Opera Embraces WebKit in Browser Brain Transplant

Opera Software, an independent voice in the browser market since the 1990s, will dramatically change its strategy this year by adopting the WebKit browser engine used by Safari and Chrome. The Norwegian company announced the move and said it will show off the first fruits of the work with a WebKit-based version of its Android browser at the Mobile World Congress show in less than two weeks. But the company will move to WebKit for its desktop browser, too.

A browser engine processes the Web page instructions written in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS then renders the results on screens. The engine is increasingly important as the developer world expands from static Web pages to dynamic Web apps. Hints of Opera's WebKit work emerged with a mobile-browser project called ICE in January, but yesterday's news is a much more sweeping change than just a single product.