[ep103]

I really don't want to develop web code in a world where the only two popular browsers are one developed by and for Google, and one by and for Microsoft. But every time I come to a thread that mentions Firefox on this website, there are people claiming (usually wrongly) that it doesn't implement x, y, or z that someone else does. I really think the development community needs to wake up a bit, and start promoting FF internally, instead of just following the Google hype train.

[threeseed]

Actually there will be three Google, Microsoft and Apple.

Whilst it is better to have some competition there really does need to be an open alternative.

[mytochar]

Doesn't Apple use Webkit, same as Google? Isn't that functionally the same, except for Google's optimizations?

[bdisraeli]

No Google forked Webkit into Blink[1] about two years ago.

[1] http://www.chromium.org/blink

[function_seven]

Not really anymore. Google forked part of WebKit to create Blink[1], and both Safari and Chrome have their own optimizations.

I'm not sure how close to each other these rendering engines are. I imagine they're still very very similar, but now that the fork has occurred, time will tell how divergent (or not) they become.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blink_(layout_engine)

[lobster_johnson]

Chrome no longer uses Webkit; it uses a fork called Blink. (Technically a fork of WebCore, the core of WebKit.) It's similar, but has diverged since the fork.

[arfar]

They actually forked WebKit and use Blink now, but they obviously still share a lot of the same code as the fork is relatively recent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blink_%28layout_engine%29

[mg1982]

They forked webkit, actually, and use something called Blink.

Check this out for a good summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

[eloisant]

Even when they were using WebKit, it was never the same version, and they had patches. So there never was a unique WebKit rendering engine.