Understand Web browser mainstream four core

The "browser kernel" refers primarily to the rendering engine (Rendering Engine), which is responsible for parsing web syntax (such as HTML, JavaScript) and rendering and displaying Web pages. Therefore, the so-called browser kernel usually refers to the browser's use of the rendering engine, rendering engine determines how the browser to display the content of the page and the format of the page information. Different browser cores also differ in the parsing of Web page authoring syntax, so the same Web page can render and display differently in different kernel browsers.

Browser kernel a wide variety of commercial and non-commercial free core, about 10, we focus on today's major four browser core Trident, Gecko, WebKit and Presto.

One, Trident Kernel (representative: Internet Explorer)

Speaking of Trident, many people will feel strange, but the mention of IE (Internet Explorer) is no one knows nobody, because it is included in the world's most used operating system windows, has been very high market share, so we often call it the IE kernel.

Trident (also known as MSHTML) is a typesetting engine developed by Microsoft. It was born together with IE4 in October 1997 and has been constantly being updated and perfected. And in addition to IE, many products are using the Trident core, such as Windows Help program, RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, Windows Live Messenger, Outlook Express and so on have used the Trident technology.

Trident is actually an open kernel, the Trident engine is designed as a software module, making it easy for other software developers to add Web browsing to their own-developed applications, the interface kernel design is quite mature, so there are many browsers using IE kernel instead of IE, However, Trident can only be used on Windows platforms. Browsers using the Trident rendering engine include: IE, AO, World Window Browser, Avant, Tencent TT, Sleipnir, Gosurf, Greenbrowser, and Kkman.

Second, Gecko Kernel (representative: Mozilla Firefox)

Gecko is an open-source, C + + Web page typesetting engine that is currently used by the Mozilla family Web browser and Netscape version 6 browsers. The software was originally developed by Netscape Communications, and is now maintained by the Mozilla Foundation. Because the gecko is characterized by the full disclosure of the code, so it can be highly developed, programmers all over the world can write code for it, add functionality. Because this is an open source kernel, so favored by many people, using the gecko kernel of the browser is also a lot, this is the gecko kernel although young but the market share can rapidly increase the important reason.

The Gecko typesetting engine provides a rich program interface for use with Internet-related applications, such as Web browsers, HTML editors, client/server, and so on. While the initial focus was on Mozilla's derivatives, such as Netscape and Mozilla Firefox, many other software now uses the typesetting engine. In addition, Gecko is also a cross-platform kernel that can be used in Windows, BSD, Linux, and Mac OS X.

Browsers that are using the Gecko engine are Firefox, Netscape 6~9, SeaMonkey, Camino, Mozilla, Flock, Galeon, K-meleon, Minimo, SLEIPNI, Songbird, XeroBank. The Google gadget engine uses the Gecko browser engine.

Three, WebKit kernel (representative: Safari, Chrome)

WebKit is an Open-source browser engine (Web Browser Engine), WebKit the original code from KDE's khtml and KJS (both open source, free software, licensed under the GPL protocol). So WebKit is also free software, while opening the source code. Its characteristic is the source code structure is clear, the rendering speed is extremely fast. The main representative products are Safari and Google browser Chrome.

The WebKit kernel is also widely used on mobile phones, such as Google's Android platform browser, Apple's iphone browser, Nokia S60 browser, and so on, based on the WebKit engine. The WebKit kernel is also widely used in widget engine products, including China Mobile Bae, Apple's dashboard and Nokia wrt, which are all WebKit engines.

Iv. Presto Kernel (representative: Opera)

Presto is a browser typesetting engine developed by Opera Software for use by Opera 7.0 and above. It replaces the Elektra typesetting engine used by the old version of opera 4 to 6, including adding dynamic features such as Web pages or parts of it that can be typeset with events in DOM and script syntax. Presto is characterized by the optimization of rendering speed to achieve the ultimate, it is currently recognized as the fastest web browsing browser kernel, but at the expense of Web page compatibility.

Presto is actually a dynamic kernel, and Trident, Gecko and other core is the biggest difference is the script processing, Presto has a natural advantage, all or part of the page can be in response to script events, such as the situation was reparse. In addition, the kernel has the fastest speed in executing JavaScript, and according to tests under the same conditions, the time required for the Presto kernel to perform equivalent JavaScript is only about 1/3 of the Trident and gecko cores. Presto is a commercial engine, with less browsers outside of opera using the Presto kernel, which limits the development of Presto to some extent.