Gecko (software)
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| Developer(s) | Mozilla Foundation |
|---|---|
| Repository | hg |
| Written in | C++ |
| Type | Layout engine |
| License | MPL 2.0 |
| Website | developer |
Gecko is a web browser engine used in many applications developed by Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation (notably the Firefox web browser including its mobile version other than iOS devices, and their e-mail client Thunderbird), as well as in many other open source software projects. Gecko is free and open-source software subject to the terms of the Mozilla Public License version 2.
It 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 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++. Its development is now overseen by the Mozilla Foundation.
Development of 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 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.
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