Chrome's secret: The Skia engine

GigaOm's Om Malik noticed a pretty significant nugget buried beneath the hype surrounding Google's new Chrome browser: By open sourcing Chrome, Google also open sourced its underlying Skia graphics engine code. Skia is the graphics rendering software that underlies Android, as well, leaving Malik with the impression that "Google Chrome is more about the mobiles and less about the desktops."

The Skia Graphics Engine was developed by Skia, Inc., which Google acquired in 2005. The vector graphics rendering software is both tiny in size and of surprisingly high quality. That's why it's in Android--it makes high-end visual effects possible on the tiny screens and small processors of today's smartphones.

Skia is just another way for Google to hedge its bets and ensure good performance for its bread-and-butter Web apps. As Malik says:

"By adding Skia engine to Chrome, Google can ensure good graphics performance on devices that don't have a graphics processing unit."

Looks like Google has its bases covered.

• Software
• Wireless / Mobile
• Chrome
• Google
• graphics
• open source
• rendering
• Skia