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Is Microsoft considering using WebKit for IE?

AppleInsider today posted an EXTREMELY interesting article proporting that Microsoft may be considering WebKit as a replacement rendering engine for it’s currently lackluster Internet Explorer web browser.  From the Article:

The student put Ballmer on the hot seat by asking, “Why is IE still relevant and why is it worth spending money on rendering engines when there are open source ones available that can respond to changes in Web standards faster?”

“That’s cheeky, but a good question, but cheeky,” Ballmer replied, according to a report by TechWorld. Ballmer explained that Microsoft would need to consider the future of the browser and determine if there is any lack of innovation for the company to capitalize upon with ‘proprietary extensions that broaden its functionality.’

“There will still be a lot of proprietary innovation in the browser itself so we may need to have a rendering service,” Ballmer said, adding, “Open source is interesting. Apple has embraced Webkit and we may look at that, but we will continue to build extensions for IE 8.”

Ballmer also admitted the delays in moving from IE 6 to IE 7 during the development of Vista under the Longhorn project. “But I don’t what to go there,” he said.

Will it happen?  I doubt it.  At least not in the desktop version of IE.   Microsoft has far too much vested in it’s proprietary technologies in IE.  I highly doubt they’d give them up just for the sake of standards compliance.

What I think is more likely is a shift to WebKit as the rendering engine of the next generation of MOBILE Internet Explorer.  WebKit has proven its worth in the mobile space as the core of both Apple’s Mobile Safari, and as the core of the browser on Google’s G1.

Without a doubt WebKit is the fastest and highest quality mobile browser available today, and Microsoft moving it’s mobile offerings there would make a significant improvement over the current iteration of Mobile Internet Explorer without requiring the development time needed to develop their own version.   Considering how fast Microsoft is falling behind in the Mobile Space, with Windows Mobile 7 now scheduled for a few YEARS from now,  incorporating a better browser and some UI improvements into something like a “Windows Mobile 6.5″,  could be the only way to save their marketshare which is quickly being sucked away by the likes of Apple and RIM.

The fact that Ballmer even MENTIONED this says a lot about the fact that Microsoft knows it’s missing the boat in the browser war and is starting to wake up to the fact that they need to work on it quickly.

Tags: Apple, Google, Microsoft, Webkit

Download of the day: Webkit nightly builds

Over the last few months, for my day to day web browsing, I’ve really become a fan of Apple’s Safari web browser.  It’s standards compliant, better at rendering images than Firefox, and really really screaming fast.  Not to mention i LOVE the font rendering in the Windows version!  All is not perfect though.  I do miss the large community of add-ons that Firefox enjoys,  so I keep Firefox around for my Stumbling or Delicious tagging.  Most of my browsing though, occurs in Safari, in both Mac and Windows environments.

So when someone told me about the Webkit nightly builds, I couldn’t wait to go download them!  Webkit is the open source web browser that Safari is based on.  And you can get the newest, most up to date, and bleeding edge version available almost every night.  This is the stuff that will go into Safari the next time it gets updated, but you can try it all out right now!

Let me tell you, it is SCREAMING fast,  especially on pages that have a lot of javascript (read almost every page on the net).   Pages where ads would choke up Firefox or Safari run nice and smoothly on the newest build of Webkit.  It’s fantastic!

Installation is easy if you have a Mac.  Just download the newest build for Mac and when it opens, drag it to your apps folder like any other app.

For Windows, it’s a bit more difficult.  You have to already have Safari for Windows Installed.  Once that’s done,  you download the build for windows and unzip it to a folder on your computer.  Run the file called “run-nightly-webkit.cmd” and it will run a script that will install Webkit along with your Safari installation.

Keep in mind that this is techincally beta software.  So it may not work as well as advertised.  Though in my personal experience, Webkit has been faster and MORE stable than Safari,  hopefully you’ll find it to be the same.  If you haven’t tried Safari or Webkit before,  I really recommend it.  I’ve found it to be nothing but fantastic.

Tags: Firefox, Safari, web browser, Webkit