opera Opera announces 'gradual transition' to WebKit for desktop and mobi

[PreKe]

They can, and then we have WebKit fragmentation and... Square one

They could theoretically do it, but they didn't. And so what if they forked it? They still don't own WebKit.

[fobban]

Except he's completely right.

I challenge you Boz, make Chrome render a CSS3 gradient without using vendor prefixed properties, then go try in the latest versions of IE and Firefox.

If you fail to respond to this challenge, then I think we can safely say you're not interested in standards, and only want a closed, proprietary Google dictatorship.

WebKit got a patch a month ago that actually fully implements the candidate recommendation of CSS3 gradients. Since then they've also dropped the prefix.

The sad thing about CSS3 gradients is that MS still supports the old draft prefixed. Probably due to lazy developers doing HTML5+CSS+JavaScript Metro apps before the final version of Windows 8. Microsoft probably doesn't want to break their code. Question is: when the next version of Windows ship, will they still keep legacy implementations like that around to not risk breaking old apps?

Athernar, perhaps you could tell us how awesome IE10's flexbox support is?

Personally I think it's a shame Opera ditches their rendering engine. Not because I don't like Webkit, but because Presto was really strict when it came to most implementations. If you're code worked well in Opera, you could be pretty sure it worked well in most browsers.

[exotoxic]

And so what if they forked it?

If all browsers used the same engine then they would all have to come to an agreement on new features and how they would be implemented. If one teams did not like it or wanted a feature others didn't, they would fork it and implement it how they wanted and you would have a mess of prefixes and features again.

[Noir Angel]

I used to be one of those "Web standards are a make and break deal" because I saw how horribly wrong Microsoft got it with IE6, but as I carried on using Opera I eventually came to realise that better standards support does not on it's own make a browser any better. Not only does Chrome have far better HTML5 support than Internet Explorer, it's being developed at a far faster rate. I've been using Webkit in Chrome for 3 years now and it hasn't let me down at all. Pretty much everyone apart from the really hardcore Microsoft shills recognise what a good rendering engine it is.

[Mr. Gibs]

I used to be one of those "Web standards are a make and break deal" because I saw how horribly wrong Microsoft got it with IE6, but as I carried on using Opera I eventually came to realise that better standards support does not on it's own make a browser any better. Not only does Chrome have far better HTML5 support than Internet Explorer, it's being developed at a far faster rate. I've been using Webkit in Chrome for 3 years now and it hasn't let me down at all. Pretty much everyone apart from the really hardcore Microsoft shills recognise what a good rendering engine it is.

Most people aren't saying that webkit is terrible.

The reason why a lot of websites look different on Opera, IE, Firefox isn't because those browsers aren't standard compatible. It's because people are using prefixes which they shouldn't be.

There was a time when IE was developed pretty fast, and was quite an advanced browser. Then we got IE6, which when it was released wasn't as bad but since it had no competition MS stopped giving a **** about it. Making one browser engine the only engine in the world will lead to the exact same thing. Companies aren't going to put in the effort and the time to improve products when there's no competition, it's a waste of money.

I use Chromium and I have used it for a long long time now. But I don't want it to become a monopoly.

---

Another thing on a slightly different topic. Anyone remember how against HTML5 Boz was? A year ago he was all "HTML5 isn't the future, it sucks, it should just be killed off and everyone should use flash" and now in this topic he's all for it.

What's the difference? Oh a year ago it was Apple talking about web standards and how Flash doesn't have a place since WebGL is better. So naturally Boz (who hate's anything that doesn't come out Google's mouth) was all for killing HTML5 and WebGL and making Flash the only web standard.

But now since Google is pushing HTML5 and WebGL he's all for it. He hates IE because its proprietary and loves Chrome because it's open source. But then he absolutely loves Flash...which is just as proprietary (if not more) than IE. :rolleyes:

[Noir Angel]

The difference however is that Webkit, unlike Trident is not a closed source solution. When IE6 had it's era of dominance it was Microsoft and only Microsoft that was in control. An open platform that all the major players are contributing to actually has a realistic chance of success which is why I believe that Webkit succeeds where IE6 failed. The amount of business that's done on the Internet these days makes it unlikely that vendors are going to rest on their laurels and allow technology to stagnate again. As has been proven with Linux having millions of competing options that do almost exactly the same thing has never really proven to be a massive hit, in some cases it even diminishes quality.

[Mr. Gibs]

The difference however is that Webkit, unlike Trident is not a closed source solution. When IE6 had it's era of dominance it was Microsoft and only Microsoft that was in control. An open platform that all the major players are contributing to actually has a realistic chance of success which is why I believe that Webkit succeeds where IE6 failed. The amount of business that's done on the Internet these days makes it unlikely that vendors are going to rest on their laurels and allow technology to stagnate again. As has been proven with Linux having millions of competing options that do almost exactly the same thing has never really proven to be a massive hit, in some cases it even diminishes quality.

Well if webkit was the only web engine prefixes will destroy it.

But rather than make webkit the only engine, which will cause it to stagnate (it always does) why not make the W3C better?

Get the W3C to release specifications faster, this forces browser makers (all of them) to improve their engines on a faster basis without using proprietary prefixes.

[Noir Angel]

If you really think about it, the argument's not to dissimilar... If accepting universal coding standards could help the web then so could accepting universal software standards. Developers commit to the W3C, they could commit to universal rendering standards as well. Given the time it's taken to ratify W3C and in particular the arguments over the video codecs I think my view that excessive competition isn't a good thing is being somewhat ratified by the way HTML5 is turning out. Unfinished specifications are never good for anyone.

[Mr. Gibs]

If you really think about it, the argument's not to dissimilar... If accepting universal coding standards could help the web then so could accepting universal software standards. Developers commit to the W3C, they could commit to universal rendering standards as well. Given the time it's taken to ratify W3C and in particular the arguments over the video codecs I think my view that excessive competition isn't a good thing is being somewhat ratified by the way HTML5 is turning out. Unfinished specifications are never good for anyone.

Oh not at all. We both want similar things but differ on the way to get there.

Part of the problem with the W3C is that the companies that make it up sometimes don't want to work together. Someone brought up the touch thing a couple of pages back, and that's not even the first time it's happened. Company A suggests something, the majority of the other companies agree to it and it's going to be made into the specification. Then company B decides to make their own version of the exact same thing and make it proprietary. So now you're back to square one.

If they stopped doing that (and Microsoft, Google, Apple are all guilty of it) things would be better.

[libertas83]

The difference however is that Webkit, unlike Trident is not a closed source solution. When IE6 had it's era of dominance it was Microsoft and only Microsoft that was in control. An open platform that all the major players are contributing to actually has a realistic chance of success which is why I believe that Webkit succeeds where IE6 failed. The amount of business that's done on the Internet these days makes it unlikely that vendors are going to rest on their laurels and allow technology to stagnate again. As has been proven with Linux having millions of competing options that do almost exactly the same thing has never really proven to be a massive hit, in some cases it even diminishes quality.

Open source changes nothing! The greatest advantage of open source is that others can pick it up when the original team dies. That translates nothing to how interoperable standards work. Multiple parties means disagreements and different implementations desired. That is the nature of dev and innovation. Open source brings new challenges, new problems, it does not magically solve all the problems for web development.

[Growled Member]

It seems to me that this will force Microsoft to work harder to follow the standards as it will be the lone rendering engine against Webkit.

[remixedcat]

It seems to me that this will force Microsoft to work harder to follow the standards as it will be the lone rendering engine against Webkit.

firefocks

[Growled Member]

firefocks

Oh yeah, forget about them. Well, it's just a matter of time before they go webkit.

[Boz]

Oh not at all. We both want similar things but differ on the way to get there.

Part of the problem with the W3C is that the companies that make it up sometimes don't want to work together. Someone brought up the touch thing a couple of pages back, and that's not even the first time it's happened. Company A suggests something, the majority of the other companies agree to it and it's going to be made into the specification. Then company B decides to make their own version of the exact same thing and make it proprietary. So now you're back to square one.

If they stopped doing that (and Microsoft, Google, Apple are all guilty of it) things would be better.

But that's not what would happen if everyone switched to webkit. that's a fearmongering nonsense that comes from Mozilla guys and others because they have vested interests in getting money from Google and others by pushing their own web browser. Microsoft has again their own reasons because they want to dominate the browser space again. This is not gonna fly anymore. This type of attitude is to blame for the stagnation of web for the last 20 years.

The reality that would happen if everyone agreed on webkit or Chromium is that we would have one official, open source rendering engine that could be standardized and any changes/improvements to it would be contributed by everyone.. then it would be submitted to W3C or similar and the implementation would happen over night.

Just having standards alone is NOT going to work as long as we have 5 different browsers everyone peddling their own technology, VMs and rendering engines. I'm not sure how you can't understand that.

You can DREAM that standards would work just fine if every browser would follow them but that's a pipe dream. We have seen from the history that it doesn't work.. W3C wasn't made yesterday.. It has been there for almost 20 years now and web really hasn't evolved at all, thus the rise of Flash.. HTML5 is really the first thing in 20 years that brought some more advanced features (features that Flash for example has had for years) but implementation is the mess for the same reasons we had before. Not to mention it takes 10 years for the standard itself to be actually finalized.

Do you know why Flash exploded? It exploded and brought innovation to the web because it was basically unified canvas-like plugin that worked everywhere the same. You didn't have to worry about writing code, prefixes and all kinds of browser centric stuff for 5 different browser.. it became an artistic canvas that evolved so quickly over the years because it wasn't held back by politics. It's only big negative was that it wasn't open sourced and stayed proprietary If Adobe open sourced Flash when there was talk between Adobe and W3C, we wouldn't be even having this discussion. It would have been embedded into VM of every browser and we would be writing stuff instead of JS in AS and would use Flash tools to author content.

The situation we have now, by everyone doing their own browsers is basically downloading a "plugin" for your OS. Browser as it is now is essentially one huge plugin you need to update to get newer features and what's worse is that you have to download among 5 different browsers.

We need to cut this off.. we need to make one standard rendering engine, that's open sourced and will be passed over to W3C or similar where everyone would contribute to just like with web standards. So every time someone adds or proposes a new feature like CSS3 blend modes, or CSS3 text wrapping or whatever, implementation would take 2 months, all browser vendors would update their code base and web would evolve at a rapid pace.

Browser vendors should compete in brining features to the browser that help you surf and explore web, not reinvent technologies on how the web is rendered or how standards are implemented. That should be done under the realm of W3C and one unified rendering engine.

It can still evolve just fine as Apple, Google, Opera, Mozilla, Adobe and others would propose and develop features that would further innovate it and everyone would look at it and say "hey that's cool, let's vote on it and approve it".. once those features are approved, since everyone is on the same engine, they would just push updates to their browsers and we all get new features at once.

[Mr. Gibs]

But that's not what would happen if everyone switched to webkit. that's a fearmongering nonsense that comes from Mozilla guys and others because they have vested interests in getting money from Google and others by pushing their own web browser.

The reality that would happen if everyone agreed on webkit or Chromium is that we would have one official, open source rendering engine that could be standardized and any changes/improvements to it would be contributed by everyone.. then it would be submitted to W3C or similar and the implementation would happen over night.

1. No that wouldn't happen. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Mozilla etc all spend MONEY designing their browsers. If everyone used the exact same engine, none of them need to bother spending money anymore because 0 competition = 0 innovation. That has been proven time and time and time again.

You can DREAM that standards would work just fine if every browser would follow them but that's a pipe dream. We have seen from the history that it doesn't work.. W3C wasn't made yesterday.. It has been there for almost 20 years now and web really hasn't evolved at all, thus the rise of Flash.. HTML5 is really the first thing in 20 years that brought some more advanced features (features that Flash for example has had for years) but implementation is the mess for the same reasons we had before. Not to mention it takes 10 years for the standard itself to be actually finalized.

You can DREAM that using webkit only would work fine but that's a pipe dream. We have seen from history that having just one engine doesn't work.

Rather than suggesting that we fix the W3C and get them to do their job correctly you suggest the exact opposite.

It's only big negative was that it wasn't open sourced and stayed proprietary If Adobe open sourced Flash when there was talk between Adobe and W3C, we wouldn't be even have this discussion. It would be embedded into VM of every browser and we would be writing stuff instead of JS in AS and would use Flash tools to author content.

That's never been a problem for you in the past when you've CONSTANTLY talked about how flash is better than HTML5. Why the change of heart Boz? Is it because Google is pushing HTML5? Oh wait that's exactly why.

If tomorrow Google bought out flash and made it only work in their browser, you'd be saying well everyone should quit making browsers and just use Google.

It can still evolve just fine as Apple, Google, Opera, Mozilla, Adobe and others would propose and develop features that would further innovate it and everyone would look at it and say "hey that's cool, let's vote on it and approve it".. once those features are approved, since everyone is on the same engine, they would just push updates to their browsers and we all get new features at once.

No they would not. They don't right now with the W3C, what makes you think they'll continue to work together if webkit was the only engine? Apple, Microsoft and Mozilla all agreed on touch. What does Google do? Oh they go and make their own version that isn't compatible. But you won't complain about that.

We've already proved that even though safari and chrome both use webkit, both have different prefixes that DO screw stuff up. That WILL continue.

[Boz]

1. No that wouldn't happen. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Mozilla etc all spend MONEY designing their browsers. If everyone used the exact same engine, none of them need to bother spending money anymore because 0 competition = 0 innovation. That has been proven time and time and time again.

Of course they would.. they would only compete on the actual functionality of browsing and not on the engine. Not to mention that Mozilla would be doing the same thing they are doing now only they would be contributing to Webkit/Chromium. What would change? I don't understand this sentiment at all.. That's the HUGE difference between something being open sourced and in sync with standards. What has been proven over and over again is that innovation doesn't happen when one company holds everything. This is not what would happen if everyone switched to webkit or chromium. Everybody would own it and be able to contribute to it and no single company would own it. I say Chromium really because Chromium is avoiding Apple's patents that are still tied to Webkit even though they are royalty free. Chromium is still using Webkit core but is doing so through Chromium Webkit API.

That's never been a problem for you in the past when you've CONSTANTLY talked about how flash is better than HTML5. Why the change of heart Boz? Is it because Google is pushing HTML5? Oh wait that's exactly why.

If tomorrow Google bought out flash and made it only work in their browser, you'd be saying well everyone should quit making browsers and just use Google.

There's no change of heart. Flash is still years ahead of HTML5. It's far better. Google also supports Flash by default because they recognize that.. I didn't have change of heart, it's just that I don't look at it as black and white. Flash will continue to be better until the web is unified under one rendering engine. At that point it will get all the same features and more as Flash has. I want to see Flash go away eventually and I would like to have similar technology on the web working flawlessly and with the same ease of development as Flash has. Of course that's better and to avoid propriatery plugins. So I have not change that opinion at all. I work with both, so I know ins and outs of both very well.

We've already proved that even though safari and chrome both use webkit, both have different prefixes that DO screw stuff up. That WILL continue.

Even if that is true, which is not really.. there's very few differences and why sites render well on both with one single code, the fragmentation will continue as long as we have multiple browser vendors developing their own technologies inside the browser regardless of actual standards. Standards are the minimum compatibility, we are talking rapid innovation and evolution of the web.. As it stands now we won't see new features beyond HTML5 for another 20 years.. sorry that's not acceptable.

[Kronir]

Ugh, well, that's the end of my Opera usage. I hate WebKit rendering of text; it never looked quite right or read as well to my eyes as IE or Opera. Ah well, I haven't used Opera nearly as much since IE9 came out and now IE10; this just means I won't be switching back once this change happens. :/

[HawkMan]

Even if that is true, which is not really.. there's very few differences and why sites render well on both with one single code, the fragmentation will continue as long as we have multiple browser vendors developing their own technologies inside the browser regardless of actual standards. Standards are the minimum compatibility, we are talking rapid innovation and evolution of the web.. As it stands now we won't see new features beyond HTML5 for another 20 years.. sorry that's not acceptable.

Well it is true. And different WebKit browsers already use separate prefixes. And sure it's easy to code for them, avoid the browser specific prefixes....

OMG I just had a revelation, it's easy to code for ANY browser if you just avoid the prefixes....

Oh wait, I already mentioned that a few times.

Ugh, well, that's the end of my Opera usage. I hate WebKit rendering of text; it never looked quite right or read as well to my eyes as IE or Opera. Ah well, I haven't used Opera nearly as much since IE9 came out and now IE10; this just means I won't be switching back once this change happens. :/

That may very well not be because of WebKit but rather decided by the browser using the engine and what don't smoothing tech they chose to use. I doubt opera would change that.

[Boz]

Well it is true. And different WebKit browsers already use separate prefixes. And sure it's easy to code for them, avoid the browser specific prefixes....

Btw, what's happening with browser fragmentation is what I have been saying for a long time. Desktop mess will never be unified and agree on standards because there is always someone who wants to dominate web. Be it Google, Mozilla or Microsoft. Wait till WHATWG starts introducing new features that are not part of W3C..

That's why HTML5 is still a mess and will continue to be if something drastic doesn't happen and these browsers don't unify. Leaving companies to develop browsers' technologies and how things are rendered will always cause the situation we are in right now. The dominant browser of the moment will always try to dominate the web no matter what company is making it.

[Timan Veteran]

TBH websites don't need to look the same in all browsers. As long as your core content is intact, and functionality is still there. It really is just all eye candy.

[szo]

Well, Opera just bought the Skyfire browser right now for $155 million!

http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/15/3991148/opera-buys-skyfire-labs

[Athernar]

Clearly as Webkit is behind supporting finalised standards such as the CSS3 backgrounds and borders module, browser vendors should abandon Webkit and switch to Trident.

Microsoft control the desktop OS market, so clearly they should be the ones to dictate the future of the web too.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Btw, what's happening with browser fragmentation is what I have been saying for a long time. Desktop mess will never be unified and agree on standards because there is always someone who wants to dominate web. Be it Google, Mozilla or Microsoft. Wait till WHATWG starts introducing new features that are not part of W3C..

That's why HTML5 is still a mess and will continue to be if something drastic doesn't happen and these browsers don't unify. Leaving companies to develop browsers' technologies and how things are rendered will always cause the situation we are in right now. The dominant browser of the moment will always try to dominate the web no matter what company is making it.

You still don't seem to understand the separation behind the W3C and WHATWG (For example, new features in HTML come from the WHATWG, not the W3C)

And I don't get the logic that because Google or Microsoft or Apple are trying to control the spec, that's a good reason to just give them control of the spec. It seems you're proposing the exact thing you're arguing against. And unifying every browser on WebKit won't fix anything, it'll just be IE6 all over again (WebKit being open source doesn't mean a damn thing)

Here's an interesting post from one of the jQuery guys, who says that jQuery contains more workarounds for WebKit bugs than any other browser engine.

[Boz]

You still don't seem to understand the separation behind the W3C and WHATWG (For example, new features in HTML come from the WHATWG, not the W3C)

W3C actually worked with WHATWG on HTML5 and now they are split.. WHATWG will be introducing new features going forward while W3C will then evaluate whether or not those features will be implemented into standards. Which means fragmentation going forward because WHATWG will be introducing features that are NOT standard.

http://www.theverge....fork-w3c-whatwg

Yeah... forking is unlikely.. riiiight.. you'll see when browser vendors start forking edge features and implementing WHATWG new stuff however they want while W3C takes another 10 years to get everyone on board with snapshots while in the meantime we'll have each browser treating new features however they want and dealing with previous browser versions supporting certain sets of features as they will not really be standard.

How this is great is beyond any reason.

[Boz]

And let's not even get into this

http://www.geek.com/...html5-20130130/

Where individual browsers will eventually start implementing their own DRM on top of everything and many other things that are already happening right now like WebRTC which is supported by 2 browsers in nightly build and won't be commercially usable for another 5+ years.

Great stuff.