Essentially, I wanted to run a piece of demo code from W3c Offline Webapps [1] page. It looks like that:
var db = window.openDatabase("notes", "", "The Example Notes App!", 1048576);
Firefox 3.5, IE8 and Chrome do not seem to get it. Is there anybody out there that actually wrote support for that? Or is this wishful thinking about 'the standard of the future'?
Wikipedia has a table comparing the various browser engines and what portions of HTML5 they support [1].
A reposted internal Yahoo! article [2] also details some differences between localstorage support, to quote:
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_layout_engines_%28HTML_5%29#APIsFirefox 3.5, Safari 4, IE8, Chrome 4+: HTML5 localStorage [3]; these modern browsers all support the core localStorage functionality defined in the HTML5 draft.
Firefox 2.x and 3.0: Gecko globalStorage [4], a very early implementation similar to HTML5’s localStorage.
Safari 3.1 & 3.2: HTML5 Database Storage [5], because Safari 3.1 and 3.2 don’t support HTML5 localStorage.
IE6, IE7: userData persistence [6], a rarely used IE feature for associating string data with an element on a web page and persisting it between pageviews.
Google Chrome Pre 4: Gears Database API [7], which is built into earlier versions of Chrome and thus doesn’t require a separate install.
I believe Safari 3.1 supports openDatabase.
You should check out the PersistJS [1] library, which provides in interface to all the different offline storage capabilities of the different browsers and plugins. It currently supports:
Chrome 4 & 5 support localStorage :)
Opera 10.53 supports it.
Check out the caniuse [1] guide which provides information for future versions as well. It also includes mobile browsers.
[1] http://caniuse.com/There is also YUI Storage Lite: http://yuilibrary.com/gallery/show/storage-lite It has a good compatibility (IE6+, Firefox 2+, Chrome 4+, Opera 10.5+, Safari 3.1+, etc.) and no browser plugins are required.
You can always check if a browser support this feature with window['openDatabase'] !== null;
More info on:
http://geoffrey.vandiest.biz/post/2011/04/30/HTML5-Local-Storage.aspx
AFAIK, WebKit supports it.
WebKit (as used by Safari and WebKit/gtk at least) supports localStorage, sessionStorage, client-side databases and the application cache. Other WebKit ports (WebKit/qt, WebKit/wx, Chrome, etc) haven't yet turned on support :-(
The iPhone version of Safari has rather good support for HTML5, including offline storage.
lawnchair is a newer and more actively supported library.
It provides adapters to enable older browsers and stores json objects
http://westcoastlogic.com/lawnchair/
It even has a nice test suite so you can verify support in your browser easily
http://westcoastlogic.com/lawnchair/tests/
Below list gives information on supporting browsers for offline functionality: