Close
  • Latest News
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Logo
Logo
  • Latest News
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home Development
    • Development

    Google Changing Rendering Engines for Chromium Apps

    By
    Todd R. Weiss
    -
    April 4, 2013
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin

      Google’s Chromium products, from its Chrome browser to Chrome OS, need more flexibility than possible using its existing rendering engine, so the company’s developers have created a forked version that better meets the needs of the ongoing Chrome projects.

      The announcement to move to “Blink,” a customized, forked version of the existing WebKit rendering engine, was made in an April 3 post by Adam Barth, a Google software engineer, on the Chromium Blog.

      “WebKit is a lightweight yet powerful rendering engine that emerged out of KHTML in 2001,” Barth wrote. “Its flexibility, performance and thoughtful design made it the obvious choice for Chromium’s rendering engine back when we started. Thanks to the hard work by all in the community, WebKit has thrived and kept pace with the Web platform’s growing capabilities since then.”

      The problem with continuing to use WebKit into the future, though, is that Google’s Chromium project, which includes the Chrome browser, Chrome OS and other applications, “uses a different multi-process architecture than other WebKit-based browsers, and supporting multiple architectures over the years has led to increasing complexity for both the WebKit and Chromium projects,” he wrote. “This has slowed down the collective pace of innovation—so today, we are introducing Blink, a new open-source rendering engine based on WebKit.”

      The change in the architecture and history of the development projects was not taken lightly, he said.

      “This was not an easy decision,” Barth wrote. “We know that the introduction of a new rendering engine can have significant implications for the Web. Nevertheless, we believe that having multiple rendering engines—similar to having multiple browsers—will spur innovation and over time improve the health of the entire open Web ecosystem.”

      A rendering engine takes the entered code and translates it to create the images seen on a user’s screen when the information is viewed on a mobile device, desktop computer or other device.

      “In the short term, Blink will bring little change for Web developers,” Barth wrote. “The bulk of the initial work will focus on internal architectural improvements and a simplification of the code base. For example, we anticipate that we’ll be able to remove 7 build systems and delete more than 7,000 files—comprising more than 4.5 million lines—right off the bat. Over the long term a healthier code base leads to more stability and fewer bugs.”

      During the transition from WebKit to Blink, Google developers will “collaborate closely with other browser vendors to move the Web forward and preserve the compatibility that made it a successful ecosystem,” he wrote. “In that spirit, we’ve set strong guidelines for new features that emphasize standards, interoperability, conformance testing and transparency.”

      The Blink project Web page says the effort means that developers will now have the “freedom to dream big for the Web. When Chromium started, our goal was to change as little of WebKit as possible, easing integration with the WebKit code base. With Blink we are excited to make large-scale architectural changes to the code, without having to worry about breaking other consumers of WebKit. “

      A key upcoming change is the addition of “out-of-process iframes,” which will allow Chromium to separate individual parts of a page into separate sandboxed processes, according to organizers. “Implementing this will require large restructuring of how iframes are handled in WebKit. Some of this restructuring is incompatible with other WebKit ports and has thus been delayed until now.”

      Also being eyed as a Blink goal is to “fix our networking code to be faster and simpler. Our current networking code in WebKit is limited by old Mac WebKit API obligations which cannot be changed. Chromium has worked around some of these limitations over the years, but these workarounds have proven fragile and have long been a source of bugs. With Blink, we’re excited to refresh this networking code without forcing other WebKit consumers to break their WebKit API obligations. “

      Another potential idea is to eventually move “the entire Document Object Model (DOM) into JavaScript,” according to organizers. “This has the potential to make JavaScript DOM access dramatically faster, but will involve a very large rewrite of WebKit’s DOM implementation—something that would be difficult in WebKit, which has two supported JavaScript engines.”

      Todd R. Weiss
      As a technology journalist covering enterprise IT for more than 15 years, I joined eWEEK.com in September 2014 as the site's senior writer covering all things mobile. I write about smartphones, tablets, laptops, assorted mobile gadgets and services,mobile carriers and much more. I formerly was a staff writer for Computerworld.com from 2000 to 2008 and previously wrote for daily newspapers in eastern Pennsylvania. I'm an avid traveler, motorcyclist, technology lover, cook, reader, tinkerer and mechanic. I drove a yellow taxicab in college and collect toy taxis and taxi business cards from around the world.
      Get the Free Newsletter!
      Subscribe to Daily Tech Insider for top news, trends & analysis
      This email address is invalid.
      Get the Free Newsletter!
      Subscribe to Daily Tech Insider for top news, trends & analysis
      This email address is invalid.

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Latest News

      Zeus Kerravala on Networking: Multicloud, 5G, and...

      James Maguire - December 16, 2022 0
      I spoke with Zeus Kerravala, industry analyst at ZK Research, about the rapid changes in enterprise networking, as tech advances and digital transformation prompt...
      Read more
      Applications

      Datadog President Amit Agarwal on Trends in...

      James Maguire - November 11, 2022 0
      I spoke with Amit Agarwal, President of Datadog, about infrastructure observability, from current trends to key challenges to the future of this rapidly growing...
      Read more
      Cloud

      IGEL CEO Jed Ayres on Edge and...

      James Maguire - June 14, 2022 0
      I spoke with Jed Ayres, CEO of IGEL, about the endpoint sector, and an open source OS for the cloud; we also spoke about...
      Read more
      Applications

      Kyndryl’s Nicolas Sekkaki on Handling AI and...

      James Maguire - November 9, 2022 0
      I spoke with Nicolas Sekkaki, Group Practice Leader for Applications, Data and AI at Kyndryl, about how companies can boost both their AI and...
      Read more
      IT Management

      Intuit’s Nhung Ho on AI for the...

      James Maguire - May 13, 2022 0
      I spoke with Nhung Ho, Vice President of AI at Intuit, about adoption of AI in the small and medium-sized business market, and how...
      Read more
      Logo

      eWeek has the latest technology news and analysis, buying guides, and product reviews for IT professionals and technology buyers. The site’s focus is on innovative solutions and covering in-depth technical content. eWeek stays on the cutting edge of technology news and IT trends through interviews and expert analysis. Gain insight from top innovators and thought leaders in the fields of IT, business, enterprise software, startups, and more.

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Advertisers

      Advertise with TechnologyAdvice on eWeek and our other IT-focused platforms.

      Advertise with Us

      Menu

      • About eWeek
      • Subscribe to our Newsletter
      • Latest News

      Our Brands

      • Privacy Policy
      • Terms
      • About
      • Contact
      • Advertise
      • Sitemap
      • California – Do Not Sell My Information

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      © 2022 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×