To create Chrome, Google chose to use Apple's WebKit engine.[2] However, Google needed to make substantial changes to the WebKit code to support its novel multi-process browser architecture.[1][3] Over the course of several years, the divergence from Apple's version increased, so Google decided to officially fork its version as Blink in 2013.[1][3]
Blink's name was influenced by two factors: the implication of speed, and a reference to the non-standard blink HTML element,[4][5] which was never actually supported by Blink.[6]
By commit count, Google was the largest contributor to the WebKit project from late 2009 until the fork in 2013.[7] One of the first changes of the new fork was to deprecate CSS vendor prefixes, including WebKit's; experimental Blink functionality is instead enabled on an opt-in basis.[8]
