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The Ladybird browser project

625 points by defied 3y ago

adontz 3y ago
[flagged]
- detolly 3y ago
  Then you have not understood the motivation of the project.
  - adontz 3y ago
    There is no motivation on linked page.
    - jotaen 3y ago
      Why would there have to be one there?
    - recursive 3y ago
      That might be part of the reason you don't understand the motivation.
    - austinjp 3y ago
      The project initiator has written about this several times, for example: https://awesomekling.substack.com/p/i-quit-my-job-to-focus-on-serenityos-full-time https://awesomekling.substack.com/p/i-quit-my-job-to-focus-o...
    - prmoustache 3y ago
      They don't have to justify themselves too.
- devmor 3y ago
  It is a SerenityOS project. You can find the answer to that question in their primary project's FAQ[1]. 1. https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/blob/master/Documentation/FAQ.md#why-dont-you-use-library-instead-of-implementing-feature-yourself https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/blob/master/Documenta...
- grayhatter 3y ago
  The whole point of the project is to write a completely independent browser from scratch. The effort seems focused to me, write a complete engine. Not write a small part of a browser. But why would reusing something be better? Reusing someone else code wouldn't be competing with them, it'd be depending on them.
  - adontz 3y ago
    Because you can have something usable instead of dreams. If you want to have completely independent code eventually, then replace modules one by one, while having a working product. Like Mozilla did with Servo. They had C++ codebase they wanted to replace with Rust codebase. They did not create entire browser from scratch, but replaced C++ with Rust gradually. While one figures what HTML and CSS layout should look like, no need to have no JavaScript engine and basically unusable browser. Use existing JavaScript engine, replace it later when/if project has enough resources.
    - k8svet 3y ago
      Sometimes it's nice to dream. A nice bonus if other people respect your autonomy to use one's time on Earth as one sees fit.
    - SpecialistK 3y ago
      Why is it "dreams" if they're making quantifiable progress toward their goal? The browser is steadily becoming more usable and performant. Proving that such a project is possible is one of Andreas (the project lead's) goals as stated in interviews. I'd rather encourage promising "dreams" than have a web with only 2.5 usable browser engines.
    - stephen_g 3y ago
      They already do have something that is incredibly usable for how long the project has been going (this context is part of why you're being downvoted, as well as just the general principle). They have probably got something that is looking more viable as a new browser than what the Servo project is doing now it's been detached from Mozilla. It really is quite incredible what they've done, and the velocity it's improving is just mind-blowing.
- Powdering7082 3y ago
  Taken from the FAQ of serenityOS: > Will SerenityOS support $THING? > Maybe. Maybe not. There is no plan.
- andyjansson 3y ago
  It's very tiring to see these kinds of comments, even as a bystander. I can't imagine how it is for the developers. People have spent a fair amount of time building this thing and deserve better than to have their efforts dismissed by the likes of you. Please, do better. The current browser engine landscape is a monoculture, so this is a very welcome addition IMO.
- kramerger 3y ago
  Don't criticise people hacking for the fun of it, on Hacker News of all places.
- spintin 3y ago
  https://imgur.com/dP2c3j6 https://imgur.com/dP2c3j6 Re-inventing the wheel is not the problem. It's copying the wheel that is the problem.
  - sham1 3y ago
    As years have gone by, I've realised that the whole "don't reinvent the wheel" is fundamentally an anti-innovation and anti-intellectualist idiom. Like yeah, the idea is that the wheel already works pretty well, so you wouldn't need a better one, but really now? First of all, how would we know that we've explored all the possible ways wheels can be? How do we know whether what we have is actually the most optimal way that wheels can exist? You won't know unless you try! You might fail, but I'd say that the learning opportunity is worth it. Also, when it comes to people who criticise projects like Ladybird here for "reinventing the wheel", I feel that comparing software to wheels is a bit disingenuous. Because while manufacturing wheels does take skillful craftsmanship and such, most software is probably just a tad more complex than just the wheel. Call it a hunch. So, the ethos that one shouldn't "waste effort in writing this stuff from scratch, but that off-the-shelf components should be used" is the kind of ethos that can be applied to a lot of things. And usually when that kind of ethos is adopted, it tends to lead to stuff like stagnation and lack of innovation. And we know this, because we have examples of entire countries doing this, which has usually lead to either reforming away from this sort of model, or the country just not existing anymore. We should not let the web for example stagnate due to browser monoculture. We should have alternative implementations of stuff, actually.
    - autoexec 3y ago
      > So, the ethos that one shouldn't "waste effort in writing this stuff from scratch, but that off-the-shelf components should be used" is the kind of ethos that can be applied to a lot of things. And usually when that kind of ethos is adopted, it tends to lead to stuff like stagnation and lack of innovation. I think the advice still has its place, but only in certain contexts. You can get a lot of work done very quickly by making good use of work that others have already done for you. It's why modules and libraries are so popular. When you've got the time to try and and improve on existing code, or when you'd have to compromise too much on what you want by using something preexisting, or when you're just learning then reinventing the wheel is invaluable. There's a time and place for both.
- rice7th 3y ago
  I strongly disagree. The point of the whole SerenityOS project is to do everything from scratch, both for fun and to bring a bit of innovation in a classic environment. I see this "rebuild everything from scratch" effort as beneficial in many areas of browser development, since there are technologies shared by most browsers that create a sort of sub-monopoly, independent from the actual browser marketshare. Take for example the JavaScript engine. Spidermonkey and V8 are much more prominent in browser engines, even the lesser known ones, compared to JavaScriptCore. Spidermonkey for example is used in Firefox, Servo and Flow (Eikoh's browser engine), while V8 is used in every chrome derivate and most javascript implementations outside of a browser. JavaScriptCore is literally used in only one browser engine, and while WebKit is rather popular, it doesn't change the fact that the browser-grade javascript engine market is dominated by only two engines. Rebilding everything from scratch is such a fresh breath of air from all of those technological monopolies. I only wish the best for the SerenityOS team and contributors.
- Kostic 3y ago
  When the alternative was using drugs, writing everything from scratch is way better.
- gkbrk 3y ago
  > So, no motivation why not port Servo/WebKit, but write from scratch. One could at least use HTML/CSS layout manager or JavaScript engine. I mean, I am very pro competition and open web, but writing everything from scratch seems like waste of effort. I'd expect efforts to be focused. Why write Servo from scratch instead of porting Blink/Webkit? One could at least use the HTML/CSS layout manager. Seems like a waste of effort.
- olliej 3y ago
  Why have any other browser engines at all? Why not just require everyone use chrome? If you think you are "pro open web" but don't see the value in new browser engines (rather than just Safari, Firefox, and endless Chrome skins), then you're not actually "pro open web" you're pro status quo. But also, you're completely missing that the whole point of serenityos was to do everything from scratch, and simply porting an existing engine like webkit (which Andreas is extremely familiar with) isn't an interesting task. Porting something like servo (that doesn't even benefit from significant web compatibility) is even more pointless. At least building a new engine from scratch has the potential to introduce a new non-gecko, non-webkit derived browser, even if it takes a while (though despite the size of modern web specs, it's in many respects easier[1] than doing it 10 or 20 years ago). [1] It's still not easy, but prior to the immense work from the major browser developers in the late 2000s and 2010s to actually make the specifications accurate and complete, you could not do what serenity/ladybird has been doing and just implement the spec. Firstly often times the spec simply did not exist, but then the W3C specs were largely incomplete, often times ambiguous, and frequently just did not match reality. Even TC39/ECMAScript, which was much more constrained, had absurd amounts of ambiguity and incompleteness. Nowadays, you can go to most specs and be fairly assured that if you implement the spec as written the behaviour will actually be correct (maybe inefficient or slow), and the difficulty is the much more tractable problem of there being more features to implement.
- lukan 3y ago
  Besides the actually answer - because they want to - I don't think it would even work, because of the dependencies. (SerenetyOS is also written from scratch.) But since Kling used to work on the webkit team - you can bet that they don't work in a vacuum and reinvent the wheel, but just reimplement in a way they think is best. Also, they are not doing it for you, but for them.
- sesm 3y ago
  I thing I understand what you mean: in theory rewriting a browser in ‘ship of Theseus’ way focusing on one thing at a time should be more manageable. But in practice the integration points between different parts are not standardized and you’ll have to deal with a huge C++ code base that takes hours to compile.
- alpaca128 3y ago
  This mindset is why we now have countless new browsers that all run on Chromium. What's the motivation for those? Also calling the project a "waste of effort" seems a bit out of touch. Effort doesn't have to pay off in any way to be worthwhile. If the act of building is part of the motivation then taking shortcuts at building it defeats the purpose.
  - charcircuit 3y ago
    >What's the motivation for those? To compete on the actual end user experience. Most users do not care at all about the code of the project. They don't care if your layout engine code is completely unique, they care that it does layout for the sites they use correctly. Having a good browser engine to work off of lets people start delivering value to users immediately instead of having to spend a ton of time recreating the parts of a browser that users do not care about.
- mnau 3y ago
  A big part of open source motivation is a creative expression. Then there are raccoon digging through dumpsters for free code. I find this mindset (why aren’t you working on something that benefits me, Bender) rather toxic.
wtracy 3y ago
Shopify is a sponsor! I wonder how that came about.
- asicsp 3y ago
  See https://awesomekling.substack.com/p/welcoming-shopify-as-a-ladybird-sponsor https://awesomekling.substack.com/p/welcoming-shopify-as-a-l... Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36502433 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36502433 (246 points | 7 months ago | 66 comments)
  - rob74 3y ago
    We need more companies like Shopify, that actually share some of their revenue with open source projects they benefit from (or even, as in this case, projects that they don't directly benefit from)! But I'm afraid the current financial situation will lead to less, not more, of that...
    - doublerabbit 3y ago
      Step 1: Register Company Step 2: ???? Step 3: Profit.
- gkbrk 3y ago
  How many days can Google resist the urge to charge 30% for payments on Chrome after Chrome gets all the marketshare and the last drops of Mozilla are milked by the CEO? It's both good PR and a hedge against an (unlikely) bad scenario in the future.
szehe 3y ago
i love these progress screenshots: https://serenityos.org/happy/1st/ https://serenityos.org/happy/1st/
- harha_ 3y ago
  Looking at the timestamps, the pace of progress just him working alone in the beginning is nothing short of amazing. He seems to be a true jack of all trades when it comes to programming.
kramerger 3y ago
I would love to use this as my daily driver, but a lot of popular sites don't even work with Firefox. I hate what a small group of lazy front-end people have done to our world...
- la_oveja 3y ago
  small group of lazy front-end people? i think you actually mean a small group of chrome developers single-handedly deciding how web should work, while having the vast majority of the market share to push those decisions.
  - kramerger 3y ago
    No, I blame it on front-end people. I've seen them putting all effort on eye-candy while ignoring that the page only works on "retina" display and then only on Safari.
    - mattlondon 3y ago
      Blame the UX and Product Managers, not the engineers.
  - the_third_wave 3y ago
    Well, no, that is not how it works. Blink undoubtedly has an oversize influence on 'web standards' (which are more and more defined as 'whatever Blink does') but that would not be that much of a problem if web developers built and tested their sites against more than just Chrome and Edge (Blink) and Safari (Webkit). History is repeating itself since the same thing happened when Microsoft's Internet Explo[rd]er was the dominant browser and developers only tested against that, putting a 'Best viewed using Internet Explorer' badge on their sites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars
    - la_oveja 3y ago
      i am aware, i work as webdev and my current project is only Blink compatible. my employer does not want me to waste any time ensuring i support other browsers that are not going to be used. web should be able to be viewed in any browser and get the same document.
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stephen_g 3y ago
It's really quite incredible that one guy basically started a project to create a whole operating system from scratch for fun and to give himself something interesting to do, and then accidentally created one of the most viable new browser engines in a decade or two... I've been watching the development videos for a year or two, and the speed that this has progressed in such a short time is unbelievable. Now they have multiple volunteers and enough sponsorship to pay more than one developer, it's pretty exciting what could happen here!
- pjerem 3y ago
  Wasn’t this guy working in the WebKit team at Apple for years before ? It’s still really impressive but he is not the new kid in town when we talk about developing browsers.
  - jraph 3y ago
    Yes, he was.
    - jart 3y ago
      He was probably their top guy too. Sort of like how Lucifer was the top angel in Heaven before his drug problems brought about his fall from Apple and since then he's been a true light bringer working tirelessly to give us awesome software as he recovers from addition.
      - Cthulhu_ 3y ago
        I mean Lucifer writing software tracks
      - ireadmevs 3y ago
        > as he recovers from addition. Divide and conquer for the win!
  - sowbug 3y ago
    "It takes 20 years to make an overnight success."
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jraph 3y ago
I have hopes it will become a daily usable browser. A new Web engine is great. I hope Servo succeeds at this too. I would consider contributing but development is coordinated on Discord and I avoid proprietary software… [1]. It's a shame. Can't blame them though, they are doing it for fun. [1] https://drewdevault.com/2022/03/29/free-software-free-infrastructure.html https://drewdevault.com/2022/03/29/free-software-free-infras...
- martypitt 3y ago
  Wow - that article was a tough read. I like a LOT of what Drew has to say, but this seems over the top. He claims that authors promoting their open source software on channels like Twitter, Hacker news, LinkedIn or even Github is "selfish and unethical outright": > Many projects choose to prioritize access to the established audience that large commercial platforms provide, in order to maximize their odds of becoming popular, and enjoying some of the knock-on effects of that popularity, such as more contributions. > To me, this is selfish and unethical outright, though you may have different ethical standards. I find Zealotry like this tough, and promotes a definition of FOSS that feels hostile against those who want to simply build something cool, and share it with the world - (or even more controversially, make money from FOSS). Given such a strong view, it's really surprising that he then posts stuff like "Can I be on your podcast"[1] to try to promote Hare - his programming language. He didn't ask for podcasts that aren't distributed on platforms like Spotify or Apple Podcasts. In fact - he's right there with several appearances promoting Hare. That feels like hypocrisy. [1]: https://drewdevault.com/2023/11/09/Can-I-be-on-your-podcast.html https://drewdevault.com/2023/11/09/Can-I-be-on-your-podcast....
  - jstanley 3y ago
    > you may have different ethical standards Isn't this the exact opposite of zealotry? Zealotry is imposing your ethical standards on others.
    - lostlogin 3y ago
      > Zealotry is imposing your ethical standards on others It’s even more specific than that though isn’t it? A fanatical belief in a single cause to the exclusion of all else.
jug 3y ago
It's been so inspiring to see him and his crew of hackers build a new, independent browser from scratch. I must admit I didn't think it was possible on this small scale in terms of man hours and funding. However, the thought has also crossed my mind if we're finally seeing fruits of browsers being better standardized on "95%"+ of the popular features -- and if writing a browser today is in fact easier than both writing AND maintaining a browser a decade back. While the web is of course still evolving, it feels more "settled in" than 10-15 years ago. There's also the factor that past developers didn't have the more complete roadmap set when they initially planned browser design, but now we have huge amounts of web standards already there AND also know how popular they got over time i.e. what to prioritize to support a modern web. One might superficially think there's simply more of everything, but I also think ideas that can be discarded. Just imagine that Internet Explorer had XSLT support, and FTP was common once upon a time! It would be interesting to hear more about their own thoughts on these topics! Edit: My bad; XSLT is still commonly supported and by all major browsers but a rarely used feature and stuck in limbo in XSLT 1.0. So it's probably among those things that can be safely omitted for quite some time.
- nox101 3y ago
  It also helps that there are tests https://web-platform-tests.org/ https://web-platform-tests.org/
  - LeFantome 3y ago
    Indeed. These may be even more important... https://github.com/tc39/test262 https://github.com/tc39/test262
- rjh29 3y ago
  > if writing a browser today is in fact easier than both writing AND maintaining a browser a decade back. Probably not. Yeah we have web standards and some idea of how to architect it, but the total set of APIs and HTML/CSS features a browser supports is probably changing faster than the Ladybird team can actively implement it. The API surface is just impossibly large compared to 10 or 15 years ago. Look at all of these: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API And that doesn't include the updates to Javascript, MathML, SVG, HTTP-based security features, encryption or media support.
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codemusings 3y ago
Love Andreas Kling and the Serentiy OS project. Hate that he's only on Twitter. Mastodon seems like the perfect fit for his audience.
- marginalia_nu 3y ago
  I dunno, he's pretty committed to his positive utlook on things. Mastodon seems to be the far angrier place in comparison to Twitter. Twitter used to be a lot more like that, but it seems like most of the angriest people on twitter moved ot mastodon when Elon took over. It's (IMO) very pronounced and hard to avoid on Mastodon.
  - stephen_g 3y ago
    Doesn’t seem that way to me much anymore - definitely as time has gone on it feels like a lot of the behaviour police (who were everywhere scolding people for not using content warnings and stuff) got blocked by enough people that they’ve mostly given up which is nice. Sure, in the Explore tab there still a lot of “people being angry at politics” but if you are careful with who you follow you shouldn’t see that in your feed…
  - _chu1 3y ago
    Not only that but the frontpage of Mastodon is more angry political stuff than anything technology related.
    - F3nd0 3y ago
      Frontpage of Mastodon? Just what exactly are you referring to? :o
- niutech 3y ago
  He has a mirror on Mastodon: @awesomekling@bird.makeup
gsich 3y ago
From the FAQ: " Q: Why bother? You can’t make a new browser engine without billions of dollars and hundreds of staff. Sure you can. Don’t listen to armchair defeatists who never worked on a browser. " Nice take.
- winterplace 3y ago
  Source: https://awesomekling.github.io/Ladybird-a-new-cross-platform-browser-project/ https://awesomekling.github.io/Ladybird-a-new-cross-platform...
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webprofusion 3y ago
Great to see some competition still alive in browser engine development. See also Servo (previously part of Mozilla) https://servo.org/ https://servo.org/ - that and Ladybird are still very underdeveloped compared to every day browsers. It's a huge shame that there are no nightly builds of ladybird to try out but I assume that's because they just don't want the bug reports (if everything doesn't work it's pointless getting random bugs filed).
- marginalia_nu 3y ago
  Last I tried Ladybird didn't take very long to build. This was admittedly sometime last year and it's likely slower now, but still. It's very far from a 9 hour chromium build.
- vmfunction 3y ago
  Don't forget WebKit. It leads to project such as https://surf.suckless.org https://surf.suckless.org
  - jraph 3y ago
    WebKit is established and controlled by the richest company of the world. Most websites make sure they work on it because hardware (exclusively) running it are widespread. Why should someone interested in new players care? Anyone knowing about Servo and Ladybird has most likely heard of it anyway. (agreed, it is a credible alternative to Blink's dominance)
    - DiggyJohnson 3y ago
      Because it can be used to do cool things, has an interesting development history, and most importantly: > it is a credible alternative to Blink's dominance
    - vmfunction 3y ago
      For me it is like: WebKit -> Chrome Bun -> Node/Deno It is good to have competitions in Ecmascript landscape, even though it is currently a duopoly, but with introduction of AWS LLRT, and QuickJS, maybe small player can even have a say so in this. It would be good the big corp comply to the Ecmascript and Web API standard.
AndyKelley 3y ago
Is it just for fun or not? I think it's important to face this question, because users should not trust a just-for-fun browser with their security, and we should not look to Ladybird as a meaningful contribution towards competition in the browser space if it's just for fun. If it's just for fun, we need to temper our expectations accordingly.
- jraph 3y ago
  I think it's a "just for fun" project that is getting a bit serious, and sponsored. And that having expectations as a end user is still a bit premature. You can expect the project to move somewhat fast.
- 10000truths 3y ago
  "Just for fun" is precisely how Linux started: Hello everybody out there using minix - I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones.
  - charcircuit 3y ago
    Similarly people shouldn't have used Linux for serious use cases back then. We are talking about the present.
- whyever 3y ago
  They don't provide binaries, so I don't think there is a risk of having users. Is it really important to answer this question? A lot of widely used software started as "just for fun", e.g. Linux or OpenSSL. I think tempering our expectations should be the default for Open Source software.
KingOfCoders 3y ago
While Mozilla is re-selling privacy service (see other news on HN), others are building a better browser. Without the need of $6B.
- kome 3y ago
  Mozilla has definitely a management problem. But the product is good. very good even.
  - ykonstant 3y ago
    Unfortunately, Mozilla is not interested in providing an easily embedable web engine. It makes sense: it goes against their interests as a company whose main product is a fully featured web browser. Google, on the other hand, provides a web engine with a nice license and reasonable ergonomics that can be used for all sorts of projects. This allows them to execute an EEE strategy: Embed (into all kinds of projects) Enforce (moving-target standards of your own making) Exhaust (any potential competitor/resources that needs to chase after them) This is why I wish we can get an alternative, OSS, easy-to-embed engine soon.
sylware 3y ago
It seems there is zero c++ in their web engine (cannot clone their repo right now and github is spitting raw json while browsing their source code with noscript/basic (x)html browsers). Is this true?
- nhinck3 3y ago
  No, it's basically all c++
  - sylware 3y ago
    Sad, I wish for a modern web engine in plain and simple C99 (let's allow us some benign bits from c11). I guess I'll stick to links and/or lynx and/or netsurf.
    - materielle 3y ago
      The code might be closer to your wish than you think. So, they stay on the bleeding edge if C++ compilers. So in terms of core language features, they are C++20-something. But, everything is written from scratch, including the standard library. As such, the code is a lot cleaner than a typical C++ codebase.
      - sylware 3y ago
        The problem is c++ itself, with its grotesquely and absurdely massive and complex compilers, mechanically due to its syntax complexity. And yes, rust is hardly less worth.
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dev213 3y ago
This is a really cool project, but: "Where are the ISO images? There are no ISO images. This project does not cater to non-technical users." This comes off as really abrasive. Wanting an ISO image to quickly test this out is not an indicator of someones technical ability. I'm sorry I don't want to boot up a linux vm, install a lot of development packages and then build my own boot image just to try this out.
- zaebal 3y ago
  SerenityOS nightly builds: https://serenity-builds.halves.dev/ https://serenity-builds.halves.dev/
- cal85 3y ago
  > This comes off as really abrasive. I think that’s often the point with OSS projects, especially those that have an ambitious long term vision. If you “don’t want to boot up a Linux VM” etc, they don’t want you. It’s a filter. It means their concern at the moment is the coherence of their community, not increasing their numbers. It’s the same reason projects like this often have absurdly ugly logos, and landing pages that don’t work on mobile. Fast growth is often seen as destructive when you already have a nice little community vibe. It’s essential to maintain that vibe carefully if you have a long term goal of building something important.
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  Counterpoint, it would be another release / packaging they would have to build and maintain, unless they find a volunteer that can do it without detracting from their core business, it's not worth the investment (to them). Anyone can set up a pipeline to distribute ISO images though, it's open source.
  - dev213 3y ago
    Sure, if that's the reason, I completely understand. However that's not the reason they stated in their FAQ. It really comes off as gatekeeping
    - 3y ago
cpach 3y ago
Very cool project! I also find it curious that they are sponsored by a real estate site (:
- Hanschri 3y ago
  Ohne Makler sponsored the project with 10k USD to make their website render correctly in Ladybird, it was covered in one of the browser update videos last year[0]. [0]: https://youtu.be/xdVOdrWuzLQ?t=147 https://youtu.be/xdVOdrWuzLQ?t=147
  - cpach 3y ago
    Ha! Didn’t know. Very cool IMHO.
- hendi_ 3y ago
  I just needed a reason to throw money at him ;)
  - cpach 3y ago
    Haha, kudos!
fifteen1506 3y ago
I always mix SerenityOS and TempleOS :(
BMSR 3y ago
Is there collaboration between Serenity/LB and Igalia? Seems like they're involved in many browser technologies, and other technologies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igalia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igalia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lkIX5ryZZ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lkIX5ryZZ4
- niutech 3y ago
  They were chatting together: https://www.igalia.com/chats/ladybird https://www.igalia.com/chats/ladybird
hosteur 3y ago
I am fascinated by this project. What are the chances that this could become a real world usable replacement for chrome or Firefox witching the next couple of years?
- TheCoreh 3y ago
  My gut feeling with how far they've come in so little time says it's definitely in the double digit percentage points.
- zamadatix 3y ago
  "Usable" as a term is a bit of a wash in the browser world. Some people will argue Firefox or Chrome are unusable due to some minor annoyance and others will say filling is still usable. Trying to give an answer though I'd say most will say it works with most sites in a few years time but most would also not recommend it due to security concerns. It's not that they haven't thought about security, sometimes they even try newer more segmented approaches than current major browsers use, just that everything has been done from scratch and the work to make the code safe and battle tested as other browsers would be more than the work to make the browser to that point.
ptx 3y ago
Are there any plans to rewrite the browser implementation in the Jakt language once that gets a bit more stable? Memory safety would be a unique advantage over other browsers (aside from Servo).
- TheCoreh 3y ago
  I am also looking forward to that, but I think the Serenity philosophy is to not make any long term plans and commitments. If the language becomes mature enough, and there are people interested enough in doing that porting, it will likely happen. I think their C++ code is also constrained enough due to the use of their custom standard library that it would be possible to write a transpiler from C++ to Jakt.
- Dessesaf 3y ago
  There are no concrete plans for anything with the Serenity ecosystem. But the main design goal of Jakt was originally for developing mainly GUI applications in SerenityOS. But if Jakt ever gets used in SerenityOS, a gradual rewrite of the libraries underlying the browser engine seems likely to me. I will note though that development on the Jakt language has slowed down significantly. After extremely fast initial development, most Serenity developers no longer contribute to the language. Because everything is done exclusively when the contributors feel like it, development happens in bursts. And right now, Andreas is not actively working on Jakt, so very little improvement is happening there. The main developer working on the language is Ali Mohammadpur, but I don't think he is currently being paid to work on the project. So his contributions are also inconsistent.
yarekt 3y ago
It sounds cool, and it’s nice that someone is disproving the myth. I use Qutebrowser daily, these projects are great, but not without their pain points: once you start using them in anger you’ll quickly realise lots of basic features are missing. It would be really nice if the more common oss libs had more work done on them to unbloat them
talkingtab 3y ago
A thought experiment. What about a new kind of browser for a new kind of web? Much of CSS is obsolete. So doing a "modern" version (I'm thinking css grid and flex in particular) would provide the same functionality without the cruft. All that old stuff about the holy grail three columns layout. And for me there is the question of canvas, threejs, react-three-fiber and react-drei. Is it possible that - especially with mobile - that canvas could be used to provide a better user experience? Who writes games for mobile with a HTML and CSS? Not saying it can't be done, but I wonder how many web sites require HTML & CSS instead of canvas? A big barrier to browser competition is needing to implement obsolete and outdated technology. Why not just a minimum set of html and canvas. Just thinking. Your thoughts?
- sho_hn 3y ago
  I've worked a bit on browser engines, although it was quite some time ago. I don't think it'd help much. - There's been a Cambrian Explosion in the web API surface era. The modern stuff dwarfs the old stuff. Dropping support for older/less frequently used mechanisms does not shed as much code and complexity as you might think. - Beyond mere surface area, the level of engineering required to implement a sort of "Restricted Core Profile" to a competitive degree (e.g. performance) is quite high, if you're talking true blank-canvas development. - There's a long tail effect in full force, where even mostly-modern websites will use and rely on some cruft here and there, making very few pages work in your supposed browser. That is to say, it's still a very large, tough project. But the FOSS community has achieved quite a few large, tough projects; it's not the same as saying that it's not possible, of course.
- novagameco 3y ago
  I think there are modern frameworks which render everything in webgl/webgpu with the canvas
- fzzzy 3y ago
  What exactly is obsolete about css? There are still valid use cases for float and inline block. border-box also fixes most of the teeth-gnashing from the 00s. I think it's a nice idea but I don't see what would get cut. Tables are still best for actual tables of data, too.
dang 3y ago
Related ongoing thread: Interview with Andreas Kling of Serenity OS (2022) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39286638 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39286638 - Feb 2024 (134 comments) Related to OP: Ladybird browser update (July 2023) [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36939402 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36939402 - July 2023 (1 comment) Chat with Andreas Kling about Ladybird and developing a browser engine - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36620450 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36620450 - July 2023 (65 comments) Shopify Sponsored Ladybird Browser - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36502583 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36502583 - June 2023 (1 comment) I have received a $100k sponsorship for Ladybird browser - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36377805 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36377805 - June 2023 (166 comments) Early stages of Google Docs support in the Ladybird browser - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33511831 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33511831 - Nov 2022 (84 comments) Github.com on Ladybird, new browser with JavaScript/CSS/SVG engines from scratch - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33273785 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33273785 - Oct 2022 (1 comment) Ladybird: A new cross-platform browser project - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32809126 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32809126 - Sept 2022 (473 comments) Ladybird: A truly new Web Browser comes to Linux - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32014061 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32014061 - July 2022 (8 comments) Ladybird Web Browser - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31987506 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31987506 - July 2022 (2 comments) Ladybird Web Browser – SerenityOS LibWeb Engine on Linux - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31976579 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31976579 - July 2022 (2 comments)
DiggyJohnson 3y ago
Is there a way to create a binary to use this browser in a normal-ish way. Looks like the docks recommend using a script to run it, but I’d like to be able to package it for my personal package repository.
- vimsee 3y ago
  I just made a wrapper script that calls the script in the serenity repo (which I cloned into my home directory) and put the script in PATH e.g. in /usr/bin/ladybird. The content my script. > #!/usr/bin/env bash > cd ${HOME}/serenity && ./Meta/serenity.sh run lagom ladybird I guess you could create a .desktop file that invokes the script, or just the "serenity.sh" script directly.
  - DiggyJohnson 3y ago
    Aha thanks very much for the validation. My solution is nearly identical. Much appreciated.
- niutech 3y ago
  There is AUR package: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/ladybird-git https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/ladybird-git to use with one of many AUR helpers.
redder23 3y ago
Written in C++? Makes no sense to me. I have high hopes for Servo but this seems like a waste if its a C++ project.
F3nd0 3y ago
I want to feel excited for Ladybird, but it's an incredible shame that such a promising and potentially very important project has settled on a pushover licence and Discord for their communication platform. The latter especially is an antithesis of freedom and openness, which I feel ought to be valued by people celebrating Ladybird's progress.
- ambigious7777 3y ago
  I may just be being dumb here, but what is a pushover license?
  - SpecialistK 3y ago
    Presumably a derogatory way of describing a permissive license, rather than a copyleft one. It's a religious disagreement.
  - F3nd0 3y ago
    A licence which grants you rights to the software, but allows you to strip them away in derivative works. This is in contrast to (for example) copyleft, which requires you to share with your users the same code and rights that you got to use, when distributing derivative works.
- logicprog 3y ago
  The weird thing is, a couple years ago when I contributed a little bit to Serenity OS, they were actually using an IRC channel
- paddim8 3y ago
  They used IRC but they switched because IRC is just too inconvenient. Discord is proprietary, but it works really well for them. They chose to be pragmatic.
  - F3nd0 3y ago
    I get that Discord is more practical, but it is at the cost of freedom, trustworthiness and privacy. Communication platforms are the last place you should compromise on this, since your choice is directly going to affect the choices of many others. There are tools which are much more user-friendly than IRC (and even Discord, in some aspects), such as Matrix or Zulip. They easily enough could’ve been more pragmatic picking those instead.
pipeline_peak 3y ago
Show me Ladybird in 10 years, then I'll decide if it's a promising browser/dev team.
simonebrunozzi 3y ago
> 2023-08-13: New sponsor: ohne-makler.net > 2023-06-28: Welcoming Shopify as a Ladybird sponsor Hmm, no new sponsor since august 2023. Not a good sign. I cheer for them to succeed though!

625 points by defied 3y ago

adontz 3y ago

[flagged]

detolly 3y ago
Then you have not understood the motivation of the project.
- adontz 3y ago
  There is no motivation on linked page.
  - jotaen 3y ago
    Why would there have to be one there?
  - recursive 3y ago
    That might be part of the reason you don't understand the motivation.
  - austinjp 3y ago
    The project initiator has written about this several times, for example: https://awesomekling.substack.com/p/i-quit-my-job-to-focus-on-serenityos-full-time https://awesomekling.substack.com/p/i-quit-my-job-to-focus-o...
  - prmoustache 3y ago
    They don't have to justify themselves too.
devmor 3y ago
It is a SerenityOS project. You can find the answer to that question in their primary project's FAQ[1]. 1. https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/blob/master/Documentation/FAQ.md#why-dont-you-use-library-instead-of-implementing-feature-yourself https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/blob/master/Documenta...
grayhatter 3y ago
The whole point of the project is to write a completely independent browser from scratch. The effort seems focused to me, write a complete engine. Not write a small part of a browser. But why would reusing something be better? Reusing someone else code wouldn't be competing with them, it'd be depending on them.
- adontz 3y ago
  Because you can have something usable instead of dreams. If you want to have completely independent code eventually, then replace modules one by one, while having a working product. Like Mozilla did with Servo. They had C++ codebase they wanted to replace with Rust codebase. They did not create entire browser from scratch, but replaced C++ with Rust gradually. While one figures what HTML and CSS layout should look like, no need to have no JavaScript engine and basically unusable browser. Use existing JavaScript engine, replace it later when/if project has enough resources.
  - k8svet 3y ago
    Sometimes it's nice to dream. A nice bonus if other people respect your autonomy to use one's time on Earth as one sees fit.
  - SpecialistK 3y ago
    Why is it "dreams" if they're making quantifiable progress toward their goal? The browser is steadily becoming more usable and performant. Proving that such a project is possible is one of Andreas (the project lead's) goals as stated in interviews. I'd rather encourage promising "dreams" than have a web with only 2.5 usable browser engines.
  - stephen_g 3y ago
    They already do have something that is incredibly usable for how long the project has been going (this context is part of why you're being downvoted, as well as just the general principle). They have probably got something that is looking more viable as a new browser than what the Servo project is doing now it's been detached from Mozilla. It really is quite incredible what they've done, and the velocity it's improving is just mind-blowing.
Powdering7082 3y ago
Taken from the FAQ of serenityOS: > Will SerenityOS support $THING? > Maybe. Maybe not. There is no plan.
andyjansson 3y ago
It's very tiring to see these kinds of comments, even as a bystander. I can't imagine how it is for the developers. People have spent a fair amount of time building this thing and deserve better than to have their efforts dismissed by the likes of you. Please, do better. The current browser engine landscape is a monoculture, so this is a very welcome addition IMO.
kramerger 3y ago
Don't criticise people hacking for the fun of it, on Hacker News of all places.
spintin 3y ago
https://imgur.com/dP2c3j6 https://imgur.com/dP2c3j6 Re-inventing the wheel is not the problem. It's copying the wheel that is the problem.
- sham1 3y ago
  As years have gone by, I've realised that the whole "don't reinvent the wheel" is fundamentally an anti-innovation and anti-intellectualist idiom. Like yeah, the idea is that the wheel already works pretty well, so you wouldn't need a better one, but really now? First of all, how would we know that we've explored all the possible ways wheels can be? How do we know whether what we have is actually the most optimal way that wheels can exist? You won't know unless you try! You might fail, but I'd say that the learning opportunity is worth it. Also, when it comes to people who criticise projects like Ladybird here for "reinventing the wheel", I feel that comparing software to wheels is a bit disingenuous. Because while manufacturing wheels does take skillful craftsmanship and such, most software is probably just a tad more complex than just the wheel. Call it a hunch. So, the ethos that one shouldn't "waste effort in writing this stuff from scratch, but that off-the-shelf components should be used" is the kind of ethos that can be applied to a lot of things. And usually when that kind of ethos is adopted, it tends to lead to stuff like stagnation and lack of innovation. And we know this, because we have examples of entire countries doing this, which has usually lead to either reforming away from this sort of model, or the country just not existing anymore. We should not let the web for example stagnate due to browser monoculture. We should have alternative implementations of stuff, actually.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    > So, the ethos that one shouldn't "waste effort in writing this stuff from scratch, but that off-the-shelf components should be used" is the kind of ethos that can be applied to a lot of things. And usually when that kind of ethos is adopted, it tends to lead to stuff like stagnation and lack of innovation. I think the advice still has its place, but only in certain contexts. You can get a lot of work done very quickly by making good use of work that others have already done for you. It's why modules and libraries are so popular. When you've got the time to try and and improve on existing code, or when you'd have to compromise too much on what you want by using something preexisting, or when you're just learning then reinventing the wheel is invaluable. There's a time and place for both.
rice7th 3y ago
I strongly disagree. The point of the whole SerenityOS project is to do everything from scratch, both for fun and to bring a bit of innovation in a classic environment. I see this "rebuild everything from scratch" effort as beneficial in many areas of browser development, since there are technologies shared by most browsers that create a sort of sub-monopoly, independent from the actual browser marketshare. Take for example the JavaScript engine. Spidermonkey and V8 are much more prominent in browser engines, even the lesser known ones, compared to JavaScriptCore. Spidermonkey for example is used in Firefox, Servo and Flow (Eikoh's browser engine), while V8 is used in every chrome derivate and most javascript implementations outside of a browser. JavaScriptCore is literally used in only one browser engine, and while WebKit is rather popular, it doesn't change the fact that the browser-grade javascript engine market is dominated by only two engines. Rebilding everything from scratch is such a fresh breath of air from all of those technological monopolies. I only wish the best for the SerenityOS team and contributors.
Kostic 3y ago
When the alternative was using drugs, writing everything from scratch is way better.
gkbrk 3y ago
> So, no motivation why not port Servo/WebKit, but write from scratch. One could at least use HTML/CSS layout manager or JavaScript engine. I mean, I am very pro competition and open web, but writing everything from scratch seems like waste of effort. I'd expect efforts to be focused. Why write Servo from scratch instead of porting Blink/Webkit? One could at least use the HTML/CSS layout manager. Seems like a waste of effort.
olliej 3y ago
Why have any other browser engines at all? Why not just require everyone use chrome? If you think you are "pro open web" but don't see the value in new browser engines (rather than just Safari, Firefox, and endless Chrome skins), then you're not actually "pro open web" you're pro status quo. But also, you're completely missing that the whole point of serenityos was to do everything from scratch, and simply porting an existing engine like webkit (which Andreas is extremely familiar with) isn't an interesting task. Porting something like servo (that doesn't even benefit from significant web compatibility) is even more pointless. At least building a new engine from scratch has the potential to introduce a new non-gecko, non-webkit derived browser, even if it takes a while (though despite the size of modern web specs, it's in many respects easier[1] than doing it 10 or 20 years ago). [1] It's still not easy, but prior to the immense work from the major browser developers in the late 2000s and 2010s to actually make the specifications accurate and complete, you could not do what serenity/ladybird has been doing and just implement the spec. Firstly often times the spec simply did not exist, but then the W3C specs were largely incomplete, often times ambiguous, and frequently just did not match reality. Even TC39/ECMAScript, which was much more constrained, had absurd amounts of ambiguity and incompleteness. Nowadays, you can go to most specs and be fairly assured that if you implement the spec as written the behaviour will actually be correct (maybe inefficient or slow), and the difficulty is the much more tractable problem of there being more features to implement.
lukan 3y ago
Besides the actually answer - because they want to - I don't think it would even work, because of the dependencies. (SerenetyOS is also written from scratch.) But since Kling used to work on the webkit team - you can bet that they don't work in a vacuum and reinvent the wheel, but just reimplement in a way they think is best. Also, they are not doing it for you, but for them.
sesm 3y ago
I thing I understand what you mean: in theory rewriting a browser in ‘ship of Theseus’ way focusing on one thing at a time should be more manageable. But in practice the integration points between different parts are not standardized and you’ll have to deal with a huge C++ code base that takes hours to compile.
alpaca128 3y ago
This mindset is why we now have countless new browsers that all run on Chromium. What's the motivation for those? Also calling the project a "waste of effort" seems a bit out of touch. Effort doesn't have to pay off in any way to be worthwhile. If the act of building is part of the motivation then taking shortcuts at building it defeats the purpose.
- charcircuit 3y ago
  >What's the motivation for those? To compete on the actual end user experience. Most users do not care at all about the code of the project. They don't care if your layout engine code is completely unique, they care that it does layout for the sites they use correctly. Having a good browser engine to work off of lets people start delivering value to users immediately instead of having to spend a ton of time recreating the parts of a browser that users do not care about.
mnau 3y ago
A big part of open source motivation is a creative expression. Then there are raccoon digging through dumpsters for free code. I find this mindset (why aren’t you working on something that benefits me, Bender) rather toxic.

wtracy 3y ago

Shopify is a sponsor! I wonder how that came about.

asicsp 3y ago
See https://awesomekling.substack.com/p/welcoming-shopify-as-a-ladybird-sponsor https://awesomekling.substack.com/p/welcoming-shopify-as-a-l... Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36502433 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36502433 (246 points | 7 months ago | 66 comments)
- rob74 3y ago
  We need more companies like Shopify, that actually share some of their revenue with open source projects they benefit from (or even, as in this case, projects that they don't directly benefit from)! But I'm afraid the current financial situation will lead to less, not more, of that...
  - doublerabbit 3y ago
    Step 1: Register Company Step 2: ???? Step 3: Profit.
gkbrk 3y ago
How many days can Google resist the urge to charge 30% for payments on Chrome after Chrome gets all the marketshare and the last drops of Mozilla are milked by the CEO? It's both good PR and a hedge against an (unlikely) bad scenario in the future.

szehe 3y ago

i love these progress screenshots: https://serenityos.org/happy/1st/ https://serenityos.org/happy/1st/

harha_ 3y ago
Looking at the timestamps, the pace of progress just him working alone in the beginning is nothing short of amazing. He seems to be a true jack of all trades when it comes to programming.

kramerger 3y ago

I would love to use this as my daily driver, but a lot of popular sites don't even work with Firefox. I hate what a small group of lazy front-end people have done to our world...

la_oveja 3y ago
small group of lazy front-end people? i think you actually mean a small group of chrome developers single-handedly deciding how web should work, while having the vast majority of the market share to push those decisions.
- kramerger 3y ago
  No, I blame it on front-end people. I've seen them putting all effort on eye-candy while ignoring that the page only works on "retina" display and then only on Safari.
  - mattlondon 3y ago
    Blame the UX and Product Managers, not the engineers.
- the_third_wave 3y ago
  Well, no, that is not how it works. Blink undoubtedly has an oversize influence on 'web standards' (which are more and more defined as 'whatever Blink does') but that would not be that much of a problem if web developers built and tested their sites against more than just Chrome and Edge (Blink) and Safari (Webkit). History is repeating itself since the same thing happened when Microsoft's Internet Explo[rd]er was the dominant browser and developers only tested against that, putting a 'Best viewed using Internet Explorer' badge on their sites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars
  - la_oveja 3y ago
    i am aware, i work as webdev and my current project is only Blink compatible. my employer does not want me to waste any time ensuring i support other browsers that are not going to be used. web should be able to be viewed in any browser and get the same document.

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stephen_g 3y ago

It's really quite incredible that one guy basically started a project to create a whole operating system from scratch for fun and to give himself something interesting to do, and then accidentally created one of the most viable new browser engines in a decade or two... I've been watching the development videos for a year or two, and the speed that this has progressed in such a short time is unbelievable. Now they have multiple volunteers and enough sponsorship to pay more than one developer, it's pretty exciting what could happen here!

pjerem 3y ago
Wasn’t this guy working in the WebKit team at Apple for years before ? It’s still really impressive but he is not the new kid in town when we talk about developing browsers.
- jraph 3y ago
  Yes, he was.
  - jart 3y ago
    He was probably their top guy too. Sort of like how Lucifer was the top angel in Heaven before his drug problems brought about his fall from Apple and since then he's been a true light bringer working tirelessly to give us awesome software as he recovers from addition.
    - Cthulhu_ 3y ago
      I mean Lucifer writing software tracks
    - ireadmevs 3y ago
      > as he recovers from addition. Divide and conquer for the win!
- sowbug 3y ago
  "It takes 20 years to make an overnight success."

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jraph 3y ago

I have hopes it will become a daily usable browser. A new Web engine is great. I hope Servo succeeds at this too. I would consider contributing but development is coordinated on Discord and I avoid proprietary software… [1]. It's a shame. Can't blame them though, they are doing it for fun. [1] https://drewdevault.com/2022/03/29/free-software-free-infrastructure.html https://drewdevault.com/2022/03/29/free-software-free-infras...

martypitt 3y ago
Wow - that article was a tough read. I like a LOT of what Drew has to say, but this seems over the top. He claims that authors promoting their open source software on channels like Twitter, Hacker news, LinkedIn or even Github is "selfish and unethical outright": > Many projects choose to prioritize access to the established audience that large commercial platforms provide, in order to maximize their odds of becoming popular, and enjoying some of the knock-on effects of that popularity, such as more contributions. > To me, this is selfish and unethical outright, though you may have different ethical standards. I find Zealotry like this tough, and promotes a definition of FOSS that feels hostile against those who want to simply build something cool, and share it with the world - (or even more controversially, make money from FOSS). Given such a strong view, it's really surprising that he then posts stuff like "Can I be on your podcast"[1] to try to promote Hare - his programming language. He didn't ask for podcasts that aren't distributed on platforms like Spotify or Apple Podcasts. In fact - he's right there with several appearances promoting Hare. That feels like hypocrisy. [1]: https://drewdevault.com/2023/11/09/Can-I-be-on-your-podcast.html https://drewdevault.com/2023/11/09/Can-I-be-on-your-podcast....
- jstanley 3y ago
  > you may have different ethical standards Isn't this the exact opposite of zealotry? Zealotry is imposing your ethical standards on others.
  - lostlogin 3y ago
    > Zealotry is imposing your ethical standards on others It’s even more specific than that though isn’t it? A fanatical belief in a single cause to the exclusion of all else.

jug 3y ago

It's been so inspiring to see him and his crew of hackers build a new, independent browser from scratch. I must admit I didn't think it was possible on this small scale in terms of man hours and funding. However, the thought has also crossed my mind if we're finally seeing fruits of browsers being better standardized on "95%"+ of the popular features -- and if writing a browser today is in fact easier than both writing AND maintaining a browser a decade back. While the web is of course still evolving, it feels more "settled in" than 10-15 years ago. There's also the factor that past developers didn't have the more complete roadmap set when they initially planned browser design, but now we have huge amounts of web standards already there AND also know how popular they got over time i.e. what to prioritize to support a modern web. One might superficially think there's simply more of everything, but I also think ideas that can be discarded. Just imagine that Internet Explorer had XSLT support, and FTP was common once upon a time! It would be interesting to hear more about their own thoughts on these topics! Edit: My bad; XSLT is still commonly supported and by all major browsers but a rarely used feature and stuck in limbo in XSLT 1.0. So it's probably among those things that can be safely omitted for quite some time.

nox101 3y ago
It also helps that there are tests https://web-platform-tests.org/ https://web-platform-tests.org/
- LeFantome 3y ago
  Indeed. These may be even more important... https://github.com/tc39/test262 https://github.com/tc39/test262
rjh29 3y ago
> if writing a browser today is in fact easier than both writing AND maintaining a browser a decade back. Probably not. Yeah we have web standards and some idea of how to architect it, but the total set of APIs and HTML/CSS features a browser supports is probably changing faster than the Ladybird team can actively implement it. The API surface is just impossibly large compared to 10 or 15 years ago. Look at all of these: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API And that doesn't include the updates to Javascript, MathML, SVG, HTTP-based security features, encryption or media support.

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codemusings 3y ago

Love Andreas Kling and the Serentiy OS project. Hate that he's only on Twitter. Mastodon seems like the perfect fit for his audience.

marginalia_nu 3y ago
I dunno, he's pretty committed to his positive utlook on things. Mastodon seems to be the far angrier place in comparison to Twitter. Twitter used to be a lot more like that, but it seems like most of the angriest people on twitter moved ot mastodon when Elon took over. It's (IMO) very pronounced and hard to avoid on Mastodon.
- stephen_g 3y ago
  Doesn’t seem that way to me much anymore - definitely as time has gone on it feels like a lot of the behaviour police (who were everywhere scolding people for not using content warnings and stuff) got blocked by enough people that they’ve mostly given up which is nice. Sure, in the Explore tab there still a lot of “people being angry at politics” but if you are careful with who you follow you shouldn’t see that in your feed…
- _chu1 3y ago
  Not only that but the frontpage of Mastodon is more angry political stuff than anything technology related.
  - F3nd0 3y ago
    Frontpage of Mastodon? Just what exactly are you referring to? :o
niutech 3y ago
He has a mirror on Mastodon: @awesomekling@bird.makeup

gsich 3y ago

From the FAQ: " Q: Why bother? You can’t make a new browser engine without billions of dollars and hundreds of staff. Sure you can. Don’t listen to armchair defeatists who never worked on a browser. " Nice take.

winterplace 3y ago
Source: https://awesomekling.github.io/Ladybird-a-new-cross-platform-browser-project/ https://awesomekling.github.io/Ladybird-a-new-cross-platform...

deleted 3y ago

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webprofusion 3y ago

Great to see some competition still alive in browser engine development. See also Servo (previously part of Mozilla) https://servo.org/ https://servo.org/ - that and Ladybird are still very underdeveloped compared to every day browsers. It's a huge shame that there are no nightly builds of ladybird to try out but I assume that's because they just don't want the bug reports (if everything doesn't work it's pointless getting random bugs filed).

marginalia_nu 3y ago
Last I tried Ladybird didn't take very long to build. This was admittedly sometime last year and it's likely slower now, but still. It's very far from a 9 hour chromium build.
vmfunction 3y ago
Don't forget WebKit. It leads to project such as https://surf.suckless.org https://surf.suckless.org
- jraph 3y ago
  WebKit is established and controlled by the richest company of the world. Most websites make sure they work on it because hardware (exclusively) running it are widespread. Why should someone interested in new players care? Anyone knowing about Servo and Ladybird has most likely heard of it anyway. (agreed, it is a credible alternative to Blink's dominance)
  - DiggyJohnson 3y ago
    Because it can be used to do cool things, has an interesting development history, and most importantly: > it is a credible alternative to Blink's dominance
  - vmfunction 3y ago
    For me it is like: WebKit -> Chrome Bun -> Node/Deno It is good to have competitions in Ecmascript landscape, even though it is currently a duopoly, but with introduction of AWS LLRT, and QuickJS, maybe small player can even have a say so in this. It would be good the big corp comply to the Ecmascript and Web API standard.

AndyKelley 3y ago

Is it just for fun or not? I think it's important to face this question, because users should not trust a just-for-fun browser with their security, and we should not look to Ladybird as a meaningful contribution towards competition in the browser space if it's just for fun. If it's just for fun, we need to temper our expectations accordingly.

jraph 3y ago
I think it's a "just for fun" project that is getting a bit serious, and sponsored. And that having expectations as a end user is still a bit premature. You can expect the project to move somewhat fast.
10000truths 3y ago
"Just for fun" is precisely how Linux started: Hello everybody out there using minix - I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones.
- charcircuit 3y ago
  Similarly people shouldn't have used Linux for serious use cases back then. We are talking about the present.
whyever 3y ago
They don't provide binaries, so I don't think there is a risk of having users. Is it really important to answer this question? A lot of widely used software started as "just for fun", e.g. Linux or OpenSSL. I think tempering our expectations should be the default for Open Source software.

KingOfCoders 3y ago

While Mozilla is re-selling privacy service (see other news on HN), others are building a better browser. Without the need of $6B.

kome 3y ago
Mozilla has definitely a management problem. But the product is good. very good even.
- ykonstant 3y ago
  Unfortunately, Mozilla is not interested in providing an easily embedable web engine. It makes sense: it goes against their interests as a company whose main product is a fully featured web browser. Google, on the other hand, provides a web engine with a nice license and reasonable ergonomics that can be used for all sorts of projects. This allows them to execute an EEE strategy: Embed (into all kinds of projects) Enforce (moving-target standards of your own making) Exhaust (any potential competitor/resources that needs to chase after them) This is why I wish we can get an alternative, OSS, easy-to-embed engine soon.

sylware 3y ago

It seems there is zero c++ in their web engine (cannot clone their repo right now and github is spitting raw json while browsing their source code with noscript/basic (x)html browsers). Is this true?

nhinck3 3y ago
No, it's basically all c++
- sylware 3y ago
  Sad, I wish for a modern web engine in plain and simple C99 (let's allow us some benign bits from c11). I guess I'll stick to links and/or lynx and/or netsurf.
  - materielle 3y ago
    The code might be closer to your wish than you think. So, they stay on the bleeding edge if C++ compilers. So in terms of core language features, they are C++20-something. But, everything is written from scratch, including the standard library. As such, the code is a lot cleaner than a typical C++ codebase.
    - sylware 3y ago
      The problem is c++ itself, with its grotesquely and absurdely massive and complex compilers, mechanically due to its syntax complexity. And yes, rust is hardly less worth.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

dev213 3y ago

This is a really cool project, but: "Where are the ISO images? There are no ISO images. This project does not cater to non-technical users." This comes off as really abrasive. Wanting an ISO image to quickly test this out is not an indicator of someones technical ability. I'm sorry I don't want to boot up a linux vm, install a lot of development packages and then build my own boot image just to try this out.

zaebal 3y ago
SerenityOS nightly builds: https://serenity-builds.halves.dev/ https://serenity-builds.halves.dev/
cal85 3y ago
> This comes off as really abrasive. I think that’s often the point with OSS projects, especially those that have an ambitious long term vision. If you “don’t want to boot up a Linux VM” etc, they don’t want you. It’s a filter. It means their concern at the moment is the coherence of their community, not increasing their numbers. It’s the same reason projects like this often have absurdly ugly logos, and landing pages that don’t work on mobile. Fast growth is often seen as destructive when you already have a nice little community vibe. It’s essential to maintain that vibe carefully if you have a long term goal of building something important.
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
Counterpoint, it would be another release / packaging they would have to build and maintain, unless they find a volunteer that can do it without detracting from their core business, it's not worth the investment (to them). Anyone can set up a pipeline to distribute ISO images though, it's open source.
- dev213 3y ago
  Sure, if that's the reason, I completely understand. However that's not the reason they stated in their FAQ. It really comes off as gatekeeping
  - 3y ago

cpach 3y ago

Very cool project! I also find it curious that they are sponsored by a real estate site (:

Hanschri 3y ago
Ohne Makler sponsored the project with 10k USD to make their website render correctly in Ladybird, it was covered in one of the browser update videos last year[0]. [0]: https://youtu.be/xdVOdrWuzLQ?t=147 https://youtu.be/xdVOdrWuzLQ?t=147
- cpach 3y ago
  Ha! Didn’t know. Very cool IMHO.
hendi_ 3y ago
I just needed a reason to throw money at him ;)
- cpach 3y ago
  Haha, kudos!

fifteen1506 3y ago

I always mix SerenityOS and TempleOS :(

BMSR 3y ago

Is there collaboration between Serenity/LB and Igalia? Seems like they're involved in many browser technologies, and other technologies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igalia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igalia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lkIX5ryZZ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lkIX5ryZZ4

niutech 3y ago
They were chatting together: https://www.igalia.com/chats/ladybird https://www.igalia.com/chats/ladybird

hosteur 3y ago

I am fascinated by this project. What are the chances that this could become a real world usable replacement for chrome or Firefox witching the next couple of years?

TheCoreh 3y ago
My gut feeling with how far they've come in so little time says it's definitely in the double digit percentage points.
zamadatix 3y ago
"Usable" as a term is a bit of a wash in the browser world. Some people will argue Firefox or Chrome are unusable due to some minor annoyance and others will say filling is still usable. Trying to give an answer though I'd say most will say it works with most sites in a few years time but most would also not recommend it due to security concerns. It's not that they haven't thought about security, sometimes they even try newer more segmented approaches than current major browsers use, just that everything has been done from scratch and the work to make the code safe and battle tested as other browsers would be more than the work to make the browser to that point.

ptx 3y ago

Are there any plans to rewrite the browser implementation in the Jakt language once that gets a bit more stable? Memory safety would be a unique advantage over other browsers (aside from Servo).

TheCoreh 3y ago
I am also looking forward to that, but I think the Serenity philosophy is to not make any long term plans and commitments. If the language becomes mature enough, and there are people interested enough in doing that porting, it will likely happen. I think their C++ code is also constrained enough due to the use of their custom standard library that it would be possible to write a transpiler from C++ to Jakt.
Dessesaf 3y ago
There are no concrete plans for anything with the Serenity ecosystem. But the main design goal of Jakt was originally for developing mainly GUI applications in SerenityOS. But if Jakt ever gets used in SerenityOS, a gradual rewrite of the libraries underlying the browser engine seems likely to me. I will note though that development on the Jakt language has slowed down significantly. After extremely fast initial development, most Serenity developers no longer contribute to the language. Because everything is done exclusively when the contributors feel like it, development happens in bursts. And right now, Andreas is not actively working on Jakt, so very little improvement is happening there. The main developer working on the language is Ali Mohammadpur, but I don't think he is currently being paid to work on the project. So his contributions are also inconsistent.

yarekt 3y ago

It sounds cool, and it’s nice that someone is disproving the myth. I use Qutebrowser daily, these projects are great, but not without their pain points: once you start using them in anger you’ll quickly realise lots of basic features are missing. It would be really nice if the more common oss libs had more work done on them to unbloat them

talkingtab 3y ago

A thought experiment. What about a new kind of browser for a new kind of web? Much of CSS is obsolete. So doing a "modern" version (I'm thinking css grid and flex in particular) would provide the same functionality without the cruft. All that old stuff about the holy grail three columns layout. And for me there is the question of canvas, threejs, react-three-fiber and react-drei. Is it possible that - especially with mobile - that canvas could be used to provide a better user experience? Who writes games for mobile with a HTML and CSS? Not saying it can't be done, but I wonder how many web sites require HTML & CSS instead of canvas? A big barrier to browser competition is needing to implement obsolete and outdated technology. Why not just a minimum set of html and canvas. Just thinking. Your thoughts?

sho_hn 3y ago
I've worked a bit on browser engines, although it was quite some time ago. I don't think it'd help much. - There's been a Cambrian Explosion in the web API surface era. The modern stuff dwarfs the old stuff. Dropping support for older/less frequently used mechanisms does not shed as much code and complexity as you might think. - Beyond mere surface area, the level of engineering required to implement a sort of "Restricted Core Profile" to a competitive degree (e.g. performance) is quite high, if you're talking true blank-canvas development. - There's a long tail effect in full force, where even mostly-modern websites will use and rely on some cruft here and there, making very few pages work in your supposed browser. That is to say, it's still a very large, tough project. But the FOSS community has achieved quite a few large, tough projects; it's not the same as saying that it's not possible, of course.
novagameco 3y ago
I think there are modern frameworks which render everything in webgl/webgpu with the canvas
fzzzy 3y ago
What exactly is obsolete about css? There are still valid use cases for float and inline block. border-box also fixes most of the teeth-gnashing from the 00s. I think it's a nice idea but I don't see what would get cut. Tables are still best for actual tables of data, too.

dang 3y ago

Related ongoing thread: Interview with Andreas Kling of Serenity OS (2022) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39286638 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39286638 - Feb 2024 (134 comments) Related to OP: Ladybird browser update (July 2023) [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36939402 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36939402 - July 2023 (1 comment) Chat with Andreas Kling about Ladybird and developing a browser engine - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36620450 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36620450 - July 2023 (65 comments) Shopify Sponsored Ladybird Browser - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36502583 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36502583 - June 2023 (1 comment) I have received a $100k sponsorship for Ladybird browser - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36377805 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36377805 - June 2023 (166 comments) Early stages of Google Docs support in the Ladybird browser - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33511831 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33511831 - Nov 2022 (84 comments) Github.com on Ladybird, new browser with JavaScript/CSS/SVG engines from scratch - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33273785 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33273785 - Oct 2022 (1 comment) Ladybird: A new cross-platform browser project - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32809126 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32809126 - Sept 2022 (473 comments) Ladybird: A truly new Web Browser comes to Linux - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32014061 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32014061 - July 2022 (8 comments) Ladybird Web Browser - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31987506 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31987506 - July 2022 (2 comments) Ladybird Web Browser – SerenityOS LibWeb Engine on Linux - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31976579 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31976579 - July 2022 (2 comments)

DiggyJohnson 3y ago

Is there a way to create a binary to use this browser in a normal-ish way. Looks like the docks recommend using a script to run it, but I’d like to be able to package it for my personal package repository.

vimsee 3y ago
I just made a wrapper script that calls the script in the serenity repo (which I cloned into my home directory) and put the script in PATH e.g. in /usr/bin/ladybird. The content my script. > #!/usr/bin/env bash > cd ${HOME}/serenity && ./Meta/serenity.sh run lagom ladybird I guess you could create a .desktop file that invokes the script, or just the "serenity.sh" script directly.
- DiggyJohnson 3y ago
  Aha thanks very much for the validation. My solution is nearly identical. Much appreciated.
niutech 3y ago
There is AUR package: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/ladybird-git https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/ladybird-git to use with one of many AUR helpers.

redder23 3y ago

Written in C++? Makes no sense to me. I have high hopes for Servo but this seems like a waste if its a C++ project.

F3nd0 3y ago

I want to feel excited for Ladybird, but it's an incredible shame that such a promising and potentially very important project has settled on a pushover licence and Discord for their communication platform. The latter especially is an antithesis of freedom and openness, which I feel ought to be valued by people celebrating Ladybird's progress.

ambigious7777 3y ago
I may just be being dumb here, but what is a pushover license?
- SpecialistK 3y ago
  Presumably a derogatory way of describing a permissive license, rather than a copyleft one. It's a religious disagreement.
- F3nd0 3y ago
  A licence which grants you rights to the software, but allows you to strip them away in derivative works. This is in contrast to (for example) copyleft, which requires you to share with your users the same code and rights that you got to use, when distributing derivative works.
logicprog 3y ago
The weird thing is, a couple years ago when I contributed a little bit to Serenity OS, they were actually using an IRC channel
paddim8 3y ago
They used IRC but they switched because IRC is just too inconvenient. Discord is proprietary, but it works really well for them. They chose to be pragmatic.
- F3nd0 3y ago
  I get that Discord is more practical, but it is at the cost of freedom, trustworthiness and privacy. Communication platforms are the last place you should compromise on this, since your choice is directly going to affect the choices of many others. There are tools which are much more user-friendly than IRC (and even Discord, in some aspects), such as Matrix or Zulip. They easily enough could’ve been more pragmatic picking those instead.

pipeline_peak 3y ago

Show me Ladybird in 10 years, then I'll decide if it's a promising browser/dev team.

simonebrunozzi 3y ago

> 2023-08-13: New sponsor: ohne-makler.net > 2023-06-28: Welcoming Shopify as a Ladybird sponsor Hmm, no new sponsor since august 2023. Not a good sign. I cheer for them to succeed though!