New gecko based browsers are rare nowadays but this one is especially unique to me because it is more than just “firefox with tweaks” like a lot of the ones I’ve come across. The UI is different, it’s working on custom settings, a new more powerful sidebar, a new theming system, and potentially IPFS/Dat support further down the line. It’s very early in development but it’s still impressive as it is.
Safari is using blink, google’s web engine. The only alternative is Mozilla’s Gecko. So we must support it. I hope that there was more alternative because I believe in web engine freedom, but rn our only option is Firefox.
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Blink isn’t a fork of WebKit, it’s a improvement of WebKit, like WebKit is a improvement of KHTML from KDE. Gecko was a trademark of Netscape, first called NGLayout and was adopted by Mozilla in 1998 until today.
Webkit uses blink
???, no, what’s more, Apple requires browser developers to use WebKit in order to be included in the Apple repository. This is why many browser developers who use Blink or Gecko have a lot of difficulties to change their browser for Apple. Apple does not want to lose its monopoly of Safari on its platform, a practice that will cost them dearly sooner or later, as it is a very limited platform in functionality.
You’re right, Apple requires browser to use WebKit on their platform.
What I said tho, is that WebKit takes a lot of their code from blink. Blink was created as a WebKit fork. As you probably know, maintaining a modern web engine requires a lot of effort. What WebKit does to keep itself updated is to get the code from Blink removing chromium specific parts. So at the end, WebKit is only a reduced version of chromium.
Blink is a fork of some WebKit components + V8 JS engine.
I never saw that “backporting” from Blink to WebKit but the opposite.
I would not deny that some backport in the opposite way could exist but WebKit is main and independent development.
In CSS, is even more up-to-date than Blink in some features. I dont have a list here but I could check it from first hand when making first course of WebDev between last GNOME Web VS last Chromium.
Certainly WebKit is independent of Blink, but I do not know if you can talk about development, there is not a WebKit v.1.0, 2…0 …, nor is there for other engines, what I see is that it patches certain deficiencies that appear, but a real development I have not seen anyone get into these swamps, due to the complexity of these engines, the most complicated part of a browser.
What if I have seen that many engines have disappeared over time, precisely because of this problem, leaving practically only Blink, Gecko and WebKit, apart from some exotics that do not finish leaving the experimental phase for 15 years and some rudimentary that use the Text Browsers, such as Lynx and others.
Who will win the race is also evident, it will be Blink, since it is the engine from te compañy that dominates the network by 80%, reason also because more and more browsers will pass to this engine, as did also MS with the EDGE.
Although I do not know if I consider this as something positive, apart from making life easier for web and plugin developers, by not having to deal with different formats, but on the other hand it leaves the network even more in the hands of an monopoly that is already far from its old slogan ‘Don’t be evil’
The reunification of the App Stores into a centralized one, as planned by Google, MS, Apple and Mozilla will only accelerate the process that will lead to a single engine (why there will not be many who will upload their apps in 3 different formats, today there are already more extensions in the Chrome Store than in all the other stores combined) , as much as Mozilla or Apple opposes, Mozilla, why it depends economically on Google and Apple, why its Safari will become the new IE Meme
???
Yes, all motors are FOSS, but the update are patches. You can review all the code (script~2Gb for WebKit) and analyse it before you are retired? The updates for this are adons, to patch some security and compatibility holes, not a real improvement, which requires a lot of recources and developers.
Well, more or less, but this practice can be carried on for a season. If Apple does not want to stay on the road, it has to get off the podestal and once and for all accept that WebKit has its limitations, no matter how much they patch it. As I said before, until the old IE almost equals in performance with Safari, while developers look black trying to get a browser for iOS that has a minimum of functionality. Vivaldi’s small team has been trying for several years to get an iOS browser out of the alpha phase, because many of its functionalities do not work in WebKit. Not for nothing has WebKit been forked and improved to create Blink, this work, due to the complexity of a render engine, nobody does, if it was not necessary already at that time. But Apple is Apple, more important design than functionality, design can be charged more expensive.
How much do the wheels of your car cost?