's allowed to run, you need to first install it from the Gears site. This will not run, but it will install the files. Then, find the file called "gears.xpt" under your Firefox user settings directory. On my Linux system, this is under my ".mozilla/firefox" directory a few levels down under some very funky directory names with lots of letters and numbers... that's OK, just find the file using whatever your OS uses to search for files.

Once you find that file, look in the directory one level above it for another file called "install.rdf". Load this file up in the text editor of your choice (notepad, vi, emacs, whatever), and look for the line that sets "maxVersion" to "3.5".

Got it? OK, here's the crazy complicated part... add ".1" to the end of "3.5". That's it. Save the file and restart Firefox. You should be able to bring up the Tools -> Add-ons dialog and verify that Gears is installed.