The pros and cons of the unified mode WebKit browser rendering engine

Opera announces switch to open source WebKit engine

A few days before this week, Oupeng browser (Opera) announced that it was gradually shutting down its independent browser rendering engine (brower rendering engine) related development work, and then turned to use the open source of the WebKit engine, the news quickly caused a big stir.

The WebKit engine supports the Google Android and Apple iOS built-in browsers, and in the Mobile world, the WebKit engine has actually become the standard for mobile browser kernel development, and it is likely to be the kernel standard for desktop browsers. On a global scale, Chrome has been far ahead of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, which is based on the Trident typesetting engine, and Firefox, the kernel of the Mozilla Gecko engine. The question now is, which of the two options would be better if multiple browsers kernel engines competed with each other or unified all browsers to the WebKit browser engine?

As an Open-source project, WebKit allows all service providers to contribute to the source code and integrates the capabilities of Google, Apple, Mozilla, Microsoft, Oupeng, and other browser providers into the browser ecosystem, which may also want to contribute to open source, Because this can promote the Internet to continue to move forward. Companies that support a browser kernel also point out that this approach is easier for developers because they don't have to do repetitive development jobs on Cross-platform browser cores as they do now.

Also, many industry commentators on the Hacker news site have pointed out that as long as we are confident and innovative based on the WebKit kernel of browser development, it will benefit both developers and users to webkit the Web pages of the browser kernel.

However, there are also different voices appearing. The most opposed to this single mode browser kernel enterprise, is the Mozilla company. Clearly, they have worked very their self-developed gecko engines, and have also put a lot of effort into the servo browser engine that is about to be inherited by the GECKP engine. Mozilla's chief technology officer, Brendan Eich, believes that a single-mode browser engine is bound to cause problems, and Mozilla has to contend with it as a corporate mission. Based on this idea, Mozilla engineer Steve Fink also suggested that if the Internet relies entirely on the WebKit browser engine kernel (including mobile operating systems and desktop operating systems), it will hinder innovation and allow a handful of industry giants to form a monopoly on the Internet. In the long run, it will not only increase the complexity of the technology, but also bring chaos to the whole industry.

Although WebKit is an open source project, it is easy for WebKit to go to the crossroads once development stagnates, or if shareholders try to stop them from making important changes for political reasons.

On the Internet, of course, we did have a bad time, when the internet was completely dominated by Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, especially IE5 and IE6, which was launched in 2001 IE6 to 2006, five years after the launch of IE7, Netscape was completely defeated, giving up the top spot in the browser. On the other hand, Firefox was launched in 2004, and Google's WebKit Chrome browser was launched in 2008, and these browsers have brought competitiveness to the industry. It also promotes the development of web development standards, rendering engines, and JavaScript technology. There is no doubt that these powerful browser platforms will bring the vast majority of users into a diversified internet age.

Web vs. Apps

Even Oupeng browsers, in their internal declarations, also indicate that "a single mode browser engine is harmful." "But on the other hand, Oupeng added some failed annotations to the application, saying:" There is no reason why the company should not put the WebKit browser engine in the first place, because the WebKit browser engine has a significant market share in the mobile domain, and the web developer is still only Design code on the WebKit engine. ”

Oupeng This twisted argument may seem laughable, but the real competition is not between browsers and the rendering engine, but the internet and the local app application debate. The company said Oupeng's move was due to the competition between the "closed app world" and the open Internet, and that transforming the use of the WebKit browser kernel engine helped companies cope with the challenge.

Developers care, but what about users?

Ideally, all the different browser service providers simply need to follow the same specification as the same standard, and developers need not worry about which rendering engine their code will be showing, because the pages that are displayed always look the same. Sadly, this is clearly not possible, because each execution code has its own distinctive characteristics.

Most users actually don't care about exactly how to render a specific Web site or Web application. For them, the browser is basically chrome using the render engine. Browser features that users care about, such as Web bookmarks, plug-ins, page tags, and so on, which affect the user's choice (assuming that each browser runs at a comparable speed).

Mozilla argues that the best way to push the browser's features forward is to control the browser's product from top to bottom. But some of WebKit's pure supporters argue that if Mozilla and other companies continue to hold this concept, they are destined to become only browser companies that bring the best functionality to the user.

Personally, the author believes that if there is a unified standard of several browser engines competing with each other, its innovation cycle will certainly become faster. The internet is now in a phase that is obviously more important than considering how to integrate a standalone browser engine. This involves a lot of additional work, sometimes even breaking the routine, but in the long run it is worth working towards.