Blink (browser engine)
| Developer(s) | The Chromium Project and contributors |
|---|---|
| Initial release | April 3, 2013[1] |
| Repository | |
| Written in | C++ |
| Operating system | Cross-platform |
| Type | Browser engine |
| License | Three-clause BSD and GNU LGPL v2.1 |
| Website | chromium |
Blink is a browser engine used in the Google Chrome browser and many other projects. It is developed as part of the Chromium project[2] with contributions from Google, Opera Software ASA, Adobe Systems, Intel, Samsung and others.[3][4] It was first announced in April 2013.[5]
Engine
Blink is a fork of the WebCore component of WebKit,[6] which is originally a fork of the KHTML and KJS libraries from KDE.[7][8] It is used in Chrome starting at version 28,[9][10] Opera (15+),[9] Vivaldi, Amazon Silk and other Chromium-based browsers and frameworks.
Much of WebCore's code is used for features that Chrome implements differently (such as sandboxing and the multi-process model). These parts were altered for the Blink fork, and although made slightly bulkier, it allowed greater flexibility for adding new features in the future. The fork will[when?] also deprecate vendor prefixes; experimental functionality will instead be enabled on an opt-in basis.[11] Aside from these planned changes, Blink currently[when?] remains relatively similar to WebCore.[10] By commit count, Google has been the largest contributor to the WebKit code base since late 2009.[12]
Blink's naming was influenced by the non-standard presentational blink HTML tag, which was introduced by Netscape Navigator, and supported by Presto- and Gecko-based browsers until August 2013.[2][13][14]
Frameworks
Several projects exist to turn Chromium’s Blink into a reusable software framework for other developers:
- In currently supported versions of the Android operating system (since version 4.4) the WebView component is based on Blink instead of WebKit.[15]
- Chromium Embedded Framework is widely used in software by Adobe Systems,[16][17] streaming media services such as Spotify,[18][19] video game services such as Battle.net and Steam,[20] etc.[21]
- Electron is a Node.js based framework developed by GitHub.
- In the Qt 5 framework the WebEngine module supersedes the previous QtWebKit module.[21][22]
Chromium Blink is implemented on six platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux, Chrome OS, Android, and Android WebView. iOS versions of Chromium continue to use its parent renderer, WebKit WebCore.[23]
See also
References
- ^ "[chrome] Log of /releases/28.0.1463.0/DEPS". Src.chromium.org. Retrieved 31 December 2016.
- ^ a b Lardinois, Frederic (3 April 2013). "Google Forks WebKit And Launches Blink, A New Rendering Engine That Will Soon Power Chrome And Chrome OS". TechCrunch. Retrieved 25 November 2013.
- ^ "Contents of /trunk/src/AUTHORS". chromium.org.
- ^ "Google, Opera Fork WebKit. Samsung Joins Firefox to Push Servo". infoq.com. April 2013.
- ^ "Blink: A rendering engine for the Chromium project". The Chromium Blog. Retrieved 3 April 2013.
- ^ "Which webkit revision is Blink forking from?". blink-dev mailing list. Retrieved 18 April 2013.
- ^ "'(fwd) Greetings from the Safari team at Apple Computer' – MARC". Lists.kde.org. 7 January 2003. Retrieved 2 May 2017.
- ^ "The WebKit Open Source Project". Retrieved 7 April 2012.
- ^ a b "Blink". QuirksBlog. April 2013. Retrieved 4 April 2013.
- ^ a b "Google going its own way, forking WebKit rendering engine". Ars Technica. April 2013. Retrieved 4 April 2013.
- ^ "Blink Developer FAQ". The Chromium Projects. Retrieved 22 October 2014.
- ^ Siracusa, John (12 April 2013). "Hypercritical: Code Hard or Go Home". Hypercritical.co. Retrieved 15 June 2013.
- ^ Kobie, Nicole (7 August 2013). "Firefox 23 finally kills "blink" tag". PC Pro. Retrieved 25 November 2013.
- ^ Shankland, Stephen (3 April 2013). "Google parts ways with Apple over WebKit, launches Blink". CNet. Retrieved 25 November 2013.
- ^ "WebView for Android". Google. Retrieved 22 April 2017.
- ^ Hallgrimur Bjornsson. "Introducing HTML5 extensions". Adobe Systems.
- ^ "Adobe Edge Animate Team Blog". Adobe Systems.
- ^ "Open Source". Spotify.com. Retrieved 31 December 2016.
- ^ "CEF integration in Dreamweaver". Helpx.adobe.com. Retrieved 31 December 2016.
- ^ "Chromium Embedded Framework - Valve Developer Community". Developer.valvesoftware.com. Retrieved 31 December 2016.
- ^ a b "Developer diary: Creating a desktop client for Conclave - 10×10 Room". 10x10room.com. 24 April 2014. Archived from the original on 18 January 2017.
- ^ "Qt WebEngine Overview". Qt Project. Retrieved 31 December 2016.
- ^ EMIL PROTALINSKI (4 April 2013). "Google's Blink Q&A: New rendering engine will replace WebKit on all platforms in 10 weeks with Chrome 28". thenextweb.com. Retrieved 10 July 2018.
