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> What makes this Firefox? I think that's an interesting question. Is a browser defined by its rendering engine or by its features and UI? When Chrome used We
by micampe 12y ago
> What makes this Firefox?
I think that's an interesting question. Is a browser defined by its rendering engine or by its features and UI?
When Chrome used WebKit, it was clearly understood by everyone to be different from Safari, even though the rendering engine was the same (I know, the differences were big), but a Firefox browser that uses WebKit seems to not be considered Firefox.
Personally, while I understand the philosophical and political differences, I think the browser is defined by its features, not the rendering engine: the user wants their bookmarks to sync between the phone and the computer, they don't care whether the two programs use the same library to draw the page on the screen or not, just like they don't care which malloc() implementation they use.
To put it in fewer words: Chrome on iOS is still Chrome, not Safari, because it has Chrome's features.
(This would not have been true a decade ago, but rendering engines compatibility is much less of an issue now)
- Refefer 12y agoIt's a huge issue on mobile. Multiple rendering engines requiring the world to write software to a spec is what prevents people from writing code dependent on a particular browser or, in this case, a rendering engine. You see it all the time in the mobile web: plenty of sites just plain don't work when using other rendering engines.
- acqq 12y agoAnd the fact that web developers then actually can't develop just for one rendering engine and claim that "it's enough" is a very good thing for me. I refuse to use Chrome and I'm extremely hit by all the sites developed "for Chrome only" on the desktop. The web shouldn't be "what's on the developer's machine and not more."
- maxmcd 12y agoI feel like whenever I read discussions about this on HN it's all about the JS engine. Chrome was on webkit but used V8. And unless something has changed all non-safari browsers and webviews use an inferior JS engine. Edit: (Something has changed, WKWebView now has the Nitro JS Engine, cool beans)
- oscargrouch 12y agoAlso, when Chrome was launched, it was the only browser with a multi-process approach to a multi-tab browser world.. Also their approach to threads were right from the beginning, and that converge into a awesome no-lock and no-glitch browsing experience.. After that, every other browser followed them. So, to be fair, Chrome was much more than V8 (which was also a part of its voodoo)
- bgarbiak 12y agoAlso, when Chrome was launched, it was the only browser with a multi-process approach to a multi-tab browser world.. Nope, IE8 was: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2008/03/11/ie8-and-loosely-coupled-ie-lcie.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2008/03/11/ie8-and-loosel...
- ClashTheBunny 12y agoChrome still crashes a few tabs for every process crash. And it feels random the ones that are threads of the same process.
- snotrockets 12y agoChrome's WebKit wasn't 100% compatible with Safari's WebKit. They released from different branches.
- Touche 12y agoYou put the rendering engine and features in opposite corners, which is false. Blink and Gecko have features that WebKit does not. Like WebRTC.