Google Forking WebKit to Create New Web Rendering Engine for Chrome
Google announced today that the company is forking the WebKit rendering engine to create its own web rendering engine called 'Blink'. Google had been the using Apple-initiated WebKit project to power its Chrome web browser. Future versions, however, will now be based on this new system.
Google is now free to make changes to its rendering engine with less complexity and bureaucracy than when it was saving its changes to Webkit. The company posted this on its FAQ explaining why it wanted to create a new engine:
The main reason is that Chromium uses a different multi-process architecture than other WebKit-based browsers. So, over the years, supporting multiple architectures has led to increasing complexity for both the WebKit and Chromium communities, slowing down the collective pace of innovation.
With the change, Google has set Chrome and Apple's Safari on their own paths. Webkit was originally created by Apple as a fork to the KHTML rendering engine. Apple took interest in developing it when launching Safari for the Mac, and it now powers Safari for iOS, as well.
WebKit has been heavily adopted with over 20 companies now contributing to the project. Google and Apple, however, have remained the most active contributors to the open-source project.
In fact, Google has been the most active contributor of WebKit in the recent years. This graph from Bitergia (above) shows Google's increasing number of "commits" to WebKit over the years. Google's efforts will now be directed at 'Blink'. Apple has made no public comments about the news.
Popular Stories
In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said Apple will have a three-day stretch of product announcements from Monday, March 2 through Wednesday, March 4. In total, he expects Apple to introduce "at least five products."
A week ago, Apple invited selected journalists and content creators to an "Apple Experience" in New York, London, and Shanghai on Wednesday, March 4 at 9...
Apple is expected to launch a new foldable iPhone this year, based on multiple rumors and credible sources. The long-awaited device has been rumored for years now, but signs increasingly suggest that Apple will release its first foldable device in 2026.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
Below, we've collated an updated set of key details that have been leaked about ...
Apple Watch is now eleven generations in, and packed with useful features that are easy to miss at first glance. To help you get more out of your new device, we've rounded up 15 practical tips you might not have discovered yet, including a few that long-time users often overlook.
Bounce Between Two Apps
On your Apple Watch, double-press the Digital Crown to see a deck of all currently...
Apple's software engineers are testing iOS 26.3.1, according to the MacRumors visitor logs, which have been a reliable indicator of upcoming iOS versions.
iOS 26.3.1 should be a minor update that fixes bugs and/or security vulnerabilities, and it will likely be released within the next two weeks.
Last month, Apple released iOS 26.2.1 with bug fixes and support for the second-generation...
macOS 26.3 hints at Apple's rumored lower-cost MacBook, and two new Studio Display models, according to Macworld's Filipe Espósito.
Espósito found the following codenames within macOS 26.3's source code, and he revealed the upcoming products that they likely correspond with, based on previous reporting from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman and others.
The codenames:J700: Lower-cost MacBook
J427:...
