Trident (also known as MSHTML) is the name of the layout engine for Internet Explorer. The version that comes with IE 8 is 4.
The User Agent string includes the string 'Trident/4.0' in order to allow differentiation between the Internet Explorer 7 User Agent String and the Internet Explorer 8 User Agent string when running in Internet Explorer 7 Compatibility View.
All applications which display content based on a markup language use a layout engine. Gecko is the layout engine for Firefox, Camino, Netscape while WebKit is used in Safari & Chrome
For more info on Trident & layout engines, check these links:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd371735(VS.85).aspx http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trident_(layout_engine) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_layout_engines
M.V.'Anil' Radhakrishna
Web Development Tips, Tricks & Trivia
Why Trident/4.0?
