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Everyone is basically using Chrome or Safari nowadays - so WebKit. Very little incompatibilities to consider compared to writing something that works on differe

Everyone is basically using Chrome or Safari nowadays - so WebKit. Very little incompatibilities to consider compared to writing something that works on different WebView implementations

ben-schaaf 5y ago
WebKit and Blink have many significant differences, especially when it comes to supporting newer features. In terms of incompatibilities they're about as different as Gecko is from Blink, if not more so.
- capableweb 5y ago
  Not sure how familiar you are with the history of browser engines, but Blink and WebKit are definitely more similar than Gecko and Blink. Gecko comes from the heritage of Netscape. Blink comes from the chain of KHTML > WebKit WebCore. They don't share any points, while Blink probably wouldn't have existed without WebKit. But yes, today there are differences between WebKit and Blink.
  - lillecarl 5y ago
    "In terms of incompatibilities they're about as different as Gecko is from Blink, if not more so." > Not sure how familiar you are with the history of browser engines, but Blink and WebKit are definitely more similar than Gecko and Blink. I see we interpreted parent poster differently, he wasn't talking about the history of rendering engines, but rather compability with the various web specs. Since Chrome forked WebKit quite a long time ago now and Blink has been reworked quite a bit they have deviated from eachothers implementations. Since everyone is trying to follow an open spec it might be that in certain areas FF and Chrome implement more of the same API's than Safari, which doesn't have anything to do with codebase history. You might and probably will feel more comfortable in the WebKit codebase if you're a Blink developer or vice versa in comparision to Gecko, but that is if you're writing the engine itself and not pressing the pedals (targeting it).
- elpescado 5y ago
  > as different as Gecko is from Blink As someone who has been playing with some web dev in early 2000s, that sounds funny. Gecko, WebKit and Blink seem very consistent to me. I remember dealing incompatibilities between IE6 and "standards-compliant" browsers (mainly Firefox/Mozilla Suite back then). And don't get me started on dealing with "classic" Netscape! `<layer>` tag anyone?
Semaphor 5y ago
Luckily, that is not the case. In Germany, FF still has 20% on Desktop and 10% total (and I wonder if those numbers are maybe too low, as FF blocks those trackers by default).
- gefhfffh 5y ago
  That means that there are about 8 million people using Firefox in Germany. The world has more than 3 billion internet users
  - jcelerier 5y ago
    I don't understand why this relative metric matters. Past the size of a small city it just shouldn't matter how many more users the competition have. There are more firefox users today (~200M) than there were total internet users in 1998 (~150M), and surely you would agree that it does not make sense to discard that, any more than it makes sense to discard, say, UK or France from diplomatic relationships because they have ~70M inhabitants while India and China account for almost 3 billion.
    - gefhfffh 5y ago
      Hmm it matters because when everyone basically uses competition, it doesn't matter if a few people use something else
      - brnt 5y ago
        Just because only 17M people live in the Netherlands, does not mean it's OK to block them. Just because people in wheelchairs don't wall, does not mean we don't need to build streets such they can get around too. Just because some people use the Greek script, does not mean ASCII is enough. It's called accessibility, and it's a very good thing.
        gefhfffh 5y ago
        You are arguing against a straw man
roblabla 5y ago
WebKit, WebKitGTK and WebView2 are all webkit-based too currently. WebView2 was always chromium-based afaict, I think the old trident-based edge had a separate control. Also, on the web, firefox still exists.
sanxiyn 5y ago
Sorry, I am using Firefox.

Everyone is basically using Chrome or Safari nowadays - so WebKit. Very little incompatibilities to consider compared to writing something that works on different WebView implementations

ben-schaaf 5y ago

WebKit and Blink have many significant differences, especially when it comes to supporting newer features. In terms of incompatibilities they're about as different as Gecko is from Blink, if not more so.

capableweb 5y ago
Not sure how familiar you are with the history of browser engines, but Blink and WebKit are definitely more similar than Gecko and Blink. Gecko comes from the heritage of Netscape. Blink comes from the chain of KHTML > WebKit WebCore. They don't share any points, while Blink probably wouldn't have existed without WebKit. But yes, today there are differences between WebKit and Blink.
- lillecarl 5y ago
  "In terms of incompatibilities they're about as different as Gecko is from Blink, if not more so." > Not sure how familiar you are with the history of browser engines, but Blink and WebKit are definitely more similar than Gecko and Blink. I see we interpreted parent poster differently, he wasn't talking about the history of rendering engines, but rather compability with the various web specs. Since Chrome forked WebKit quite a long time ago now and Blink has been reworked quite a bit they have deviated from eachothers implementations. Since everyone is trying to follow an open spec it might be that in certain areas FF and Chrome implement more of the same API's than Safari, which doesn't have anything to do with codebase history. You might and probably will feel more comfortable in the WebKit codebase if you're a Blink developer or vice versa in comparision to Gecko, but that is if you're writing the engine itself and not pressing the pedals (targeting it).
elpescado 5y ago
> as different as Gecko is from Blink As someone who has been playing with some web dev in early 2000s, that sounds funny. Gecko, WebKit and Blink seem very consistent to me. I remember dealing incompatibilities between IE6 and "standards-compliant" browsers (mainly Firefox/Mozilla Suite back then). And don't get me started on dealing with "classic" Netscape! `<layer>` tag anyone?

Semaphor 5y ago

Luckily, that is not the case. In Germany, FF still has 20% on Desktop and 10% total (and I wonder if those numbers are maybe too low, as FF blocks those trackers by default).

gefhfffh 5y ago
That means that there are about 8 million people using Firefox in Germany. The world has more than 3 billion internet users
- jcelerier 5y ago
  I don't understand why this relative metric matters. Past the size of a small city it just shouldn't matter how many more users the competition have. There are more firefox users today (~200M) than there were total internet users in 1998 (~150M), and surely you would agree that it does not make sense to discard that, any more than it makes sense to discard, say, UK or France from diplomatic relationships because they have ~70M inhabitants while India and China account for almost 3 billion.
  - gefhfffh 5y ago
    Hmm it matters because when everyone basically uses competition, it doesn't matter if a few people use something else
    - brnt 5y ago
      Just because only 17M people live in the Netherlands, does not mean it's OK to block them. Just because people in wheelchairs don't wall, does not mean we don't need to build streets such they can get around too. Just because some people use the Greek script, does not mean ASCII is enough. It's called accessibility, and it's a very good thing.
      - gefhfffh 5y ago
        You are arguing against a straw man

roblabla 5y ago

WebKit, WebKitGTK and WebView2 are all webkit-based too currently. WebView2 was always chromium-based afaict, I think the old trident-based edge had a separate control. Also, on the web, firefox still exists.

sanxiyn 5y ago

Sorry, I am using Firefox.