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Archived Web Articles Add Article

Google going its own way, forking WebKit rendering engine

Apr 4 2013

Name and scope

Besides "browser engine", two other related terms are commonly used: "layout engine" and "rendering engine".¹²³ In theory, layout and rendering (or "painting") could be handled by different engines. In practice, however, these components are tightly coupled and rarely encountered on their own outside of the browser engine.⁴⁵

In addition to layout and rendering, a browser engine enforces the security policy between documents, handles navigation through hyperlinks and data submitted through forms, and implements the document object model (DOM) exposed to scripts associated with the document.⁶⁷

To provide a wide range of dynamic behavior for web pages, every major browser supports JavaScript. However, JavaScript is implemented as a separate JavaScript engine, which has enabled its usage elsewhere. In a browser, the two engines are coordinated via the DOM and Web IDL bindings.⁸

Browser engines are also used in non-browser applications. An email client needs one to display HTML email. Beginning in the 2010s, many apps have been created with the frameworks based on Google's Chromium project; each of these standalone apps functions much like a web app. (Two examples are Spotify and Slack.)⁹¹⁰

Layout and rendering

The layout of a web page is typically specified by Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Each style sheet is a series of rules for how the page should be presented. For example, some rules specify typography details, such as font, color, and text size, while others determine the placement of images. The engine combines all relevant CSS rules to calculate precise graphical coordinates for the visual representation it will paint on the screen.¹¹¹²

Some engines may begin rendering before a page's resources are downloaded. This can result in visual changes as more data is received, such as images being gradually filled in or a flash of unstyled content.¹³

Notable engines

Further information: Comparison of browser engines

• Apple created the WebKit engine for its Safari browser by forking the KHTML engine of the KDE project.¹⁴ Apple mandates that all browsers on iOS must use WebKit as their engine.¹⁵ (In 2024, the mandate was removed for the European Union, but it is still enforced elsewhere.¹⁶)
• Google originally used WebKit for its Chrome browser but eventually forked it to create the Blink engine.¹⁷ All Chromium-based browsers use Blink, as do applications built with CEF, Electron, or any other framework that embeds Chromium.
• Microsoft has two proprietary engines, Trident and EdgeHTML. Trident, also called MSHTML, is used in the Internet Explorer browser. EdgeHTML, being a fork of Trident, was the original engine of the Edge browser (now called Edge Legacy); it's still found in some UWP apps.¹⁸ The new, Chromium-based Edge was remade with the Blink engine.¹⁹
• Mozilla develops the Gecko engine for its Firefox browser and the Thunderbird email client.²⁰

Development timelines

This figure shows for various browser engines the duration of its active development, the period when relevant new web standards continue to be added to it.

See also

• Comparison of browser engines

References

1. "Behind the scenes of modern web browsers". Tali Garsiel. Retrieved 21 April 2018. http://taligarsiel.com/Projects/howbrowserswork1.htm ↩

2. "Gecko". Mozilla. Archived from the original on 4 June 2014. Retrieved 21 April 2018. https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20140604004321/https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Gecko ↩

3. "Introducing Goanna". M.C. Straver. 22 June 2015. Retrieved 21 April 2018. https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8607 ↩

4. "Behind the scenes of modern web browsers". Tali Garsiel. Retrieved 21 April 2018. http://taligarsiel.com/Projects/howbrowserswork1.htm ↩

5. "How Blink Works". Retrieved 12 March 2024. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aitSOucL0VHZa9Z2vbRJSyAIsAz24kX8LFByQ5xQnUg ↩

6. "Behind the scenes of modern web browsers". Tali Garsiel. Retrieved 21 April 2018. http://taligarsiel.com/Projects/howbrowserswork1.htm ↩

7. "How Blink Works". Retrieved 12 March 2024. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aitSOucL0VHZa9Z2vbRJSyAIsAz24kX8LFByQ5xQnUg ↩

8. "How Blink Works". Retrieved 12 March 2024. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aitSOucL0VHZa9Z2vbRJSyAIsAz24kX8LFByQ5xQnUg ↩

9. "Open Source - Spotify". Retrieved 1 December 2023. Here are the sources to the great Chromium Embedded Framework that is used by the Spotify Desktop client. https://www.spotify.com/us/opensource/ ↩

10. Betts, Anaïs (25 October 2016). "Building Hybrid Applications with Electron". Slack Engineering. Slack. Retrieved 1 December 2023. https://slack.engineering/building-hybrid-applications-with-electron/ ↩

11. "Behind the scenes of modern web browsers". Tali Garsiel. Retrieved 21 April 2018. http://taligarsiel.com/Projects/howbrowserswork1.htm ↩

12. "How Blink Works". Retrieved 12 March 2024. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aitSOucL0VHZa9Z2vbRJSyAIsAz24kX8LFByQ5xQnUg ↩

13. Boudreaux, Ryan (18 October 2013). "How to prevent Flash of Unstyled Content on your websites". TechRepublic. Archived from the original on 5 March 2021. Retrieved 9 October 2021. https://www.techrepublic.com/blog/web-designer/how-to-prevent-flash-of-unstyled-content-on-your-websites/ ↩

14. Paul Festa (14 January 2003). "Apple snub stings Mozilla". CNET Networks. Archived from the original on 25 October 2012. Retrieved 16 February 2017. /wiki/Paul_Festa ↩

15. "Open-sourcing Chrome on iOS!". 2017. Retrieved 26 April 2021. Due to constraints of the iOS platform, all browsers must be built on top of the WebKit rendering engine. https://blog.chromium.org/2017/01/open-sourcing-chrome-on-ios.html ↩

16. Tim Hardwick (24 October 2024). "iOS 18.2 to Allow Third-Party Browser Web Apps With Custom Engines in EU". MacRumors. https://www.macrumors.com/2024/10/24/ios-18-2-eu-third-party-browser-web-apps/ ↩

17. Bright, Peter (3 April 2013). "Google going its way, forking WebKit rendering engine". Ars Technica. Conde Nast. Retrieved 9 March 2017. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/04/google-going-its-own-way-forking-webkit-rendering-engine/ ↩

18. Mendelevich, Alan (14 May 2021). "You Think You Can Forget About the "Legacy" Microsoft Edge? Not So Fast!". https://blog.ailon.org/you-think-you-can-forget-about-the-legacy-microsoft-edge-not-so-fast-28ce91270a22 ↩

19. Mackie, Kurt (10 December 2018). "Microsoft Edge Browser To Get New Rendering Engine but EdgeHTML Continues". Redmond Mag. Retrieved 21 December 2019. https://redmondmag.com/articles/2018/12/10/edgehtml-continues.aspx ↩

20. "Gecko". Mozilla. Archived from the original on 4 June 2014. Retrieved 21 April 2018. https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20140604004321/https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Gecko ↩