this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2025
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Can anybody tell me why no one uses webkit?
safari?
I mean third party and multi platform. And I know Gnome Web does. But why isn’t there a bigger, more mainstream browser that isn’t Safari, that does?
i mean, looking at the history it makes sense that not many do anymore. webkit is apple's fork of KHTML, the KDE project's reimplementation of gecko, done because gecko is so goddamn hard to embed. once apple open sourced it, everyone started using it because, again, gecko is so hard to use. the biggest browser to use webkit quickly became chrome. then when chrome needed a different feature set than safari, they diverged and chrome's webkit became blink. because every third-party browser wanted to be compatible with the largest browser, they also switched. vivaldi was one of the last to switch i think. brave came into being after the fork so they started on blink.
There are some very minor browser that use webkit.
I know. Gnome Web among others. But why isn’t there any more mainstream example? Why does everyone use blink?
IIRC it’s used by a few devices that aren’t really built for web browsing. I think the PlayStation browser, some smart TV browsers, and the Kindle browser all use WebKit? But none of those devices are really intended for browsing. They just sort of have the browser bolted onto the side as an “I guess if you REALLY need to use a browser and have no other alternatives” option.