Google forking Webkit to create its own rendering engine...Blink. Opera to follow suit.

[Desmond]

Google confirmed that it is going to fork WebKit and create its own renedering engine called Blink

Google announced today that it is forking the WebKit rendering engine on which its Chrome browser is based. The company is naming its new engine "Blink."

The WebKit project was started by Apple in 2001, itself a fork of a rendering engine called KHTML. The project includes a core rendering engine for handling HTML and CSS (WebCore), a JavaScript engine (JavaScriptCore), and a high-level API for embedding it into browsers (WebKit).

Though known widely as "WebKit," Google Chrome has used only WebCore since its launch in late 2008. Apple's Safari originally used the WebKit wrapper and now uses its successor, WebKit2. Many other browsers use varying amounts of the WebKit project, including the Symbian S60 browser, the BlackBerry browser, the webOS browser, and the Android browser.

Until now, Google has rigorously tracked the WebKit project, both integrating patches made by other WebKit developers and pushing its own changes made during the course of Chrome's development back upstream.

Linus Upson, vice president of Engineering at Google, and Alex Komoroske, product manager on the Open Web Platform team, told us that the costs of sharing code now outweighed the advantages. There is considerable complexity in WebCore that is there to support WebKit2 features that Google does not want or use.

For example, WebKit2 has its own multiprocess model for creating individual processes for each browser tab. For Chrome, Google developed its own multiprocess system. Similarly, WebKit2 has a sandboxing model to isolate each process. Google has a separate system for Chrome.

By forking WebCore to create Blink, Google claims that all WebKit users will be able to innovate more quickly. Google can remove infrastructure that exists only to support WebKit2's features, with the company claiming that in one fell swoop it can discard 7,000 files and 4.5 million of lines of code that exist only to support WebKit2's architecture. In turn, this removes the ongoing cost of supporting this infrastructure.

Conversely, the WebKit project no longer needs to worry about making changes that might break WebCore for the way Chrome uses it.

Opera confirms that it will ditch WebKit in favour of Blink

Google on Wednesday made a huge announcement to fork WebKit and build a new rendering engine called Blink. Opera, which only recently decided to replace its own Presto rendering engine for WebKit, has confirmed with TNW that it will be following suit.

“When we announced the move away from Presto, we announced that we are going with the Chromium package, and the forking and name change have little practical influence on the Opera browsers. So yes, your understanding is correct,” an Opera spokesperson told TNW. This will affect both desktop and mobile versions of Opera the spokesperson further confirmed.

In its WebKit announcement back in February, Opera also talked about how it would commit to Chromium. By adopting it, Opera was making the decision to stop development of its own rendering engine in order to free up resources to develop new features and build new products.

 

[noob]

It is now Google & Opera Vs Mozilla

 

[pranav0091]

How?
Its still Google vs Opera vs Mozilla vs IE vs Safari

 

[RCuber]

another disappointment from Google to control everything

 

[heidi2521]

Oh, well. At least this will put an end to the claim that Webkit is becoming the new IE6.

 

[noob]

another disappointment from Google to control everything

No. It is actually a good decision.

 

[Desmond]

Who knows, Chrome might get a whole lot faster.

 

[RCuber]

No. It is actually a good decision.

Well.. Google gives out stuff for free initially .. then slaps us in the face with ads.

Who knows, Chrome might get a whole lot faster.

with loads of ads..

Noting from what we have learnt in the past, Android is opensource.. but still they banned adblockers form Play Store.. because it violates its policies (read Cant sell ads), other other hand there are tens of adult related content pops up in every session of playstore. all of a sudden apple doesn't look that bad.

 

[pranav0091]

And how would have the advent of ads be less likely if google hadnt forked Webkit??

 

[RCuber]

^^ no .. I am saying Google is taking good products and redesigning it for their needs. my primary concern is regarding privacy, dono what on earth they will be doing in the fork. I will wait and watch.

 

[pranav0091]

The fork is going to be open, webkit is GPL licensed, one cannot simply close it up.

 

[Desmond]

Since the fork (Blink) is open as well, it is open for inspection. So, any ulterior motives in the code would be obvious. Besides, Chrome only used the WebCore part of the engine and they are only streamlining Blink.

 

[Allu Azad]

Use Maxthon , Forget Chrome , Period .

 

[Desmond]

Maxthon is a front-end for the IE engine.

 

[MetalheadGautham]

Poor, POOR KHTML. Nobody gives it credit for all the goodies spawned through it these days and almost nothing gets pushed upstream, to an extent that Konqueror users now use WebKit for rendering.

 

[Desmond]

KHTML got overshadowed by WebKit when Steve Jobs rolled out Safari.