Historical past of Internet Browser Engines from 1990 till as we speak

Many tried, few stay…

Final up to date: October 2022

The lack of browser variety for the reason that rise of Chromium has been tremendously lamented. Beneath yow will discover a graph that reveals the historic and current browser engines (not browsers, however the HTML rendering engines), in addition to from when to after they had been developed. For the larger engines, the market share is indicated by a colored form (see legend).

We’re now properly into the “fourth period of dominance”. NCSA Mosaic dominated originally (first dominance), however it was dethroned by Netscape which briefly held nearly all of the market share (second dominance), each of which then had been overtaken by Web Explorer (initially utilizing the engine from Spyglass Mosaic, and later Trident) (third dominance), which then was weakened first by Firefox (Gecko engine) however lastly dethroned by Chromium (Blink engine) (fourth dominance). When it comes to lively and related engines there’s now solely Blink (Chrome, Edge, Opera, Vivaldi, Courageous, Samsung Web, UC Browser and lots of extra), WebKit (Safari and all iOS browsers), and Gecko (Firefox and its forks).

However see for your self:

In the present day’s surviving engines could be divided into three teams:

1. Lively engines, together with experimental ones

• Gecko (Firefox). Right down to 4% market share, mismanaged by Mozilla which prioritizes pushing its poisonous politics over bettering the browser. Open supply
• Goanna (Pale Moon), a fork of an previous model of Gecko. At 0% market share and at all times vulnerable to not catching up with the most recent internet requirements that Google invents. Open supply
• WebKit (Safari), a fork of KHTML. Round 15-20% market share due to Apple’s coverage of solely permitting WebKit-based browsers on iOS. Open supply
• Blink, a fork of WebKit. It is the dominant engine these days, and it underpins Chromium, which is the idea for Chrome, Edge, Opera, Courageous, Vivaldi, Samsung Web and most different browsers; QtWebengine, which is the idea for Falkon and Otter Browser; Android WebView; Home windows WebView 2; and Electron, the place Blink is used to render the UI of apps. Near 80% market share. Open supply
• Hubbub, used solely in NetSurf, a fairly primary browser with no help for superior internet requirements similar to HTML 5. 0% market share. Open supply
• The engine of iBrowse, which is offered for Amiga OS and appears to be a primary browser too with out full internet requirements helps. 0% market share. Closed supply
• Servo. This promising engine was developed by Mozilla, and components of the Servo engine have been included into Gecko. In 2020, Mozilla fired 1 / 4 of their builders, which apparently included the entire Servo staff. There have nonetheless been some commits to the code since then (presumably by hobbyists) however it’s questionable if Servo may have a future. Replace: Servo is now hosted by the Linux Basis. Open supply
• Flow, which focuses on TVs, however appears to be a promising newcomer. Sadly it is not open supply so it is probably that the corporate will focus on their TV area of interest and that Circulate will not ever change into an actual competitor to Blink. Closed supply
• LibWeb, the engine powering Ladybird and the SerenityOS Browser. SerenityOS is a Unix-like working system that has been developed from scratch by Andreas Kling since 2018. The browser continues to be fairly experimental, however it’s nonetheless nice to see one other contender. Open supply

2. Zombie engines

• Trident (Web Explorer), whereas technically Trident will nonetheless get safety updates till the top of Home windows 10 (no date introduced), there have not been any new options or growth of requirements help since Edge got here out in 2015. Microsoft introduced that they’ll cease supporting Web Explorer on most variations of Home windows in 2022, however engine itself will stay accessible in Edge’s “IE Mode” and therefore will nonetheless obtain safety updates if obligatory. Closed supply
• EdgeHTML, principally recognized from its use in Legacy Edge, which was changed by a more recent Chromium-based Edge in 2020. Legacy Edge was forcefully eliminated through Home windows Replace in April 2021, however Microsoft confirmed that the EdgeHTML engine will nonetheless be supported with safety updates, because it additionally been used for the built-in WebView in Home windows UWP apps (outdated however not mechanically changed by Blink-based WebView 2). Closed supply
• KHTML (Konqueror), the ancestor of WebKit and Blink. Konqueror itself by no means obtained greater than 0% market share, and developed has de facto stopped since about 2016, though there are nonetheless (trivial) commits to the code till as we speak. Open supply
• Presto (Opera Mini). This engine was utilized in Opera till model 12 (2013). The corporate gave up creating their very own engine and created a brand new browser primarily based on Blink, which Google and Opera forked from WebKit in the identical 12 months. Opera Mini, one of many cellular browsers, nonetheless makes use of server-side Presto rendering on primary telephones (e.g. Java-based telephones), nevertheless the app hasn’t been up to date since 2014 however it nonetheless obtainable for obtain. On Android, Opera Mini makes use of server-side Presto rendering when the “Excessive” information financial savings mode is chosen. The final recognized replace to the Presto engine was in 2015 in line with a weblog publish, however on condition that it is nonetheless utilized in Opera Mini to a point it’s probably that the code continues to be considerably maintained. Closed supply (however supply code has leaked)
• U2 (UC Browser). This engine was utilized in older variations of UC Browser. It’s not fairly clear to which extent it’s used as we speak; it seems to nonetheless be used within the app for primary telephones, which like Opera Mini hasn’t been up to date since 2014 however continues to be obtainable to obtain. Moreover, previous model of Android appeared to have included an non-compulsory “Velocity Mode” that will revert to U2 rendering as an alternative of Blink rendering, nevertheless this function appears to be absent from Android these days. Closed supply
• Arachne. This primary browser helps solely essentially the most primary of HTML and CSS. It is probably not in lively growth however occurs to get a minor replace each couple of years. Open supply
• Dillo. Primary browser for easy web sites solely. Whereas the final secure launch was in 2015, there have been extra commits since and the challenge just isn’t formally useless but. There’s additionally Dillo forks in growth. Open supply
• Cobra. This engine is used within the Lobo Browser, written in Java. The web site is on-line however there are not any downloads obtainable as the web site is below development. It’s unclear to me what is the state of this engine and browser and whether or not it is alive or useless. Therefore the zombie standing. Open supply

3. Textual content browsers

• Lynx Open supply
• Hyperlinks Open supply
• w3m Open supply

4. Embedded rendering

• Sciter. Used for rendering the UI of apps. There is no browser utilizing Sciter to show web sites, and the engine is Closed supply.
• Ultralight. Smooth fork of WebKit that goals to be a lightweight different to Electron (Chromium) for apps. Open supply
• MS Phrase. That is the engine utilized in Microsoft Workplace, together with Outlook which makes use of it render HTML emails. There is no browser utilizing the Phrase engine to show web sites. Closed supply
• Chinese language Blink variants. There’s little data on the market. There appears to be X5 by Tencent, utilized in WeChat and a few variations of QQ Browser, in addition to T7 utilized by Baidu’s “baiduboxapp” (a search app for telephones?), each Closed supply. Different Chinese language engines embrace UC’s U3 and Baidu’s T5, each of which appear to be useless now. All of those are primarily based on Blink and it’s unclear how a lot they really differ or if they’re only a rebranding of Blink, or a form of CCP-approved Blink bastardization, or an actual fork with helpful options added.

See Also

Hole Buffers vs Ropes • Core Dumped

Query Marks

Some questions stay and if anybody may help with data this shall be tremendously appreciated.

• Was Netscape primarily based on NCSA Mosaic’s engine?
• No, in line with: Clark, Jim; Owen Edwards (1999). Netscape Time: The Making of the Billion-Greenback Begin-Up That Took on Microsoft. St. Martin’s Press. ISBN 978-0312199340. “The Mosaic Netscape internet browser didn’t use any NCSA Mosaic code”, quoted through Wikipedia. https://archive.org/details/netscapetimemaki00clar
• Was Spyglass Mosaic’s engine (used additionally in IE 1-3) primarily based on NCSA Mosaic’s engine?
• No, in line with: https://ericsink.com/Browser_Wars.html. “Sure, we licensed the expertise and emblems from NCSA (on the College of Illinois), however we by no means used any of the code. We wrote our browser implementations fully from scratch, on Home windows, MacOS, and Unix.”
• Was Trident (IE 4-11) primarily based on Spyglass Mosaic’s engine (IE 1-3)?
• I’ve by no means discovered any data, so I’ll assume that IE 4’s Trident engine was fully developed from scratch.
• Was Presto (Opera 7-12) primarily based on Elektra (Opera 3.5-6), and was Elektra primarily based on the unique Opera’s engine?
• I’ve assumed sure, however proof is spurious: in http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot/history/opera.htm it makes use of the wording “rendering engine re-write (now known as “Presto”)” for Opera 7. This makes it looks as if Presto was only a re-write, not a brand new engine written fully from scratch. The identical could be true for Elektra years earlier than.
• Was iBrowse’s engine primarily based on Mosaic?
• Wikipedia says iBrowse was a “rewritten follow-on” to the Amiga model of NCSA Mosaic, through Bettinson, Mat (November 1996). “Battle of the Browsers, IBrowse 1.0”. CU Amiga. No. 81. EMAP. pp. 54-56. Like with Presto above, I assume that “rewritten” means “not began from scratch”, however it’s not very clear.
• Are the Zombie engines (see above) nonetheless maintained?
• For EdgeHTML there’s the difficulty of Home windows WebView, for which (not like Legacy Edge) no finish of life has been introduced.
  For Presto it’s unclear as a result of it is nonetheless form of obtainable in Opera Mini however solely via server-side rendering so the code could be untouched for years now.
• For U2, it is the identical, only for UC Browser as an alternative of Opera
• For KHTML, there are nonetheless some very minor commits to the code (similar to altering KDE variations), however for all different intents and functions Konqueror is useless
• Line Mode Browser (final replace in 2006, however utilized in libwww)
• What are these obscure Chinese language engines? There’s U2, U3, X5, T5, and T7 a minimum of, however in addition to U2, which appears to be its personal factor, the remainder all look like comfortable forks or mere rebrandings of WebKit/Blink. Are they actually their very own engines?
• The beginning and finish dates of obscure and historic browsers are sometimes speculative
• Market shares are clearly exhausting to be decided, particularly as a result of there’s not one single web site which has stored observe for the reason that starting of the net. The latest numbers I’ve used are from StatCounter, by the way in which.

For reference (e.g. if the image does not show), the engines included above are:

• WorldWideWeb/Nexus 
• Line Mode Browser (text-based)
• ViolaWWW 
• Erwise 
• Lynx (text-based) STILL ALIVE
• MacWWW 
• MidasWWW 
• tkWWW 
• Area 
• Cello 
• NCSA Mosaic 
• Fork: mMosaic 
• Fork: VMS-Mosaic 
• Fork: Mosaic-CK 
• Fork (???): iBrowse STILL ALIVE
• Ariadna 
• Fresco 
• HotJava/Webrunner
• IBM WebExplorer 
• InternetWorks 
• MacWeb 
• Netscape (v1-5, engine later referred to as Mariner)
• Netmanage Chameleon
• Pocketweb
• Prodigy
• SlipKnot
• Tkhtml
• Grail
• Mothra
• NetCruiser
• Netfront
• OmniWeb
• Spyglass Mosaic (engine most famously utilized in Web Explorer 1-3)
• UdiWWW
• WebTV/MSN TV
• w3m engine (text-based) STILL ALIVE
• Amaya 
• Arachne UNDEAD, not formally useless however growth has principally ceased
• AWeb
• Charon
• Cyberdog
• Espial/Escape
• Lotus Notes (e-mail rendering)
• NetHopper
• NetPositive
• Opera (unique engine in v1-3.21)
• Fork (???): Elektra (utilized in Opera v3.5-6)
• Fork (???): Presto (utilized in Opera v7-12) UNDEAD, nonetheless utilized in Opera Mini in ‘excessive information financial savings’ mode and on primary telephones
• Oracle PowerBrowser
• PlanetWeb
• Pocket Web Explorer
• UP.Browser/Openwave
• AOL IWENG
• ICEBrowser
• Gecko (utilized in Netscape v6-9/Mozilla/Firefox/Seamonkey) STILL ALIVE
• Fork: Clecko (utilized in Classilla)
• Fork: Goanna (utilized in Pale Moon and Basilisk) STILL ALIVE
• Gzilla 
• Fork: Dillo UNDEAD, not formally useless however growth has principally ceased
• Microsoft Phrase (utilized in Workplace & Outlook for e-mail rendering in addition to exporting and importing HTML to/from Phrase/Excel/Powerpoint) STILL ALIVE however not utilized in any browser
• Robin (utilized in The Bat! for e-mail rendering, till 2020)
• STNC HitchHiker/MS Cell Explorer
• Trident (utilized in Web Explorer 4-11) UNDEAD, will nonetheless get safety updates till the top of lifetime of Home windows 10
• EdgeHTML (utilized in Legacy Edge) MORIBUND, finish of life for Legacy Edge is April 2021, and it’s fairly probably Home windows WebView (primarily based on EdgeHTML) may also cease being supported in some unspecified time in the future (it has already been outdated with WebView 2 primarily based on Blink)
• KHTML (utilized in Konqueror) UNDEAD, solely minor code commits for the previous couple of years
• Fork: wxHTML
• Fork: GtkHTML
• Fork: WebKit (utilized in Safari, GNOME Internet, and Midori) STILL ALIVE
• Fork: U3 (utilized in UC Browser)
• Fork: T5 (utilized in Baidu Browser)
• Fork: Ultralight (to be used in apps and video games)
• Fork: Blink (utilized in Chromium, Chrome, Edge, Opera, Courageous, Vivaldi, Samsung Web, UC Browser, and lots of extra) STILL ALIVE
• Chinese language Blink variant: X5 (utilized in WeChat and QQ Browser, each by Tencent)
• Chinese language Blink variant: T7 (utilized in Baiduboxapp)
• Clipper (utilized in Palm browser)
• iCab 
• jB5
• Hyperlinks (text-based) STILL ALIVE
• Mango (utilized in BlackBerry browser in OS 1-5)
• Obigo
• WinWAP
• Blazer
• Interactor (utilized in Oregan Browser)
• Tasman (utilized in Web Explorer 5 for Mac and later in Entourage for e-mail rendering)
• Voyager
• Netgem
• Netrik (text-based)
• Off by One
• retawq (text-based)
• Thunderhawk
• HomePageReader
• Lumi (utilized in Polaris Browser 1-6)
• Imaginative and prescient Cell
• Contiki Browser
• iPanel Microbrowser
• Skweezer
• Galio
• U2 (utilized in UC Browser) UNDEAD, nonetheless utilized in UC Browser for primary telephones
• Hubbub (utilized in NetSurf) STILL ALIVE
• Teashark 
• Cobra (utilized in Lobo Browser) UNCLEAR if this browser continues to be developed
• Fugu (utilized in Myriad Browser 6)
• Magellan (utilized in Myriad Browser 7)
• Skyfire
• Servo STILL ALIVE
• Sciter (app UI rendering) STILL ALIVE however not utilized in any browser
• Ekioh Circulate STILL ALIVE
• LibWeb (utilized in Ladybird and the SerenityOS Browser) STILL ALIVE