Ladybird is a BSD-2[0] project from Andreas Kling, the same person behind SerenityOS.<p>awesomekling does monthly progress recaps, January's[1] shows LB as the fourth most standards compliant browser, just behind Safari. For example, GMail, Google Calendar, and Figma all fully load now, though usability is not at 100% yet.<p>The updates also have video versions[2], which include demos of Ladybird's rendering.<p>Last year, Ladybird became an official non-profit[3] and received a $1mm donation from Chris Wanstrath (a Github founder). There's an optional Donorbox link in the upper-righthand corner of ladybird.org[4].<p>0. <a href="https://github.com/LadybirdBrowser/ladybird/blob/master/LICENSE">https://github.com/LadybirdBrowser/ladybird/blob/master/LICE...</a><p>1. <a href="https://buttondown.com/ladybird/archive/this-month-in-ladybird-january-2025/" rel="nofollow">https://buttondown.com/ladybird/archive/this-month-in-ladybi...</a><p>2. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l8epGysffQ" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l8epGysffQ</a><p>3. <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40856791">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40856791</a><p>4. <a href="https://ladybird.org/" rel="nofollow">https://ladybird.org/</a>
Ladybird is lucky in that it has someone who knows how important marketing is, even for opensource projects. There are other opensource browser engine projects languishing because of lack of PR, patronage and / or volunteers. For e.g. NetSurf <a href="https://www.netsurf-browser.org/" rel="nofollow">https://www.netsurf-browser.org/</a> - website is outdated because of lack of volunteers but the project has active development - <a href="https://source.netsurf-browser.org/netsurf.git/" rel="nofollow">https://source.netsurf-browser.org/netsurf.git/</a> (already has partial support for CSS3, and Flex layout). It can develop into a great alternative if it had some more volunteers. Servo (<a href="https://servo.org/" rel="nofollow">https://servo.org/</a>) is another project but it has some decent PR because of its Rust codebase and the Rust PR team. There's the Goanna browser engine too ( <a href="http://www.palemoon.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.palemoon.org/</a> ) but, like Mozilla Gecko, the project isn't truly modular to offer a stand-alone browser engine as Goanna also strives to be an XUL renderer.
I will add to the hundreds of comments..
Whatever happened to the thin waist of the wasp, in interfaces..
So, we design a system, for showing and interacting with data over networks.
When we start with this, the outset is defining say a character set of 12-20-26 alphabet letters. Already with that, you could exchange information; at least the greeks could.
We also managed to design the gopher protocol, the early world wide web protocol, telnet, and (god forbid) X-Windows.
Early www already had some complications: Support for images, and form controls.
A lot of these things were possible to do, even on a commodore 64.<p>But still, take a look at the monstrosities we have built since,
presumably to serve the same purpose..
It now takes an effort apparently bigger than that required to land a controlled drone on the moon,
to deliver a working/full WEB BROWSER..?
An application supposedly intended to allow you to browse pages of mixed text and images, require approximately --two-- (nah, one?) full virtual OS environments to function, a turing-complete sub-language, and is more complicated to build than the OS's that host it..<p>I often wonder if all that was really necessary. It looks to me like we have made the 'interface' the most complex part of it all, leading to almost everybody just piggy-backing on the chrome investment (or what one chooses to call it.. It is an MS-like market control mechanism is what it is).
Big discussion 8 months ago (1077 comments, 757 comments) <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40856791">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40856791</a><p>1 year ago (625 points, 284 comments) <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39271449">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39271449</a><p>2 years ago (1341 points, 473 comments) <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32809126">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32809126</a>
I applaud the effort but seriously though I just wonder...<p>For reference, Chromimum (and therefore Chrome) is a monster of a project and has at this point probably over 10 million lines of code and has taken +20 years to develop with thousands of developers involved.<p>I can only conclude that:<p><pre><code> a) the modern WEB is so complicated that this is the minimum required level of complexity to run and render modern WEB safely
b) chromium is extravagantly over engineered and the actual amount of complexity and code needed to run and render modern WEB is actually much less
c) Ladybird is actually not targeting the same features but some "suitable" subset of features.
</code></pre>
If the answer is A) how does the small team working on Ladybird think they can actually pull this off? Are they all 10000x developers?<p>Or maybe the answer really is C thus making this a <i>toy/hobby</i> project?<p>One could of course then hope that the answer is b) but somehow I don't feel like it is.
The practical trade-off is that it is very, <i>very</i> difficult to secure a modern browser. Major vendors employ large teams of full-time security engineers and still ship vulnerable code with regularity. Companies such as Brave don't, but they get the benefit of getting many of the Chromium security features for free. Ladybird won't.<p>The thing that works in your favor is that Ladybird is very niche at this point, so unless some well-resourced adversary hates you specifically, it's unlikely that you'd be targeted.
Just installed Waterfox a couple hours ago. ( <a href="https://www.waterfox.net/" rel="nofollow">https://www.waterfox.net/</a> ) I'm getting fed up with all the latest Mozilla bullshit to the point I'm ready to switch browsers.<p>Ladybird is starting to look good too, from an end user daily driver perspective, technically it has been impressive for a long time.<p>One other thing I'm really hopeful is to embed Ladybird engine in a "first class" way. Think of if as an Electron alternative but in a sane way.
I’m very excited but how will this survive without some sort of monetization?<p>In the old thread I see the non-profit was seeded with $1M. That’s 5 good US developers for 1 year. What next?
This seems so much more relevant in light of the recent Firefox new terms and conditions. I think the writing was on the wall but I didn’t wanted to see it.<p>It might be time to explore librewolf or Vivaldi again
I just wish this was GPL (or any other copyleft licence). With everything that's happened over the past decade I would have thought it was obvious. If you contribute to permissively licenced software you are working for corporations for free. If you contribute to a copyleft project you are working for the community. I just don't want to see history repeat itself. If this ever gets good enough it will be eaten by big tech just like everything else. Copyleft is what we need. Stallman was right.
Good timing with these other HN entries on the front page:<p>Mozilla deletes promise to never sell Firefox data<p>Microsoft begins turning off uBlock Origin and other extensions in Edge<p>Looks like it will be an alternate browser kinda day in the top stories...
I keep longing for a day when FOSS crowd realize that their goals are political, not technical, in nature, and thus require broad political action, numbers, solidarity and force more than yet another project promising what previous dozen failed to achieve.<p>But I do not have much hope.
Can you really be an independent web browser when Google basically controls the W3C?<p>I'll be using this as soon as it comes out anyway. It's not like there are a lot of alternatives in this space, so I very much welcome fresh takes.
Maybe I’m overlooking it, but is there any mention of how browser extensions will (or won’t) work? I imagine I’m not alone in needing a password manager and ad blocking extensions for any browser I use. Either way, looking forward to seeing how this develops!
Curious - how well does this support the 'long-tail' features? What I mean by that are stuff that relatively few websites use, but requires a large amount of code to support? Things like WebCodecs, WebRTC, WebUSB etc.<p>Does this have a CanIUse equivalent?
Just compiled, seems to be able to render websites ok, youtube loads, but pretty slow. Might be out of the scope of the project (atleast at current funding levels) however it would be cool if it had it's own search engine.
I'll keep my eyes on this.<p>Considering now most browsers are either Chromium (including Opera and Edge) or Firefox-based, a new alternative built from scratch will be interesting.
Sad, still dependent on the same horrible c++ (or similar). It would have been more appropriate with using a lean C99+ dialect which you can compile with small C compiler alternatives (that is impossible to do with c++ and similar due to abysmal syntax complexity).<p>There is no independence at being dependent on the same ultra complex SDK.
I hope as many people as possible will consider donating. The donation link is in the linked page but I'm going to copy it here for convenience <a href="https://donorbox.org/ladybird" rel="nofollow">https://donorbox.org/ladybird</a>
I gather there are no binaries because it's for development use ? Are we all really supposed to compile it? Really should have alpha binaries. The only download link I can find is sourceforge and it looks sketchy.
I don't understanding how post ranking works. At the time of writing the ChatGPT announcement has the following stats:<p>- 833 points | 10 hours ago | 652 comments | 2nd<p>And this post the following:<p>- 432 points 5 hours ago | 155 comments | 6th<p>Also interesting is that the EA CoC post has the following stats:<p>- 828 points | 12 hours ago | 222 comments | 13th<p>Subjective opinion: the comments here are mostly positive, the comments over there is a bit of a mix. I _feel_ that it's not quite justified as with many recent posts.<p>The rule I have read a lot recently says if a post gets a lot of comments relative to opints then it can get flagged/deranked. Is it the number of parent comments/replies as well, does it depend on the author and commenter's points, the rate at which points and comments occur, etc.?
This posting has fortuitous timing, as of <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43200065">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43200065</a>
Is there any possibility of getting pre-built binaries? If these can be released as nightlies or at least from time to time it will really help with the adoption.
Related. Others?<p><i>Ladybird browser to start using Swift language this fall</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41208836">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41208836</a> - Aug 2024 (192 comments)<p><i>This Month in Ladybird: July 2024</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41123449">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41123449</a> - July 2024 (14 comments)<p><i>Tell HN: When Firefox jumps the shark, the call to action is Ladybird</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40975596">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40975596</a> - July 2024 (47 comments)<p><i>I'm funding Ladybird because I can't fund Firefox</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40900648">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40900648</a> - July 2024 (234 comments)<p><i>Ladybird web browser funded by GitHub co-founder, promises 'no code' from rivals</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40870366">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40870366</a> - July 2024 (20 comments)<p><i>Ladybird Web Browser becomes a non-profit with $1M from GitHub Founder</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40856791">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40856791</a> - July 2024 (744 comments)<p><i>Welcome to Ladybird</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40845951">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40845951</a> - July 2024 (95 comments)<p><i>Ladybird browser update (June 2024) [video]</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40838973">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40838973</a> - June 2024 (1 comment)<p><i>Ladybird browser spreads its wings</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40746804">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40746804</a> - June 2024 (304 comments)<p><i>I'm forking Ladybird and stepping down as SerenityOS BDFL</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40560768">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40560768</a> - June 2024 (262 comments)<p><i>Ladybird browser update (March 2024) [video]</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39889576">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39889576</a> - April 2024 (2 comments)<p><i>Understanding Complexity Like an Engineer – The Case of the Ladybird Browser</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39342887">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39342887</a> - Feb 2024 (55 comments)<p><i>The Ladybird browser project</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39271449">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39271449</a> - Feb 2024 (284 comments)<p><i>Ladybird browser update (July 2023) [video]</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36939402">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36939402</a> - July 2023 (1 comment)<p><i>Chat with Andreas Kling about Ladybird and developing a browser engine</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36620450">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36620450</a> - July 2023 (65 comments)<p><i>Shopify Sponsored Ladybird Browser</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36502583">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36502583</a> - June 2023 (1 comment)<p><i>I have received a $100k sponsorship for Ladybird browser</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36377805">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36377805</a> - June 2023 (166 comments)<p><i>Early stages of Google Docs support in the Ladybird browser</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33511831">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33511831</a> - Nov 2022 (84 comments)<p><i>Github.com on Ladybird, new browser with JavaScript/CSS/SVG engines from scratch</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33273785">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33273785</a> - Oct 2022 (1 comment)<p><i>Ladybird: A new cross-platform browser project</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32809126">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32809126</a> - Sept 2022 (473 comments)<p><i>Ladybird: A truly new Web Browser comes to Linux</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32014061">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32014061</a> - July 2022 (8 comments)<p><i>Ladybird Web Browser</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31987506">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31987506</a> - July 2022 (2 comments)<p><i>Ladybird Web Browser – SerenityOS LibWeb Engine on Linux</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31976579">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31976579</a> - July 2022 (2 comments)
If the goal is to create a truly privacy respecting, safe browser that's focused on the web, why not write it in Rust?<p>Genuinely asking as I've tracked numerous CVEs in Chrome and Firefox. Also I don't have much experience with Rust, so I don't represent the RIIR community!
Well this project is now more important than ever since Firefox basically sold its soul [1].<p>Never say "Never"... Next is Thunderbird.<p>Let's go Andreas!<p>[1] <a href="https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b61939b7f4310eb80c5470e#diff-a24e74e4595fa85440a2f4e7e5dcfe68aba6e1e593aef05a2d35581a91423847">https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b...</a>
I wish I could get excited, but several design choices and aspects of the status quo we are facing have me worried:<p>It's already a basically bleeding edge C++. Why is it so much to ask for developers to use a more mature and established iteration so I don't need a brand new compiler?<p>What role is it gonna actually fill? It's not efficient enough to penetrate into the niche of Dillo or Netsurf. It's nowhere near as up to date on standards as Webkit, Goanna, Blink and Servo engines.<p>The swift move means LLVM-only. Yay. \s<p>What is supposed to sell this to normal users? Brave may be controversial, but its messaging is on point. Pale moon purging Mr. Tobin basically solved 99% of their brand issues. Vivaldi is what Opera used to be.<p>Google's dominance through Chromium/Chrome appears commanding. Between Pale Moon getting censored from Cloudflare sites, to Firefox becoming a controlled opposition, to Microsoft JOINING THEM. I'm sorry, but I have trouble being optimistic.<p>That said, I begrudgingly am ok with it. I wish they did things different.