Lunascape is a

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...

developed by Lunascape Corporation in

Tokyo, Japan Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

. It is unusual in that it contains three rendering engines:

Gecko Geckos are small, mostly carnivorous lizards that have a wide distribution, found on every continent except Antarctica. Belonging to the infraorder Gekkota, geckos are found in warm climates throughout the world. They range from . Geckos ar ...

(used in

Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current and a ...

WebKit WebKit is a browser engine developed by Apple and primarily used in its Safari web browser, as well as on the iOS and iPadOS version of any web browser. WebKit is also used by the BlackBerry Browser, PlayStation consoles beginning from the PS ...

(used in

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...

Safari A safari (; ) is an overland journey to observe wild animals, especially in eastern or southern Africa. The so-called "Big Five" game animals of Africa – lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and Cape buffalo – particularly form an importa ...

), and

Trident A trident is a three- pronged spear. It is used for spear fishing and historically as a polearm. The trident is the weapon of Poseidon, or Neptune, the God of the Sea in classical mythology. The trident may occasionally be held by other marine ...

(used in

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft which was used in the Microsoft Wind ...

). This feature is common only to the

Avant AVANT, also known as AVANT street art guerrilla collective, was the artist group active in New York City from 1980 to 1984. By 1984 AVANT had produced thousands of acrylic on paper paintings and plastered them on walls, doors, bus-stops and gallerie ...

web browser. The user can switch between layout engines seamlessly. Lunascape is available for Windows and Android platforms, as well as for iPad and iPhone.

History

Lunascape was released in October 2001 while the founders were in college. As the browser became popular, Hidekazu Kondo established the Lunascape Corporation in August 2004 while pursuing a PhD. Hidekazu Kondo then became the

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

of Lunascape Corporation. Additionally, Lunascape was selected as an "Exploratory Software Project" commissioned by the Japanese government. The company branched out to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and as of June 2008 is based in

Sunnyvale, California Sunnyvale () is a city located in the Santa Clara Valley in northwest Santa Clara County in the U.S. state of California. Sunnyvale lies along the historic El Camino Real and Highway 101 and is bordered by portions of San Jose to the nort ...

. Lunascape introduced its browser internationally in December 2008. In late 2019, Lunascape was acquired by G.U.Labs, with Hidekazu Kondo remaining as a representative director.

References

External links

* {{web-software-stub Cross-platform web browsers MacOS web browsers iOS web browsers Windows web browsers Android web browsers 2001 software