Mozilla, Samsung collab on next-gen browser engine

Citing the need to exploit emerging advances in technology, Mozilla is collaborating with Samsung on the next-generation core technology that powers the Web browser.

 

Mozilla chief technology officer Brendan Eich said the project, codenamed "Servo," aims to rebuild the browser from the ground up.

 

"We need to be prepared to take advantage of tomorrow’s faster, multi-core, heterogeneous computing architectures. That’s why we’ve recently begun collaborating with Samsung on an advanced technology Web browser engine called Servo," Eich said in a blog post.

 

He said "Servo" will take advantage of modern hardware, while "rethinking old assumptions along the way."

 

Yet, he said "Servo" will also involve address security vulnerabilities.

 

"To those ends, Servo is written in Rust, a new, safe systems language developed by Mozilla along with a growing community of enthusiasts," he said.

 

Rust programming language

 

Eich also said Mozilla and Samsung will bring Servo and the Rust programming language to Android and ARM.

 

He said Rust is rapidly approaching stability and offers precise control over hardware resources, but is "safe by default" as it prevents memory management errors that can lead to crashes and security vulnerabilities.

 

But he said the first major revision of Rust may come in 2014, along with more resources into Servo.

 

"Samsung has already contributed an ARM backend to Rust and the build infrastructure necessary to cross-compile to Android, along with many other improvements," he said. — TJD, GMA News