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A comment on Opera moves to WebKit. Parent comment

Re:Opera moves to WebKit by micheljansen on Wednesday February 13, 2013 @04:36AM (#5212218)
Yes, because when IE was the dominant browser that was totally the case.

Don't forget that on mobile platforms, not including Windows Phone, WebKit is already the standard engine. Safari, Android's stock browser and Chrome all use WebKit and developing for mobile is a ghetto, especially because each version has their own quirks and bugs (and there are dozens of Android stock browser variations in active use at any given time).

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Re:Opera moves to WebKit by nailer on Wednesday February 13, 2013 @06:11AM (#5212480)
IE wasn't open source and wasn't maintained on any other platforms than Windows (the Mac and Solaris versions were woeful).

WebKit can be maintained, forked etc as the world pleases.

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Re:Opera moves to WebKit by micheljansen on Wednesday February 13, 2013 @06:29AM (#5212544)
Yes, but just because there is one engine, doesn't mean there is one standard. Just like during IE's monopoly there were several versions of the browser to deal with (each with their own quirks), an engine monoculture (Webkit or otherwise) does not guarantee ease of development at all.

I agree that if there is to be a rendering engine monoculture, it might as well be open source, but that in itself guarantees nothing.

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Re:Opera moves to WebKit by meerita on Wednesday February 13, 2013 @06:16AM (#5212508)
IE was dominant on one OS. It wasn't dominante on anything else than Windows world. Please, and that dominion lasted no more than 10 years. It ended with Android and iOS.
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Re:Opera moves to WebKit by PommeDeTerre on Wednesday February 13, 2013 @08:33AM (#5212956)
Windows was (and still is) the dominant desktop OS. Until recently, it was a very dominant dominance, with competitors usually making up less than 5% of the market share.

Even today, mobile users typically account for only about 10% to 15% of a site's traffic, for sites that don't directly target mobile users. Mobile just isn't as important or widespread as a lot of people think it is.

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Re:Opera moves to WebKit by meerita on Thursday February 14, 2013 @04:15AM (#5218602)
I don't know wich sites you are watching. All the sites I do control mobile is rocketing away from the desktop. Last year it duplicated. This year looks like it will be higher.
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Re:Opera moves to WebKit by PommeDeTerre on Thursday February 14, 2013 @08:36AM (#5219354)
StatCounter's global mobile vs. desktop usage is probably one of the best measures we've got available to us.

Their February 2013 results are at: http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_vs_desktop-ww-monthly-2013...

It gives a good sense of the current situation. Mobile browser usage is under 15%. It's nothing compared to the usage of desktop browsers. The growth from 2011 and 2012 isn't even that impressive, given the all of the hype and attention surrounding mobile.

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