web

CSS Variables, a handy technology to ease Web page programming, could be one casualty in Safari with Google moving its resources to its browser engine, Blink.

Google engineers wanted to "fork" the WebKit browser engine project that underlies both Safari and Chrome so they could accelerate the pace of Chrome development and adopt changes too extensive to fit into a single open-source project. Even though splitting Blink away from WebKit may make each browser engine more nimble, it also means it's harder to cooperate.

That's because common features must be developed and maintained by duplicate teams … Read more

The WebKit browser engine is becoming a less flexible foundation for open-source projects with the departure of Google from the project this week and Apple's consequent paring back of the project.

WebKit is a broad project that includes participation from many interested parties -- not just Apple and Google, but also BlackBerry, Samsung, Amazon, Oracle, Adobe Systems, and the programmers involved with the KDE and Gnome user interfaces for Linux. Indeed, the open-source project began as KDE's KHTML engine for the Konqueror browser before Apple got involved.

Google's Chrome team left WebKit this week, forking the open-source … Read more

Review: Firefox for Android used to be a must-use mainly for Firefox fans. It was good at what it did, but it wasn't great, and the competitive field of Android browsers surpassed it on many levels.

In response, Mozilla spent the better part of a year redesigning the browser from the ground up. The new Firefox for Android brings an interface powered by native code, competitive page-load times, and Flash support. As important for Mozilla is that the sum of the new browser's parts will keep its flagship brand relevant on Android as Chrome for Android grows.

New … Read more

Blink, Google's new fork of the WebKit browser engine, is alive.

Yesterday, Google announced the project, which splits its browser work from Apple's in the open-source WebKit project. Today, Blink is up and running.

The first updates -- including a new list of 36 Blink "owners" who have authority to approve changes -- are arriving.

"Chrome 28 will be the first blinking release," Chrome programmer Mike West said in a Hacker News comment. The current stable version of Chrome is version 26; new versions arrive about every six weeks.

"The repository seems to … Read more

Today, Google launched Blink, its fork of the WebKit browser engine, and members of Google's Chrome team clearly are excited about their liberation.

With the fork, Google will concentrate its core browser development efforts on Blink, which will gradually diverge from the WebKit project on which it's based. You can read more about the context and history leading to Blink in CNET's coverage, or read the official Blink blog post and Blink FAQ for the party line.

But to get a feel for the emotion involved, check the commentary from the Chrome team members themselves. They're … Read more

Mozilla Firefox has undergone an enormous rebirth over the past two years. Since Firefox 4 debuted in March 2011, the browser has been hell-bent on improvements. These have come, in large part, on the rapid-release cycle, which sees a new version of Firefox every six weeks. Many people like them, but a vocal minority has pooh-poohed the increase in version numbers. That's hardly a legitimate complaint in a world where mobile apps also update silently and effectively, but the transition for Firefox hasn't been an easy one.

Firefox is on version 20 at the time of this review. … Read more

A years-long marriage of convenience that linked Google and Apple browser technologies is ending in divorce.

In a move that Google says will technologically liberate both Chrome and Safari, the company has begun its own offshoot of the WebKit browser engine project called Blink. Initially it uses the same software code base that all WebKit-based browsers share, but over time it will diverge into a totally separate project, Google announced today.

The move marks the end of years of direct WebKit programming cooperation between the two rivals. WebKit is an open-source project, meaning that anyone can use and modify the … Read more

A slew of news stories published today questioned whether Google search was lowering the ranking of iTunes apps in query results, but the Web giant says it was actually just having technical issues.

"We've been having some issues fetching pages from the iTunes Web servers, and as a result some people may have had problems finding iTunes apps in search easily," a Google spokesperson told CNET. "We're working with the team there to ensure search users can find what they're looking for."

It seems the issue was first noticed by Appsfire co-founder Ouriel … Read more

Another tantalizing tidbit has emerged from last month's leaked IE11 build: the possibility that the next version of Internet Explorer could support Google's SPDY technology for faster browser-server communications.

It's not working yet, but SPDY "is being implemented," said Rafael Rivera of the Within Windows blog. Paul Thurrot of WinSuperSite also said SPDY is coming.

The SPDY support is at the operating system level, meaning that other software besides just IE11 could take advantage of it, Rivera said.

Microsoft declined to comment on the matter.

Google has rounded up several allies to standardize SPDY technology, … Read more