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My bad, I didn't know that. I can see why they want to use webkit in Epiphany (size and that they use the same technologies as GNOME). I don't believe gecko has any less momemtum though. It's still the most used web engine in the world (except maybe that of IE, but we'll never know what web engine they use).

Edited 2008-09-09 12:26 UTC

I can see why they want to use webkit in Epiphany (size and that they use the same technologies as GNOME).

Precisely which technologies are you talking about?

It's still the most used web engine in the world (except maybe that of IE, but we'll never know what web engine they use).

They use an engine they call Trident, more officially known as MSHTML. It can easily be used by programs needing HTML rendering and documentation is also readily available. Of course you cannot get the source code, but honestly - have you ever made any use of Webkit/Gecko (simple unpacking does not count as using)? Of course there are people who need the source code, but 99.9% of users and 90% of developers do not.

Mozilla made a huge bet on XUL and xpcomm many years ago... and today they have to point out the few and little known applications which actually make any use of them, outside of Firefox itself... where they admit that using them too heavily was one of their biggest mistakes.

Regarding the article point about Gecko having the potential to be as lean and mean as webkit... the Minimo guys have been trying for years to slim Gecko down and have gotten nowhere.

Gecko is a great browser core for the late 1990s. Webkit is a great browser core for today. To a great extent, Gecko is a victim of its huge, complex, and now crufty code base.

To those people who say that "choice is good". You're darned right! Shortly after "Mozilla Foundation" spawned "Mozilla Corp" the Mozilla guys felt complacent enough to treat Linux distros as second class citizens, making the preparation of security updates as difficult as possible and enforcing nitpicky trademark restrictions which compelled distros to jump through ridiculous hoops like calling their browser "Ice Weasel".

Now there is a choice, and developers are leaving (or avoiding) Gecko in droves. KDE has always used KHTML, kissing cousin of Webkit. Epiphany is moving exclusively to WebKit just as fast as they can. (The move will be complete by 2.26, but is quite usable today.) Google gave Gecko the brush off in favor of webkit. Minimo has close to zero penetration of the embedded market. Now mozilla Corp says it wants to make Firefox integrate better with Linux. How the mighty have fallen. And I cannot say that I am saddened by it.

I wonder how many weeks it will take Chrome to pass up Firefox over at W3Schools?

Edited 2008-09-09 14:53 UTC

I'm curious; where have they admitted this?

And as for "few and little known applications", you DO realize that every one of the many popular Firefox extensions happens to be a XUL application. Even if XUL/XPComm's usefulness were limited to this alone, I would say it has been worthwhile. It is something that Webkit and MSHTML cannot even touch.

And, there are actually many, many XUL applications in use as we speak. I personally did a fairly major corporate touchscreen application using it. XUL is a very good choice for corporate "intranet" applications where the company need simply specify the browser for all desktops to use and rich GUI apps can be run directly over HTTP. And XUL/Javascript is way, way ahead of HTML/Ajax.

"I wonder how many weeks it will take Chrome to pass up Firefox over at W3Schools? "

Between 104 and 208, if not more. Do you think that Mozilla got there by accident? And do you think that browser market penetration is that easy?

Netscape, Opera, Firefox have all tried desperately to pry 1-2% from IE's market share. Guess which one was successful, and became the "standards' tractor"?

I liked chrome, rough around the edges as it is. best part was the noticably faster javascript engine, I guess that Danish company Google hired to write the new javascript wm knew what they were doing. I also like Firefox, it's currently my browser of choice and I will stick to it as long as it gives me the best browsing experience (of which the actual rendering engine being used is only a small part), not out of any brand loyalty (of which I have none).

But you do strike me as overzelous in your haste to predict the annihilation of Firefox due to Chrome. In fact it comes off as wishful thinking, which looking at your posts seems to be due to anger at Mozilla. Like others have said, healthy competition is the best possible situation for the end user (and advancement browsing technology/experience in overall). I've said before that I want IE to lose more market share, but preferably NOT to Firefox since we need more competition. No matter if you prefer IE, Firefox, Chrome or Opera etc, the appearance of a new strong competitor will force the rest to produce a better product which means every preference wins.

sbergman27 wrote:
-"...the Mozilla guys felt complacent enough to treat Linux distros as second class citizens"
Chrome doesn't even build on Linux as of yet (speaking of second class citizens). As long as Windows has ~90% market share the focus will be on that platform.

sbergman27 wrote:
-"...and enforcing nitpicky trademark restrictions which compelled distros to jump through ridiculous hoops like calling their browser "Ice Weasel"."
This makes perfect sense to me. There should be a clear distincion between official/unofficial builds, are you saying Google will allow third party builds naming their browser Chrome (or whatever the official name will be when released)?

Could take a long time. W3Schools is visited by web developers. For many of those the equation is simple:

no firebug = no deal