Blink officially arrives on Google Chrome

Shortly after announcing it was working on a new web rendering engine, Google has officially replaced WebKit in its Chrome browser with its own "Blink."

 

A report on tech site The Next Web said the latest Canary (test) build of Google Chrome now sports "Blink" instead of "WebKit" as of Tuesday (Manila time).

 

But the report said everyday Chrome users may not expect the change for at least two more months, as "Blink" is still in the early stages.

 

"Google is planning to have Blink power Chrome on desktop and Android with the release of Chrome 28 in about nine weeks," it said.

 

Chrome Canary is “the most bleeding-edge official version of Chrome" but is not for everyday users due to potential stability issues.

 

Last week, Google engineers said they plan to place Blink in Chrome for all platforms, though they have so far mentioned only Android and desktop.

 

But The Next Web said iOS is not likely to get Chrome with Blink because Apple "insists that browsers on iOS use WebKit, no ifs, ands, or buts."

 

"For the same reason, Mozilla develops its Firefox browser for Android, but doesn’t do the same on iOS: it wants to use its own rendering engine (Gecko), but Apple won’t allow it," it added.

 

Going forward, The Next Web said there will be two flavors of Chrome, Blink and WebKit.

 

"For now, the two are still very similar (in fact, you shouldn’t see any notable difference if you’re using Chrome Canary), but as the two diverge, Google will have to make quite an effort to maintain the two," it said. — TJD, GMA News