Gecko - MDN Web Docs Glossary: Definitions of Web-related terms 编辑

Gecko is the layout engine developed by the Mozilla Project and used in many apps/devices, including Firefox and Firefox OS.

Web browsers need software called a layout engine to interpret HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and embedded content (like images) and draw everything to your screen. Besides this, Gecko makes sure associated APIs work well on every operating system Gecko supports, and that appropriate APIs are exposed only to relevant support targets. This means that Gecko includes, among other things, a networking stack, graphics stack, layout engine, a JavaScript virtual machine, and porting layers.

Since all Firefox OS apps are Web apps, Firefox OS uses Gecko as its app runtime as well.

Learn more

General knowledge

• Gecko on Wikipedia

Technical Reference

• The Gecko documentation on MDN