Opera Browser Hits 300 Million Monthly Users, Replaces Presto With WebKit
The Opera browser is now serving 300 million monthly users. In celebration of its major milestone, the company has ditched the Presto rendering engine in favor of the WebKit.
The company’s 300 million users are spread over all formats including smartphones, smart televisions, tablets, and personal computers.
WebKit is an open source project that has been largely led by the teams at Google (Chrome) and Mozilla (Firefox). Opera Software joining WebKit will likely help the platform grow while providing a faster, better overall web experience for users.
According to Opera Software CTO Hakon Wium Lie, it “makes more sense to have our experts working with the open source communities to further improve WebKit and Chromium, rather than developing our own rendering engine further.”
Speaking of the company’s switch to WebKit, CEO Lars Boilesen says he hopes the browser will “claim a bigger piece of the pie in the smartphone market.”
Opera will take baby steps with WebKit, rolling out the product gradually for its iOS, Android, and web browsers. The transition to WebKit is expected to be completed over the next year.
While Opera has managed to rack up a large user base, the company is facing mounting competition from its competitors and an onslaught of new browsers that are also taking advantage of the open source WebKit platform.
With new browsers entering the market and company’s such as Opera Software grabbing more users on a regular basis, the browser industry appears headed towards more advances that will ultimately benefit customers across the board.
