Gecko-based[edit]
The first version of Epiphany was released on December 24, 2002.[1]
Epiphany initially used the Gecko layout engine from the Mozilla project to display web pages. It provided a GNOME integrated graphical user interface for Gecko, instead of the Mozilla XUL interface.[11]
The development process of Epiphany was mainly focused on numerous small usability improvements. The most notable of them was the new text entry widget, which first appeared in 1.8 stable version series. The new widget supported icons inside the text area reduced the amount of screen space needed to present the information and improved GNOME integration.[12]
The second major milestone (after version 1.0) in Epiphany development was the 2.14 release. This was the first Epiphany release which followed GNOME's version numbering. It also featured network awareness using NetworkManager, smart bookmarks-related improvements and the possibility of being compiled against XULRunner. The latter was critical, as previously Epiphany could only use Firefox or Mozilla/SeaMonkey as a layout engine provider, so it could only be installed alongside one of those browsers. The XULRunner support made it possible to install Epiphany as the sole web browser on the system.[13][14]