Mozilla and Samsung Collaborate on New Browser Engine

Apr 04, 2013

Mozilla is collaborating with Samsung on a new web browser engine called Servo.

According to a recent announcement on the Mozilla blog, Brendan Eich states that “Servo is an attempt to rebuild the Web browser from the ground up on modern hardware, rethinking old assumptions along the way. This means addressing the causes of security vulnerabilities while designing a platform that can fully utilize the performance of tomorrow’s massively parallel hardware to enable new and richer experiences on the Web.”

Servo is written in Rust, a new systems language simultaneously being developed by Mozilla. According to Mozilla, Rust, which is now at version 0.6, has been in development for several years and offers “efficient high-level, multi-paradigm abstractions” and “precise control over hardware resources.”

Mozilla also announced that, together with Samsung, they are bringing Rust and Servo to Android and ARM. Eich states that Samsung has already contributed an ARM back end to Rust along with the build infrastructure needed to cross-compile to Android. “At the same time, we will be putting more resources into Servo, trying to prove that we can build a fast web browser with pervasive parallelism, and in a safe, fun language,” Eich said.

Related content

  • Linux News

    News

    • Gnome 3.8 released
    • Aereo wins battle to stream broadcast TV

    openSUSE 12.3 Out

    • New browser engine
    • Pirates on the run
    • Ubuntu reduces non‑LTS support

    Projects

    • OpenDaylight open source framework
    • ASF promotes CloudStack
  • Firefox in Transition

    What’s new in Firefox 57 Quantum – and why does it matter so much?

  • Firefox 4 for Mobile Enters Beta

    Enhanced speed, responsiveness, and stability come to Mozilla's Fennec platform.

  • Mitchell Baker: Mozilla Defies Current Crisis

    The Mozilla Foundation has published its audited financial statements and tax form for 2007. Chairperson Mitchell Baker uses the event to review Mozilla's performance and despite the current financial turmoil, sees good prospects for the future.

  • Rust

    Largely unnoticed by the public, the Mozilla Foundation is tinkering with its own programming language, Rust, which is intended to make writing reliable, fast, and concurrently running applications easier. For this purpose, the developers are borrowing generously from other languages.

comments powered by Disqus
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters

Support Our Work

Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

Learn More

News