There's been so much noise about Harmattan and MeeGo, but I find it interesting that I haven't seen any comments on the fact that Nokia will probably be dumping the Mozilla-based browser engine to go instead with WebKit, the browser engine found in their competition, Android and iPhone OS.

Why do I say this? Nokia has clearly stated that they will be supporting the Nokia WRT (Web RunTime) engine based on WebKit in Harmattan forward. Why would they have two big bulky browser engines on a limited-resources device?

So now we know why Firefox is being ported to the N900 so aggressively when the N900's Mozilla-based browser is currently one of the best in the industry.

In Harmattan, Firefox, an optional, third-party browser, will the Mozilla-based browser. Just like almost every other platform (except maybe Ubuntu? Can you get Ubuntu on anything out-of-the-box?).

Is there anyone else a bit sad about this?

I've always preferred Konqueror, so not me. Unfortunately KHTML is getting so dated I'm forced to use Firefox on the desktop, but more people working on WebKit can't hurt at least.

I think it's a good point, but also consider WRT is also planned (or at least, was planned) for the N900, where both webkit and microb will coexist from PR1.2 onwards... (unless they plan to ship Qt without Webkit, which I doubt).

Not been a linux/maemo user for long but why would they get rid of the browser we have now? Its fast, it loads full web pages well and has a nice easy UI to it, i wudnt give up microb for any other browser at the moment. Im not sad by this news i just hope they do it correctly, i porsonaly prefer opera (gecko is it?) over webkit.

It is better to have MeeGo WebKit browser and Firefox Mozilla on future MeeGo devices than having two very similar Mozilla-based browsers. Keep in mind that Firefox doesn't need much to become as good as MicroB and it has a great potential to even surpass it by the time MeeGo+WebKit will be here.

In the same lines of other topics around MeeGo, I would wait for facts before feeling sad (or happy for that matter).

No no no no.

Webkit might have faster javascript execution or so, but if you look at MicroB and compare it to S60 Browser, iPhone Safari or Android Browser, there is no doubt which is superior.

I say, let Mozilla do their bit and let Nokia concentrate on one browser...

AFAIK, the webkit will also be used as a development strategy (much like python, qt) correct? I think the decision went for keeping a standard across all the platforms because of Qt.

As long as I have more options for browser for me it is okay...

Hmm. I could have sworn someone from Nokia* stated some time ago that in Harmattan, the browser would continue to be Mozilla-based, while WRT would use WebKit. I believe that was pre-MeeGo, but I would imagine it will hold true for Harmattan at least.

* My brain is telling me it was qgil responding to a question posted by YoDude, but my brain isn't to be trusted.

EDIT: Yep, my brain was completely wrong. go1dfish responded to Bundyo with second-hand information.

(qgil launched the thread, and there's a "yo" in "Bundyo". Yeah, stupid brain.)

Mozilla is using Gecko. Operas layout engine is called Presto.