Summary
WebKit is the name for an engine that is used to render web pages in web browsers. It is similar to the Gecko engine used by Firefox. The WebKit engine powers Apple's Safari web browser and was previously used by Google Chrome.
In depth
WebKit's {{Glossary("HTML")}} and {{Glossary("JavaScript")}} code originally started as a fork of the KHTML and KJS libraries, but since then has been further developed by KDE, Apple, Google, Nokia, BlackBerry and others.
The engine is partly available under a BSD-style license, partly under the {{Glossary("LGPL", "GNU Lesser General Public License"}}. As of March 2013, Webkit is a trademark of Apple.
WebKit consists of two important components:
WebCore - Library for layouting, rendering and {{Glossary("DOM")}}
JavaScriptCore - JavaScript engine
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