A browser engine, also known as a rendering engine or layout engine, is a core component of a web browser responsible for parsing and rendering web content. It interprets HTML, CSS, and other web technologies to display webpages correctly on your screen.
When you visit a website, the browser engine takes the HTML markup of the webpage and processes it to determine the structure and layout of the page. It reads the HTML tags and their attributes, interprets the CSS styles, and applies them to the appropriate elements.
The rendering engine performs several tasks, including:
Parsing HTML: The engine reads the HTML code of a webpage, understands its structure and creates a Document Object Model (DOM) representation of the page.
Parsing CSS: The engine interprets the CSS stylesheets associated with the webpage and computes the final styles for each element.
Layout: The engine calculates the position and size of each element on the webpage based on the computed styles and the document's structure.
Rendering: The engine takes the layout information and paints the pixels on your screen, displaying the webpage according to the computed styles, images, fonts, and other visual elements.
Different web browsers use different browser engines. For example, Google Chrome uses the Blink engine (a fork of the WebKit engine), Mozilla Firefox uses the Gecko engine, and Safari uses the WebKit engine. Each engine has its own strengths, performance characteristics, and support for web standards.
Browser engines play a crucial role in determining how well a browser supports web technologies, handles performance, and provides a smooth browsing experience for users.