What is a browser kernel?

  • The browser kernel can also be understood as a typesetting engine, mainly composed of two parts, rendering engine and JS engine

  • The layout engine is mainly responsible for obtaining web content (HTML, XML, image, CSS, JS) and other information to parse and render the web page, and convert the code of the web page into a visible page

  • The syntax interpretation of web pages is different depending on the browser kernel, so the rendering effect is also different. The common kernel includes Trident, Gecko, Webkit, Presto and Blink

Trident kernel

The representative work is IE, commonly known as IE kernel; The browser using IE kernel includes, maxthon, Windows of the world, Baidu browser, compatible mode of browser, etc

Its kernel

Safari, the old Version of Chrome

Presto kernel

One example is Opera. Presto is a browser typography engine developed by Opera Software. It is recognized as the fastest rendering engine in the world. After 13 years, Opera announced it was joining Google and ditching Presto

Blink kernel

Representative works are Chrome and Opera; A browser typesetting engine developed by Google and Opera Software

Gecko kernel

The representative work is Firefox, commonly known as the Firefox kernel

Chromium kernel

This one is special. Chromium is an open source project from Google, it’s a browser, and Chrome is a stable version of Chromium. Most dual-core browsers in China use Chromium kernel