As part of its bid to claim a bigger piece of the pie in Android and iOS smartphones, browser maker Opera will move away from its own Presto rendering engine in favor of WebKit, the software engine that powers the Chrome and Safari browsers. Opera made the announcement as it hit the 300-million-users milestone across all its platforms. The Norwegian company said that using WebKit and Chromium elements will allow Opera to improve compatibility with mobile web sites and would allow it to devote resources toward "innovation and polish" on its browsers. Opera will showcase a WebKit-based browser for Android at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona later this month, with its desktop and other products following.
What Else You Need To Know
- Opera specifically said that working with the open source communities to "further improve" WebKit and Chromium makes more sense than continuing to develop its own rendering engine.
- Opera is not only adopting WebKit for mobile devices but also for desktops.
Other sources
The company has said that it's exhausted after swimming against the tide of an internet designed to work for Chrome and Safari for so long- Daniel Cooper, Engadget
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