Mozilla, Linux, and WebKit

[Aq]

Are Mozilla moving away from their open-source roots, or is Linux a first-tier platform? Is WebKit gradually taking over the web rendering world on the free desktop? What can we do to keep the poster child of open source as a central part of our computer?

[DrakeAnubis]

Well it's important to consider that (under perfect test conditions) a browser using WebKit for rendering is almost twice as fast as a browser (like Firefox) using Gecko for rendering.

In the real world I've noticed that this only applies to Mac (as opposed to Safari for windows), and in general, the nightly builds of WebKit are able to load pages about 1.5 times faster than FireFox 3 for Mac.

Also, WebKit is an open source project. And even if FireFox did implement Gecko (which they won't for a number of reasons) at the very least they could have the option in firefox to revert back to Gecko if the user preferred it.

[Gomer_X]

I guess I don't care all that much. Maybe a year ago I would have. Firefox just isn't that big a deal to me. I remember when Netscape was pretty much it, and it wasn't very good. Now I've got lots of choices.

I've just been using Epiphany anymore. It's the default on my Debian box, and it just works. I use the web more than I use a browser, and I don't care which one.

If Firefox has moved on from being one of the killer apps on Linux to the flagship of open source in the Windows world, ultimately I think it's for the good.

I could be missing something real important, though.

As far as WebKit, I don't know what it is, but I think it has something to do with KDE, so I don't care.

[angrymike]

Mozilla Firefox and limited resources? WTF!

They collected $66 million in revenue in 2006 and 85% of that was from Google. Mozilla has millions of dollars to develop a web browser and the chair person of the foundation makes $500,000 a year. Firefox should be dominating.

I don't have the numbers for 2007 but I bet it was even higher. Webkit is killing them in standards and software design. Not to mention Webkit's javascript support is progressing very fast and soon will surpass (if it has not already) Firefox. Even more unfortunate firefox/gecko is not L(GPL).

The only thing I see Firefox/Gecko having on Webkit is that it is written in C and Webkit is C++.

[segedunum]

Firefox is basically a Windows application that provides a browser alternative to IE. That's it. Firefox on Linux has always been behind the Windows version, and with Epiphany starting to use WebKit, and once we get a good KDE WebKit browser and more plugin infrastructure around WebKit I can't see a future for Gecko.

[kabads]

I think I heard a reference in the latest programme that Mozilla have limited resources to fix some of the bugs in the linux version of firefox.

Doesn't the mozilla foundation take a wedge of money from google everytime someone uses the search tool? I seem to remember reading in the gurniad that they were very wealthy from this agreement. Couldn't money be turned into code?

[mjjzf]

Isn't it so that the discussion about Webkit-based browsers for us is limited to Konq? I have recently been playing with Midori, and it is - let us just say: In the early stages.
Still, it should be noted for giving me this: