Google Releases Chrome Source Code for iOS

Google has released the source code of the iOS version of the Chrome browser. The company has done this by merging with the Chromium project, which was already open source. Due to restrictions in iOS, this version was initially developed separately from Chromium.

The iOS version of Chrome to date is based on the WebKit engine, which is a requirement to run apps on iOS. The Chromium project, which is the basis for the Android and desktop versions of Chrome, has stopped using WebKit since 2013, but a fork of it called Blink.

Due to the requirement to run on WebKit, the iOS version of Chrome was developed separately from Chromium. In the meantime, work was being done on a way to let Chromium support both WebKit and Blink.

Google says that now that the iOS version of Chrome is also part of the open source project, it should speed up development and allow more people to test for bugs and vulnerabilities. Because the source code of the app can now be found and used freely, other developers can also use it.