Opera’s surely been feeling the heat from WebKit given that it’s basically taking over the world, including mobile. So here’s a thought: why don’t they abandon their own rendering engine, Presto, and adopt WebKit? Then instead of being “that other browser”, which developers are loathe to bother testing for, they’d be the best (from what I’ve heard of Safari) WebKit based browser out there. Seems a no-brainer to me.

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7 comments until now

  1. Well, given how quickly Opera is getting on with Acid3, the code base is presumably in very good shape. What might be better for them is if they just open source their rendering engine?

  2. I agree their code must be in great shape, but if they open source Presto then the size of the community around it begins at zero. If they switch to WebKit, it’s a bazillion (give or take).

  3. I’m not really convinced less competition would be a good thing.

  4. Really, even just in the renderer? Obviously competition between browsers is still good because there’s so many opportunities for differentiation, but rendering engines are commodities IMO.

  5. If all renderers were the same I fear innovation would suffer. The competition regarding speed between the various engines and features (Acid3 for instance) can only be good.

  6. Anne van Kesteren – I agree

    OP – why didn’t we all stick with ie4 as 99.9% people used it.

    sigh… linux world is filling up with windiots.

  7. You predicted the future. I believe you must be a wizard.

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