Ridiculous Rumor Claims Apple Wants to Switch to Chromium for Safari Browser

After Microsoft, Apple might be the next big name planning to migrate to the Chromium engine for its very own browser.

This is what one ridiculous rumor making the rounds today claims, indicating that Apple is ready to abandon WebKit to adopt the same engine that powers Google Chrome and, starting this year, Microsoft’s Edge browser.

The information was originally published by Russian blog iPhones.ru and several other English-based websites reposted it, along with what they claimed to be evidence of Safari being rebuilt on Chrome. A screenshot that was included in a bug report showed what the sources described as an early version of Safari running on Chromium, with some claiming that the project is actually in an advanced phase and Apple is truly committed to making the whole thing happen as soon as possible.

And while at some level it might actually make sense for Apple to switch to Chromium and follow in Microsoft’s footsteps, the report is completely false and there’s basically no chance to see the Cupertino-based tech giant invest in the engine that Google insists so hard for.

In fact, WebKit is here to stay in Safari, there’s no doubt about it, and moving forward Apple has absolutely no reason to invest in Chromium.

Fake, fake, fake

The evidence that is supposed to confirm Safari is moving to Chromium actually links to an unrelated security issue from 2015. The screenshot claiming to show Safari based on Chromium is completely fake as well, as it shows Intelligent Tracking Prevention in Chromium – ITP is a proprietary Safari feature and Chromium doesn’t include such code.

Apple developer Ricky Mondello also confirmed on Twitter this was a false report.

“The screenshot of the alleged Chromium bug includes a supposed Apple email address that doesn’t belong to anyone on the Safari or WebKit teams, and Chromium doesn’t have any code to support ITP that could be enabled. This is a complete fabrication,” Mondello explained.

Rick Byers, software engineer at Google on Chromium, found more proof this is fake news.

“I’ve confirmed the referenced bug is an unrelated security issue from 2015. Biggest giveaway that this fake is that the bug number is too low to have been created in the past several years. We’re now over 1,000,000,000!” he tweeted.

Of course, Apple hasn’t commented on the original report, but this time, it’s pretty clear it doesn’t even have to.