Gecko (stylized as ɢecko) is a browser engine developed by Mozilla . It is used in the Firefox browser, the Thunderbird email client , and many other projects.
64-409: Galeon is a discontinued Gecko -based web browser that was created by Marco Pesenti Gritti with the goal of delivering a consistent browsing experience to GNOME desktop environment. It gained some popularity in the early 2000s due to its speed, flexibility in configuration and features. The disagreement over the future of Galeon split the development team in 2002, which resulted in the departure of
128-409: A bookmarks bar and a download manager . It also has "Speed Dial" which allows the user to add an unlimited number of pages shown in thumbnail form in a page displayed when a new tab is opened. Opera was one of the first browsers to support Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) in 1998. Opera Turbo, a feature that compresses requested web pages (except HTTPS pages) before sending them to the users,
192-673: A Multithreaded Compositor was introduced, allowing the browser to function and render in animations much smoother than it was previously capable. Opera has originated features later adopted by other web browsers, including: Speed Dial, pop-up blocking, reopening recently closed pages, private browsing , and tabbed browsing . Additional features include a built-in screenshot tool, Snapshot, which also includes an image-markup tool; built-in ad blockers, and tracking blockers. Opera's desktop browser includes access to social media messaging apps WhatsApp , Telegram , Facebook Messenger , Twitter , Instagram , TikTok , and VK . Opera includes
256-490: A browser marketed towards gamers, claiming to have better performance with a built-in tracker and ad blocker and also having a CPU and RAM usage limiter. In 1994, Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner and Geir Ivarsøy started developing the Opera web browser while working at Telenor , a Norwegian telecommunications company. In 1995, they founded Opera Software AS . Opera was initially released on 10 April 1995, and then it
320-474: A non-custodial wallet with a dedicated browser for blockchain-enabled services and Web3 technologies. On 14 April 2022, Opera launched its Crypto Browser available on iOS devices. As of 2023, Opera Crypto Browser has been discontinued, with the browser's features being integrated into Opera and Opera GX. In 2023, Opera added an AI chatbot called Aria into the browser. This is powered by Opera's Composer AI engine and connects to OpenAI's GPT model. Opera GX
384-710: A rich programming API that makes it suitable for a wide variety of roles in Internet-enabled applications, such as web browsers , content presentation, and client/server . Gecko is written in C++ and JavaScript , and, since 2016, additionally in Rust . It is free and open-source software subject to the terms of the Mozilla Public License version 2. Mozilla officially supports its use on Android , Linux , macOS , and Windows . Development of
448-469: A shareable collection of websites, images, links, and notes in a visual form. A video popout feature was also added for video conferencing, which happens automatically when switching tabs, popping out of the window when navigating away and popping back in when navigating back. Later, in Opera 83 released on 19 January 2022, this feature would be implemented for all video players, not just video conferencing platforms. On 31 Jan 2023, Opera announced that given
512-504: Is a gaming-oriented alternative to Opera. The browser was announced on 21 May 2019 and released in early access for Windows on 11 June 2019, during E3 2019 . The macOS version was released in December of the same year. Opera GX adds features geared toward gamers and other audiences, with the regular Opera browser features included. The limiter allows users to limit network, CPU, and memory usage to preserve system resources. GX Cleaner
576-427: Is a multi-platform web browser developed by its namesake company Opera . The current edition of the browser is based on Chromium . Opera is available on Windows , macOS , Linux , Android , and iOS (Safari WebKit engine). Two mobile versions are still active, called Opera Mobile and Opera Mini . Opera also has a news aggregator app called Opera News with Aria, an AI -based search engine . Opera
640-575: Is a tool that is said to allow users to clear cache , cookies , and other unwanted files etc. The browser also adds integrations with other websites such as Twitch , Discord , Twitter , and Instagram . The browser also has a built-in page called the GX Corner, which combines gaming-related releases, deals, and news articles. On 5 September 2019, Opera won a Red Dot award in the Interface and User Experience Design category for Opera GX. Around
704-1015: Is also used by Sugar for the OLPC XO-1 computer, and is used as a complete implementation of the XUL ( XML User Interface Language). Gecko currently defines the XUL specification. Gecko is also used by the KaiOS mobile operating system, which is based on the discontinued Firefox OS . Products that formerly used Gecko include Pale Moon (now using Goanna ), Epiphany (now known as GNOME Web and using WebKitGTK ), and GNOME DevHelp (now using WebKitGTK ). Discontinued products that used Gecko include Swiftfox , Flock , Galeon , Camino , Minimo , Beonex Communicator , Kazehakase , Songbird , Sunbird (calendar) , MicroB , Nightingale , Instantbird , and Picasa for Linux. On Windows and other platforms, Gecko depends on proprietary compilers. After Gecko 2.0,
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#1732764825622768-716: Is composed of several sub-projects. The Mozilla Azure project is a stateless low-level graphics abstraction API used in Firefox . The project has several objectives including: Azure will provide 2D hardware acceleration on top of 3D graphics backends. Firefox began using Azure instead of Cairo in 2012. It is written in C++ and used by Servo . The Azure name is an ode to the early Netscape founder James H. Clark and his earlier work at Silicon Graphics where workstations were often named after colors. Opera (web browser) 107.0.5045.11 (February 1, 2024 ; 9 months ago ( 2024-02-01 ) ) Opera
832-525: Is no longer available on the desktop browser. Opera Turbo is available in Opera Mini , the mobile browser. One security feature is the option to delete private data, such as HTTP cookies , browsing history, items in cache and passwords with the click of a button. When visiting a site, Opera displays a security badge in the address bar which shows details about the website, including security certificates. Opera's fraud and malware protection warns
896-473: Is unsustainable" regarding the resources required to maintain it. Instead, they planned to develop a set of extensions for Epiphany to provide similar functionality. Even after development ceased in September 2008, the browser remained popular and in December 2011 was still available in some Linux distribution 's repositories, such as Debian 6 Squeeze , although it was not part of Debian 7 Wheezy . Galeon
960-593: Is written in the Rust programming language , also created by Mozilla, which is designed to generate compiled code with better memory safety, concurrency, and parallelism than compiled C++ code. As of April 2016, Servo needed at least several years of development to become a full-featured browser engine, hence the decision to start the Quantum project to bring stable portions of Servo into Firefox. Mozilla laid off all Servo developers in August 2020. The Quantum project
1024-539: The Chromium project. Opera Software planned as well to contribute code to WebKit. On 3 April 2013, Google announced it would fork components from WebKit to form a new layout engine, Blink . That day, Opera Software confirmed it would follow Google in implementing Blink. On 28 May 2013, a beta release of Opera 15 was made available, the first version based on the Chromium project. Many distinctive Opera features of
1088-666: The Mariner improvements to the old layout engine) had to be abandoned. Netscape 6, the first Netscape release to incorporate Gecko, was released in November 2000 (the name Netscape 5 was never used). As Gecko development continued, other applications and embedders began to make use of it. America Online , by this time Netscape's parent company, eventually adopted it for use in CompuServe 7.0 and AOL for Mac OS X (these products had previously embedded Internet Explorer). However, with
1152-496: The developer build , then, depending on user feedback, may progress to the beta version and eventually be released . The developer stream allows early testing of new features, mainly targeting developers, extension creators, and early adopters. Opera developer is not intended for everyday browsing as it is unstable and is prone to failure or crashing, but it enables advanced users to try out new features that are still under development, without affecting their normal installation of
1216-668: The Android version of the Opera Web Browser. In March 2020, Opera updated its Android browser to access .crypto domains ( IPFS ), making it the first browser to be able to support a domain name system (DNS) which is not part of the traditional DNS directly without the need of a plugin or add-on. This was through a collaboration with a San Francisco based startup, Unstoppable Domains. In 2021 iOS and desktop versions have support for IPFS . In January 2022, Opera introduced Opera Crypto Browser into public beta, combining
1280-552: The NASDAQ stock exchange. By the end of 2022, the consortium sold all of its shares, and Opera in turn committed to repurchase all of its American Depository Shares to reestablish its corporate autonomy. As of the end of 2023, Opera Software was 72.4% owned by Kunlun, a Chinese public company, making it a subsidiary of that company. Opera CEO James Yahui Zhou is a controlling shareholder in Kunlun. In 2019, Opera introduced Opera GX ,
1344-646: The Netscape era, a combination of poor technical and management decisions resulted in Gecko software bloat . Thus in 2001 Apple chose to fork KHTML , not Gecko, to create the WebKit engine for its Safari browser. However, by 2008 Mozilla had addressed some of the bloat problems, resulting in significant performance improvements for Gecko. In October 2016, Mozilla announced Quantum , an ongoing project encompassing several software development efforts to "build
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#17327648256221408-431: The browser aimed at those who play games. The early-access program was opened on 11 June 2019. On 24 June 2021, Opera 77, codenamed Opera R5, was released. As one of the larger updates to the browser, it added more music streaming services in the sidebar, integrating native support for Apple Music , Spotify , YouTube Music , Tidal , SoundCloud , and Gaana . The "Pinboards" feature was also added, letting users create
1472-414: The browser towards a more minimal design, further improving the free VPN service, and was marketed as being the "World's first Web3 ready browser", as it included out of the box integrations with blockchain and cryptocurrency applications. On 21 May 2019, Opera GX is announced and opened for early access. The only information available in this announcement is that the browser would be a special version of
1536-430: The browser's subreddit , many users complained about the loud volume of the splash screen and that the splash screen could not be bypassed unless the execution file was deleted. Opera Software uses a release cycle consisting of three "streams", corresponding to phases of development, that can be downloaded and installed independently of each other: "developer", "beta", and "stable". New features are first introduced in
1600-486: The browser's initial author and several other developers. This event marked the beginning of the browser's popularity decline, which led to its discontinuation in September 2008. Some of Galeon's features were subsequently ported to Epiphany (now called Web ) – the descendant of Galeon. Galeon made use of Gecko's features including configuration options and standards support. Apart from that, Galeon had several features that were uncommon in browsers at that time: The project
1664-412: The browser. New versions of the browser are released frequently, usually a few times a week. The beta stream, formerly known as "Opera Next", is a feature complete package, allowing stability and quality to mature before the final release. A new version is released every couple of weeks. Both streams can be installed alongside the official release without interference. Each has a different icon to help
1728-487: The built-in ad blocker to provide cryptocurrency mining protection that stops sites from running scripts that attempt to use the CPU to mine cryptocurrency. Additionally the browser added Chromecast support, VR support enhancements, saving pages as PDFs, and improved VPN performance with region-based locations rather than country-based. On 9 April 2019, Opera 60 was released. This version, codenamed Reborn 3, focused on moving
1792-508: The choice of seeing banner ads or targeted text ads from Google . With version 8.5, released in 2005, the ads were completely removed, and the browser's primary financial support came through revenue from Google (by contract, Opera's default search engine ). Among new features introduced in version 9.1, released in 2006, was fraud protection using technology from GeoTrust , a digital certificate provider, and PhishTank , an organization that tracks known phishing web sites. This feature
1856-541: The closure of 360 Security Technology Inc. that year. In January 2017, the source code of Opera 12.15, one of the last few versions still based on the Presto layout engine, was leaked. To demonstrate how radically different a browser could look, Opera Neon, dubbed a "concept browser", was released in January 2017. PC World compared it to demo models that automakers and hardware vendors release to show their visions of
1920-536: The discontinuation of support for Windows 7 and 8.1 by Microsoft , Chromium based browsers are also ending support, so Opera will no longer get updates on those versions, but older versions will continue to function on those versions of Windows. On 22 March 2023, Opera and Opera GX incorporated features with AI-powered tools. These features include AI Prompts that are suggested to the user, and sidebar access to ChatGPT and ChatSonic. The prompts show up on sites that contain content like articles, offering to shorten
1984-546: The earliest being Netscape 6 and Mozilla Suite (later renamed SeaMonkey ). It is also used in other Mozilla web browser derivatives such as Firefox and Firefox for mobile and the implementation of the Internet Explorer -clone that is part of Wine . Mozilla also uses it in their Thunderbird email-client . Other web browsers using Gecko include GNU IceCat , Waterfox , K-Meleon , Lunascape , Portable Firefox , Conkeror , Classilla , TenFourFox . Gecko
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2048-679: The exception of a few betas , Gecko was never used in the main Microsoft Windows AOL client. On July 15, 2003, AOL laid off the remaining Gecko developers and the Mozilla Foundation (formed on the same day) became the main steward of Gecko development. Today, Gecko is developed by employees of the Mozilla Corporation , employees of companies that contribute to the Mozilla project, and volunteers. In
2112-498: The experimental Servo project. Quantum also includes refinements to the user interface and interactions. Firefox 57, released in November 2017, is the initial version with a Servo component enabled. Mozilla dubs this and several planned future releases "Firefox Quantum". In 2012, Mozilla began the experimental Servo project , which is an engine designed from scratch with the goals of improving concurrency and parallelism while also reducing memory safety vulnerabilities. Servo
2176-444: The foundation of Mozilla's next generation of mobile products based on a software library that makes Gecko reusable for Android, encompassing newer software development efforts to "decouple the engine itself from its user interface, and made it easy to embed in other applications". Firefox Focus 7.0, shipped in the same month, is the initial version introduced GeckoView, with increased performance in median page loading. Firefox Reality
2240-570: The functionality of the Microsoft Windows version. Galeon was widely seen as one of the best Linux browsers available. The polls revealed the substantial usage share of Galeon, though its popularity was regarded as owing to lack of stability evident in Mozilla 's browsers. With the release of new version of the GTK+ widget toolkit, which was used to construct the user interface of Galeon,
2304-418: The future. Instead of a Speed Dial Browsing feature it displays the frequently accessed websites in resemblance to a desktop with computer icons scattered over it in an artistic formation. On 10 May 2017, Opera 45 was released. Notably this was the last version of the browser compatible with 32-bit Linux distributions, with later versions requiring a 64-bit Linux distribution. This version, inspired by
2368-416: The general public. At the time of Galeon's creation, the most popular Linux browsers, including Netscape and Mozilla , were large multi-functional programs. This made them slow to start and often impractical due to their high memory usage and processor requirements. Opera was somewhat faster, but it was proprietary software distributed in trialware and adware versions, both of which lacked some of
2432-420: The layout engine now known as Gecko began at Netscape in 1997, following the company's purchase of DigitalStyle . The existing Netscape rendering engine, originally written for Netscape Navigator 1.0 and upgraded through the years, was slow, did not comply well with W3C standards, had limited support for dynamic HTML and lacked features such as incremental reflow (when the layout engine rearranges elements on
2496-482: The mascot for the browser. On November 28 of the same year, Opera GX launched a new advertising campaign titled "Bury Boring", featuring actor and comedian Eric André smashing and burying computers not using Opera GX. The advertising campaign also included a splash screen whenever the browser is launched during the campaign with slashing sounds and André yelling out the browser's name. While well received by many of its user base, many criticized Opera GX's actions. In
2560-641: The next-generation web engine for Firefox users". It included numerous improvements to Gecko, taken from the experimental Servo project. Firefox 57, also known as "Firefox Quantum", first shipping in November 2017, is the initial version with major components from the Quantum/Servo projects enabled. These include increased performance in the CSS and GPU rendering components. Additional components will be merged from Servo to Gecko incrementally in future versions. In September 2018, Mozilla announced GeckoView,
2624-411: The non-standard oddities of Netscape Communicator 4.x; however, some of the 4.x features (such as layers ) are not supported. Gecko also has limited support for some non-standard Internet Explorer features, such as the marquee element and the document.all property (though pages explicitly testing for document.all will be told it is not supported). Gecko is primarily used in web browsers ,
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2688-468: The number of preferences and simplifying the user interface would harm the project. In November 2002, as the result of several discussions on the topic Gritti made the decision to cease his work in Galeon and fork the project and started development of a HIG-compliant web browser he called Epiphany (now known as Web ). As Gritti no longer controlled the development of Galeon, the previous functionality
2752-400: The previous Opera Neon design, was called "Opera Reborn" and which redoes parts of the user interface, such as adding light and dark modes, and integrates the messenger applications Facebook Messenger , WhatsApp , and Telegram . Additionally, new ad-blocking settings were added along with security changes. On 4 January 2018, Opera 50 was released. This version updated the browser to utilize
2816-528: The previous versions were dropped, and Opera Mail was separated into a standalone application derived from Opera 12. In 2016, Opera was acquired by an investment group led by a Chinese consortium, the consortium included several Chinese companies such as Kunlun Tech and Qihoo 360. On July 27, 2018, Opera Software went public on the NASDAQ stock exchange, raising $ 115 million in its initial public offering . Opera began repurchasing its shares in 2022 following
2880-563: The same time, Opera GX also marked its first one million downloads. On 20 May 2021, a mobile version of Opera GX was released on iOS and Android . On 12 November of the same year, Opera GX Mobile was awarded another Red Dot award in both the Apps category and the Interface and User Experience Design : Mobile UIs category. On August 19, 2023, Opera GX introduced a VTuber named GX Aura for their social media accounts; she later became
2944-424: The screen as new data is downloaded and added to the page). The new layout engine was developed in parallel with the old, with the intention being to integrate it into Netscape Communicator when it was mature and stable. At least one more major revision of Netscape was expected to be released with the old layout engine before the switch. After the launch of the Mozilla project in early 1998, the new layout engine code
3008-473: The standards Gecko supports include: Gecko also supports SVG . In order to support web pages designed for legacy versions of Netscape and Internet Explorer, Gecko supports DOCTYPE switching. Documents with a modern DOCTYPE are rendered in standards compliance mode, which follows the W3C standards strictly. Documents that have no DOCTYPE or an older DOCTYPE are rendered in quirks mode , which emulates some of
3072-482: The team decided to write a new version of Galeon from scratch. At the same time the GNOME project has adopted its new human interface guidelines , which promoted simplicity and uniform design. The Galeon team had differing opinions on the new guidelines. The author and lead developer, Marco Pesenti Gritti, endorsed them and saw the rewrite as an opportunity to make Galeon simpler. Many other developers believed that reducing
3136-547: The text or summarize them. On 20 June 2023, Opera launched Opera 100, codenamed Opera One, a version of the browser built from the ground up around AI which was unveiled on 25 April 2023. This browser includes a native AI called Aria, a GPT-based AI engine that was developed collaboratively with OpenAI that sifts through web information, generates text and code, and much more in the browser. Tab islands were also introduced, allowing browser tabs to be grouped together, bookmarked, collapsed, and more. Major UI changes were made, and
3200-400: The user about suspicious web pages and is enabled by default. It checks the requested page against several databases of known phishing and malware websites, called blacklists. In 2016, a free virtual private network (VPN) service was implemented in the browser. Opera said that this would allow encrypted access to websites otherwise blocked, and provide security on public WiFi networks. It
3264-619: The user distinguish between the variants. In 2005, Adobe Systems integrated Opera's rendering engine, Presto, into its Adobe Creative Suite applications. Opera technology was employed in Adobe GoLive , Adobe Photoshop , Adobe Dreamweaver , and other components of the Adobe Creative Suite . Opera's layout engine is also found in Virtual Mechanics SiteSpinner Pro. The Internet Channel
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#17327648256223328-444: The version number was bumped to 5.0 to match Firefox 5, and from then on has been kept in sync with the major version number for both Firefox and Thunderbird, to reflect the fact that it is no longer a separate component. Quantum is a Mozilla project encompassing several software development efforts to "build the next-generation web engine for Firefox users". It includes numerous improvements to Gecko, largely incorporated from
3392-425: Was also built with GeckoView. In June 2019, Mozilla announced Firefox Preview as an ongoing project that focuses on building an Android web browser with GeckoView. Firefox for Android 79, also known as "Firefox Daylight", first shipping in August 2020, is the first stable release of that with major components powered by GeckoView engine. From the outset, Gecko was designed to support open Internet standards. Some of
3456-477: Was first released on Monday, April 10th 1995, making it one of the oldest desktop web browsers to ever exist. It was commercial software for its first ten years and had its own proprietary layout engine, Presto . In 2013, it switched from the Presto engine to Chromium . In 2016, Opera, developed in Norway, became a subsidiary of an investment group led by a Chinese consortium. In 2018, Opera Software went public on
3520-463: Was further expanded in version 9.5, when GeoTrust was replaced with Netcraft , and malware protection from Haute Secure was added. In 2006, Opera Software ASA was released as well as Nintendo DS Browser and Internet Channel for Nintendo's DS and Wii gaming systems, respectively, which were Opera-based browsers. A new JavaScript engine, called Carakan (after the Javanese alphabet ),
3584-636: Was introduced with version 10.50. According to Opera Software, it made Opera 10.50 more than seven times faster in SunSpider than Opera 10.10. On 16 December 2010, Opera 11 was released, featuring extensions , tab stacking (where dragging one tab over another allowed creating a group of tabs), visual mouse gestures and changes to the address bar. Opera 12 was released on 14 June 2012. On 12 February 2013, Opera Software announced that it would drop its own Presto layout engine in favor of WebKit as implemented by Google's Chrome browser, using code from
3648-471: Was later determined that the browser VPN operated as a web proxy rather than a VPN, meaning that it only secured connections made by the browser and not by any other apps on the computer. In 2018, a built-in cryptocurrency wallet for the Opera browser was released, with an announcement that Opera would be the first browser with such a feature. On 13 December 2018, Opera released a video showing many decentralized applications like Cryptokitties running on
3712-490: Was praised for its customizability and speed, as compared to Netscape Navigator and Firefox , though Konqueror and Opera were still faster on older hardware. Galeon was noted for its session handling and crash recovery. In November 2002, OSNews conducted a poll to determine the most popular Gecko -based browser, which included several browsers for Microsoft Windows , Mac OS X and Linux , but didn't include Netscape Navigator and Mozilla Suite . The Linux-only Galeon
3776-551: Was released publicly in 1996 with version 2.10, which ran on Microsoft Windows 95 . Development for mobile device platforms started in 1998. Opera 4.0, released in 2000, included a new cross-platform core that facilitated the creation of editions of Opera for multiple operating systems and platforms. To this point, Opera was trialware and had to be purchased after the trial period. With version 5.0, released in 2000, Opera became ad-sponsored , displaying ads to users who had not paid for it. Subsequent versions have given users
3840-617: Was released under an open-source license. Originally unveiled as Raptor , the name had to be changed to NGLayout (next generation layout) due to trademark problems. Netscape later rebranded NGLayout as Gecko . While Mozilla Organization (the forerunner of the Mozilla Foundation ) initially continued to use the NGLayout name (Gecko was a Netscape trademark), eventually the Gecko branding won out. In October 1998, Netscape announced that its next browser would use Gecko (which
3904-418: Was restored in subsequent releases and some new features were added, though development got slow after the split. At the same time the rising popularity of Firefox, its status of the default browser in major distribution and the overwhelming number of its extensions led to decline of Galeon's user base. Eventually the Galeon developers announced plans to halt development of Galeon, saying "the current approach
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#17327648256223968-559: Was started by Marco Pesenti Gritti with the goal of creating a web browser that would be fast and consistent with the GNOME desktop environment. The first public version (Galeon 0.6) was released in June 2000. The first releases of Galeon were criticised for lack of such basic features as cookie and proxy support, though the browser added some features with every release. Version 1.2 of Galeon introduced many new features that drew attention of
4032-404: Was still called NGLayout at the time) rather than the old layout engine, requiring large parts of the application to be rewritten. While this decision was popular with web standards advocates, it was largely unpopular with Netscape developers, who were unhappy with the six months given for the rewrite. It also meant that most of the work done for Netscape Communicator 5.0 (including development on
4096-454: Was the second most popular, after cross-platform Firefox, at that time known as Phoenix . Critics noted Galeon's tricky plugin installation. [REDACTED] Media related to Galeon at Wikimedia Commons Gecko (software) Gecko is designed to support open Internet standards , and is used by different applications to display web pages and, in some cases, an application's user interface itself (by rendering XUL ). Gecko offers
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