Browser engine

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A browser engine (also known as a layout engine or rendering engine) is a core software component of every major web browser. The primary job of a browser engine is to transform HTML documents and other resources of a web page into an interactive visual representation on a user's device.

Contents

Name and scope

Besides "browser engine", two other related terms are commonly used: "layout engine" and "rendering engine". [1] [2] [3] In theory, layout and rendering (or "painting") could be handled by different engines. In practice, however, these components are tightly coupled and rarely encountered on their own outside of the browser engine. [1] [4]

In addition to layout and rendering, a browser engine enforces the security policy between documents, handles navigation through hyperlinks and data submitted through forms, and implements the Document Object Model (DOM) exposed to scripts associated with the document. [1] [4]

Every major browser supports JavaScript to provide a wide range of dynamic behavior for web pages. However, JavaScript is implemented as a separate JavaScript engine, which has enabled its usage elsewhere. In a browser, the two engines are coordinated via the DOM and Web IDL bindings. [4]

Browser engines are also used in non-browser applications. An email client needs one to display HTML email. Beginning in the 2010s, many apps have been created with the frameworks based on Google's Chromium project; each of these standalone apps functions much like a web app. (Two examples are Spotify and Slack.) [5] [6]

Layout and rendering

The layout of a web page is typically specified by Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Each style sheet is a series of rules for how the page should be presented. For example, some rules specify typography details, such as font, color, and text size, while others determine the placement of images. The engine combines all relevant CSS rules to calculate precise graphical coordinates for the visual representation it will paint on the screen. [1] [4]

Some engines may begin rendering before a page's resources are downloaded. This can result in visual changes as more data is received, such as images being gradually filled in or a flash of unstyled content. [7]

Notable engines

Timeline

Only the duration of active development is shown, which is when relevant new Web standards continue to be added to the engine.

Browser engine

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KHTML</span> Discontinued web browser engine

KHTML is a discontinued browser engine that was developed by the KDE project. It originated as the engine of the Konqueror browser in the late 1990s, but active development ceased in 2016. It was officially discontinued in 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Browser wars</span> Competition between web browsing applications for share of worldwide usage

A browser war is a competition for dominance in the usage share of web browsers. The "first browser war" (1995–2001) consisted of Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator, and the "second browser war" (2004-2017) between Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome.

WebKit is a browser engine developed by Apple and primarily used in its Safari web browser, as well as all web browsers on iOS and iPadOS. WebKit is also used by the PlayStation consoles starting with the PS3, the Tizen mobile operating systems, the Amazon Kindle e-book reader, Nintendo consoles starting with the 3DS Internet Browser, and the discontinued BlackBerry Browser.

This is a comparison of both historical and current web browsers based on developer, engine, platform(s), releases, license, and cost.

Trident is a proprietary browser engine for the Microsoft Windows version of Internet Explorer, developed by Microsoft.

The blink element is a non-standard HTML element that indicates to a user agent that the page author intends the content of the element to blink. The element was introduced in Netscape Navigator but is no longer supported and often ignored by modern Web browsers; some, such as Internet Explorer, never supported the element at all.

A user interface markup language is a markup language that renders and describes graphical user interfaces and controls. Many of these markup languages are dialects of XML and are dependent upon a pre-existing scripting language engine, usually a JavaScript engine, for rendering of controls and extra scriptability.

This article compares browser engines, especially actively-developed ones.

A JavaScript engine is a software component that executes JavaScript code. The first JavaScript engines were mere interpreters, but all relevant modern engines use just-in-time compilation for improved performance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flash of unstyled content</span> Phenomenon in web browsers

A flash of unstyled content is an instance where a web page appears briefly with the browser's default styles prior to loading an external CSS stylesheet, due to the web browser engine rendering the page before all information is retrieved. The page corrects itself as soon as the style rules are loaded and applied; however, the shift may be distracting. Related problems include flash of invisible text and flash of faux text.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Site-specific browser</span> Software application for browsing a particular website

A site-specific browser (SSB) is a software application that is dedicated to accessing pages from a single source (site) on a computer network such as the Internet or a private intranet. SSBs typically simplify the more complex functions of a web browser by excluding the menus, toolbars and browser GUI associated with functions that are external to the workings of a single site. These applications are typically started by a desktop icon which is usually a favicon.

Google Native Client (NaCl) is a discontinued sandboxing technology for running either a subset of Intel x86, ARM, or MIPS native code, or a portable executable, in a sandbox. It allows safely running native code from a web browser, independent of the user operating system, allowing web apps to run at near-native speeds, which aligns with Google's plans for ChromeOS. It may also be used for securing browser plugins, and parts of other applications or full applications such as ZeroVM.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chromium (web browser)</span> Open-source web browser project

Chromium is a free and open-source web browser project, primarily developed and maintained by Google. It is a widely-used codebase, providing the vast majority of code for Google Chrome and many other browsers, including Microsoft Edge, Samsung Internet, and Opera. The code is also used by several app frameworks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WebGL</span> JavaScript bindings for OpenGL in web browsers

WebGL is a JavaScript API for rendering interactive 2D and 3D graphics within any compatible web browser without the use of plug-ins. WebGL is fully integrated with other web standards, allowing GPU-accelerated usage of physics, image processing, and effects in the HTML canvas. WebGL elements can be mixed with other HTML elements and composited with other parts of the page or page background.

Content Security Policy (CSP) is a computer security standard introduced to prevent cross-site scripting (XSS), clickjacking and other code injection attacks resulting from execution of malicious content in the trusted web page context. It is a Candidate Recommendation of the W3C working group on Web Application Security, widely supported by modern web browsers. CSP provides a standard method for website owners to declare approved origins of content that browsers should be allowed to load on that website—covered types are JavaScript, CSS, HTML frames, web workers, fonts, images, embeddable objects such as Java applets, ActiveX, audio and video files, and other HTML5 features.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chromium Embedded Framework</span> Free and open-source software framework

The Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) is an open-source software framework for embedding a Chromium web browser within another application. This enables developers to add web browsing functionality to their application, as well as the ability to use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to create the application's user interface.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">EdgeHTML</span> Former browser engine of Microsoft Edge

EdgeHTML is a proprietary browser engine from Microsoft that was formerly used in Microsoft Edge, which debuted in 2015 as part of Windows 10.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Behind the scenes of modern web browsers". Tali Garsiel. Retrieved 21 April 2018.
  2. 1 2 "Gecko". Mozilla. Archived from the original on 4 June 2014. Retrieved 21 April 2018.
  3. ↑ "Introducing Goanna". M.C. Straver. 22 June 2015. Retrieved 21 April 2018.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "How Blink Works". Google. Retrieved 12 March 2024.
  5. ↑ "Open Source - Spotify" . Retrieved 1 December 2023. Here are the sources to the great Chromium Embedded Framework that is used by the Spotify Desktop client.
  6. ↑ Betts, Anaïs (25 October 2016). "Building Hybrid Applications with Electron". Slack Engineering. Slack. Retrieved 1 December 2023.
  7. ↑ Boudreaux, Ryan (18 October 2013). "How to prevent Flash of Unstyled Content on your websites". TechRepublic. Archived from the original on 5 March 2021. Retrieved 9 October 2021.
  8. ↑ Paul Festa (14 January 2003). "Apple snub stings Mozilla". CNET Networks. Archived from the original on 25 October 2012. Retrieved 16 February 2017.
  9. ↑ "Open-sourcing Chrome on iOS!". 2017. Retrieved 26 April 2021. Due to constraints of the iOS platform, all browsers must be built on top of the WebKit rendering engine.
  10. ↑ Bright, Peter (3 April 2013). "Google going its way, forking WebKit rendering engine". Ars Technica . Conde Nast . Retrieved 9 March 2017.
  11. ↑ Mackie, Kurt (10 December 2018). "Microsoft Edge Browser To Get New Rendering Engine but EdgeHTML Continues". Redmond Mag. Retrieved 21 December 2019.
  12. ↑ Mendelevich, Alan (14 May 2021). "You Think You Can Forget About the "Legacy" Microsoft Edge? Not So Fast!".
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