Does every Linux browser run on Blink, Chrome's engine ?

So, you might have heard that Microsoft will be retiring their own HTML engine, EdgeHTML, and will base the next versions on the Chromium engine, called Blink. I think it's time to take a look at some of the browsers available on Linux, that use the Blink engine !

1 - Chrome and Chromium Obviously, you know these guys. Chrome is based on Chromium, which is itself open source, and they both use the Blink HTML engine. The main difference between the two are codec support, since Chrome comes with AAC, H264 and MP3 support, as well as the flash plugin and a few restrictions on which extensions you can install. They both are pretty speedy, but gobble enormous amounts of RAM to deliver that performance. They both look mostly the same, and support a plethora of extensions to improve and extend your web browsing experience.

2 - Opera Opera used to have its own rendering engine, called Presto, but they canned it in 2013 and moved to Blink, Google's fork of Webkit. Opera has some nice features though, such as a built in ad blocker, a picture in picture mode, as well as a battery saver and a way to make browsing faster by compressing images on the webpages. It can also be customized with themes, and can be synced with an Opera account to keep all browsing history, favorites, passwords and open tabs on all your devices. It's a well rounded proposition, even though it doesn't integrate all that well with the Linux desktop and works well on Linux.

3 - Vivaldi This browser has been created by Opera's co founder, and was supposed to bring a complete browsing experience for heavy internet users and Opera users which wereunhappy with the migration from the Presto engine to Blink, which removed a few features, at the time. Ironically, Vivaldi also uses the Blink engine. Its integration with Linux is subpar, and it does look pretty alien compared to other native applications, even though it supports themes. It comes with a bunch of tools, such as integrated notes, a screenshot tool to capture a whole web page, and a handy image information panel that lets you know a few metadata about the image displayed in the browser. You can also sync your browsing data between devices with a Vivaldi account.

4 - Brave This one might be less well known. it's aimed at the privacy focused crowd, and has been created by the cofounder of Firefox and the creator of Javascript. Brave is based on Chromium, and is advertised as 2 times faster as Chrome on the desktop, since it blocks ads and trackers. Brave also implements a reward system for publishers, where users can make micro payments and reward publishers with blockchain based tokens. Brave tries to offer a new approach to reward content creators on the internet, one that is not based on ads. Since its marketshare is still pretty ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko58_KjgM0E