What is Like Gecko iOS? (Explained)

If you’ve been wondering what is Like Gecko iOS, you’re not the only one.

Gecko is a name for an open-source web browser engine that behaves ‘like Gecko’ when interacting with different web servers. It’s developed by the Mozilla Foundation for use by various internet-enabled applications.

What is Like Gecko iOS?

Suppose you’re using the Mozilla Firefox browser to access your Yahoo account on your Apple device. You’ll probably see ‘like gecko iOS’ on your browser to indicate that you are using the Gecko browser engine.

The Mozilla Foundation designed Gecko to accept open internet standards for use in different internet-enabled applications like displaying web pages on web browsers, content presentations, and client-server services.

It’s free software written in JavaScript, C++, and Rust, licensed under the Mozilla Public License.

Some of the open internet standard supported by Gecko includes HTML4 and partially HTML5, JavaSCript 1.8.5, XHTML 1.0, RDF, CSS Level 2.1, and several others.

It has an excellent programming API that allows it to handle several roles in its primary role as a web browser.

What are Gecko Components?

The components of the Gecko are defined in the Quantum project, which aims to improve and refine Gecko’s user interface and its interactions with its users. They include:

• CSS – It’s integrated into Gecko from Servo as its parallel style sheet system for performing linear operations with numbers. Its first release was in Firefox 57.
• Compositor – It’s used to combine visual elements from many sources into single images for browser content. Gecko’s compositor performs its own processes and isolates browser tabs so that they are not affected by graphics driver-related crashes. Its release was in Firefox 53.
• Render – It is integrated with Servo’s rendering tool for generating photorealistic and non-photorealistic images from both 2D and 3D models. In Gecko, the WebRender is used because of its effortless acceleration by the GPU. Mozilla enabled the render in Firefox 67.
• DOM – Also derived from Servo’s architecture, it works cooperatively with scheduled threads within itself to increase browser responsiveness without altering the number of processes. The release and use of the DOM came with Firefox 57.
• Network – This is Gecko’s networking layer, commonly called Necko, which provides an extensive and rich API system for networking. Its first release was in Firefox 59.
• Flow – This feature helps visualize the performance of significant web apps and determine the improvements to be made across the Gecko components. The first use was in Firefox 57 after its completion.
• Photon – It’s a UI feature that refreshes and improves the performance of the Gecko application. It was also released in Firefox 57.

What Is KHTML Like Gecko?

When an open-source developer created Konqueror, he also developed KHTML to be the landing engine for the browser.

When the browser is used to connect a website, it connects to the user agent, which provides information to the web servers, which in turn serves the browser with the web pages.

As browsers developed and came with more advanced features, web servers started being selective in sending pages to the browsers. For example, when the Mozilla browser was introduced, it came with the ability to support frames, which was not in the earlier browsers like Mosaic.

Consequently, web servers would check to see whether the user agent had ‘Mozilla’ in its description and then send pages with frames. If the word ‘Mozilla’ were absent, then the browser would not receive pages with frames.

To get web pages with frames, other browsers like internet explorer added the word ‘Mozilla’ to their user agent to get noticed by the web servers. It worked as they eventually received web pages with frames. ‘

Other browsers that came later also employed a similar trick and did it work for them.

When Gecko was introduced, some web servers focused on browsers that had ‘Gecko’ in their user agent to serve them with specific web pages. KHTML, which was developed for the Konqueror browser, adapted the words ‘like Gecko’ and added them to its user agent so that they’d receive the modern pages with features designed for Gecko.

Therefore, KHTML, like Gecko, is meant to make the browser compatible with web pages created for Gecko, as web servers look for specific words in the user agents before serving the web pages.

The user agents for each browser are essential, and web servers use them for different purposes. We have already discussed that they help the web servers get information about the browser to help them know which web pages to serve to the browser.

Adding a word or a short phrase to the user agents can change the type of web page they receive.

Others include:

• It helps display content in a page format suitable for the type of operating system in use. For example, if you’re using a mobile phone, the page interface displayed makes the content readable and easy to follow. In a computer browser, the display is different to fit in the large space.
• It gathers details and statistics of different operating systems and browsers in use. It is such data that facilitate functions like browser market-share statistics. It also gathers information on any visitors to the site, and this information is useful to inform the visitors of products according to their interests.
• Web servers have access to bots and can give instructions to them. User agents are crucial in these functions as they help identify the bots.
• The user agent is responsible for checking the browser’s capabilities and loads the CSS compatible with the browser depending on the result of the test.
• It also pushes specially customized offers to specific people based on the type of device they are using and other factors related to how they use the browser.
• The user agent can be customized into different languages to automatically send a correct translation of any document based on the user’s preferred language.

What Is GeckoFX?

GeckoFX is an open-source Windows control component, written and executed in C# to embed Mozilla Geckoin all .NET and Windows Forms Application.

It’s designed in a simple class model to allow the browser to access HTML and CSS DOM engine models.

Andrew Young, who is a visual CSS editor, created GeckoFX and released it as open-source, licensed under the Mozilla Public License, and accessible by other browsers.

GeckoFX gives you more control in your web browser. To use it, you’ll first need to download it and run it. Ensure you get the latest version of it so that you can enjoy it at its optimum.

Does Firefox Still Use Gecko?

Firefox uses Gecko as its rendering engine for web pages. The Gecko layout engine is able to implement current web standards and incorporate those that Firefox anticipates in the future.

In 2017, Firefox designed the Quantum as new technology and improvement to the Gecko for better parallelism and a more interactive user interface.

Currently, Firefox is available for Linux, macOS, and Windows 7 or newer. It’s also available for other operating systems like FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris Unix, and illumos. It’s also available in simpler phone versions and compatible with Android and iOS operating systems.

However, the iOS version uses Webkit as its primary layout engine as per the requirements of iOS devices for all their browsers.

Conclusion

Gecko is an excellent rendering engine for browsers, Mozilla Corporation products like Firefox and Seamonkey, and others like Flock and Galeon. There are also others that use Gecko and have no relationship with Mozilla.

All these incorporate the method of adding words or phrases in the user agent so that web servers identify them as compatible with Gecko.

The common phrase is ‘like Gecko’ to show that it functions just like Gecko, and so web servers serve them with web pages designed with Gecko features.