17 ms·

Welcome to Ladybird, a truly independent web browser

• jofzar 2y ago
  Everywhere web developers felt a disturbance and couldn't figure out why.
• gnabgib 2y ago
  Big discussion 8 months ago (1077 comments, 757 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40856791 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40856791 1 year ago (625 points, 284 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39271449 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39271449 2 years ago (1341 points, 473 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32809126 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32809126
  • xiaoyu2006 2y ago
    I got to know this project through the one year old post. I was quite buggy and can’t even render github.com back then. The improvement is huge.
• MontagFTB 2y ago
  This is the SerenityOS browser split off into its own project. I have respect for Andreas and hope this browser continues to mature.
  • andrewchilds 2y ago
    This is the first time I'm looking at SerenityOS and I really appreciate the Win98 vibe. Also this opening line from their FAQ: Will SerenityOS support $THING? Maybe. Maybe not. There is no plan.
    • noisy_boy 2y ago
      Good - we already have an overload of scrum/agile driven planning sucking the life out of the joy of programming in our corporate lives. Let him enjoy making a great browser.
      • notpushkin 2y ago
        I think the browser is a bit more organized (OP is referring to the OS), but I do hope they maintain the tinkering vibe, too.
• pluto_modadic 2y ago
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• do_not_redeem 2y ago
  Can someone catch me up, how close are they to migrating it to Jakt?
  • JBits 2y ago
    I believe they're migrating to Swift instead of Jaht.
• grg0 2y ago
  Can you really be an independent web browser when Google basically controls the W3C? 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.
  • keyle 2y ago
    Yes, the web browser is independent, not the web specifications!
    • grg0 2y ago
      I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, but it means nothing to "own" the browser when, realistically, you're going to be playing catch-up with the whims of the one corporation that basically controls nearly all decisions on the spec.
      • afavour 2y ago
        They're not legally bound to implement every spec the W3C publishes.
      • danielhep 2y ago
        The spec only has the power it does because of the market share of Google’s browser though. More people using independent browsers means less power by google to single-handedly control the spec.
        • edoceo 2y ago
          They can still control the spec. Ladybird would need a seat at the table to start the change there. But if there is more browser diversity, and less support for Chrome Only things, maybe that starts (continues?) the path of Chrome becoming IE6
          • OkayPhysicist 2y ago
            You can always just ignore the spec, if you have a big enough market share.
• _benj 2y ago
  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. It might be time to explore librewolf or Vivaldi again
  • beretguy 2y ago
    Brave blocks more stuff than Vivaldi, FYI. https://privacytests.org/ https://privacytests.org/ I would say #1 LibreWolf #2 Brave
    • j16sdiz 2y ago
      Does brave still do the purchase referral code swap thing?
      • TylerE 2y ago
        Brave is, and always has been, super scummy.
        • getlawgdon 2y ago
          Can you elaborate?
          • WD-42 2y ago
            Wasn't their entire original premise the Basic Attention Token? It was some kind of crypto that you'd buy and then the browser would block ads for you and instead pay a small amount to the website owners. Problem was if the website owner wasn't part of the program they'd just keep the tokens for themselves, something like that.
            • dankwizard 2y ago
              No BAT wasn't the controversey. Unless you count the "Tipping any website but if the website didn't accept BAT it went back into the pool". The controversy came when it was found out they were inserting their own affiliate code into links. That's scummy.
• WD-42 2y ago
  One of the more important projects of our time.
  • gunian 2y ago
    how so?
    • glenstein 2y ago
      I think the diversification of options for web browsers is increasingly important, because Google has made Chromium the de facto standard for the web and positioned themselves to be able to drive standards changes that Google wants, such as DRM. And because building a browser can be so complex, even the major alternative browsers now are based on Chromium, which is controlled by a pool of Google developers. So Microsoft Edge, Opera, Vivaldi, and Brave, often referenced as alternatives to Google Chrome, are still to a significant degree Google Chrome under their respective hoods. The only truly independent browser from a credible company with reasonable market share to stand in the way is Firefox by Mozilla. There's also Safari from Apple, but if you're concerned about Google, Apple is not necessarily a reassuring alternative. Lady Bird seems like an ambitious and credible alternative intending to fully comply with modern web standards with a seemingly inspired and committed developer at the head of it. It can help maintain a diversity of web browsing options, which is increasingly important.
      • cardanome 2y ago
        Diversification is good but considering ladybird choose a liberal BSD license, there is no protection from Google, Microsoft and friends. If it ever takes off they can just do the good old embrace, extend, and exterminate on it. We need a GPLv3 licensed browser to ensure it will always stay open.
        • deleted 2y ago
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  • CodeCompost 2y ago
• PedroBatista 2y ago
  Just installed Waterfox a couple hours ago. ( https://www.waterfox.net/ https://www.waterfox.net/ ) I'm getting fed up with all the latest Mozilla bullshit to the point I'm ready to switch browsers. Ladybird is starting to look good too, from an end user daily driver perspective, technically it has been impressive for a long time. 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.
  • discardedrefuse 2y ago
    Waterfox looks worth a try, but I opted for LibreWolf because it's verified on Flathub and Waterfox is not. It looks like the Flathub version of Waterfox was packaged the same BrowserWorks Ltd that makes Waterfox, but they didn't take the extra steps to get verified so we can't be sure. Hopefully they can remedy that. Browsers are too important to install from untrusted sources.
    • wongarsu 2y ago
      For what it's worth, it's the opposite situation on Windows: The Waterfox installer is signed (even with an Extended Validation certificate), the LibreWolf installer isn't. Another thing that surprised me is that there is a Waterfox Android build in the Play Store. Reviews of that are however mixed.
      • gs17 2y ago
        Similar on macOS, the LibreWolf team (somewhat understandably) refuses to pay for Apple's developer account to notarize their builds, so every update I have to remove the quarantine extended attribute (Homebrew can do this as part of updating now) or the OS helpfully tells me my browser is damaged and needs to be deleted.
      • foxrider 2y ago
        Librewolf is available on Microsoft Store officially tho
      • 2y ago
• theturtletalks 2y ago
  Interesting, they seem to be switching to Swift soon.
  • dkga 2y ago
    Noted that as well. Could be a reflex of swift’s improved memory safety capabilities.
  • pipeline_peak 2y ago
    Wouldn’t that make it slower than if in C++?
    • lukeh 2y ago
      Swift can be just as fast as C or C++. The danger, in my experience, is that it's not always clear what the performance implications of the language's many convenient abstractions are. (A random example, I recently improved one code path by over an order of magnitude by replacing some serialisation that used Codable with hand-rolled code. Still 100% Swift, just paid a lot of attention to avoiding RTTI and allocations.)
    • deleted 2y ago
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    • rixed 2y ago
      Swift had automatic memory management, so yes () (: Although anything can be made as slow as python yada yada)
    • timbit42 2y ago
      A bit slower is good if it is safer from exploits than C and C++.
  • ChocolateGod 2y ago
    Swift is underrated, it's a good alternative to C++ for those not interested in Rust.
• sam345 2y ago
  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.
  • ratg13 2y ago
    It’s not really worth running pre-alpha software if you are not a developer. It just opens the door for non-technical people to badmouth the software complaining that nothing works and expecting a fully functional browser.
• keyle 2y ago
  Well this project is now more important than ever since Firefox basically sold its soul [1]. Never say "Never"... Next is Thunderbird. Let's go Andreas! [1] https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b61939b7f4310eb80c5470e#diff-a24e74e4595fa85440a2f4e7e5dcfe68aba6e1e593aef05a2d35581a91423847 https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b...
  • suobset 2y ago
    Getting to know about this through here, and tbh I believe the writing has been on the wall for Mozilla for quite a while. This honestly does not surprise me as much as I thought it would. That being said, I am sad to see this fear of mine come true. Mozilla products were rock solid, and available on virtually every platform imaginable. I do not want to live in a Chromium and WebKit only world.
    • deleted 2y ago
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    • theturtletalks 2y ago
      And here I was thinking opensource was immune to enshittification...
      • weikju 2y ago
        It is, but people/corporations aren’t.
      • RobotToaster 2y ago
        You obviously never used wordpress, lol
      • aswerty 2y ago
        I guess the quality here is resilience more so than immunity. I guess you can say opensource is much more resilient to enshittification. I think Mozilla has been a good example of that but the perception has been that resilience has been crumbling for years. Without an independent business model they have been in a really terrible position from the get-go.
• IncreasePosts 2y ago
  Why would I use this browser instead of, say, chromium?
  • HappyJoy 2y ago
    I'm interested because it isn't chromium
    • dkga 2y ago
      Not an expert, but as a veteran of the Browser Wars, I’m curious as to why?
      • ratg13 2y ago
        Because when there is a monopoly, you are at the whims of the people that control it.
      • johnklos 2y ago
        Google is evil, and Chromium has too many Google-isms. Also, monocultures are bad.
        • bitpush 2y ago
          Let me guess, you wrote this on an Apple device where .. checks notes.. every browser is webkit. Monoculture is bad. smh
          • p_ing 2y ago
            macOS can run any engine. iOS cannot.
  • bawolff 2y ago
    The target audience is presumably people who dont like chromium, so the question kind of self-answers.
  • waltercool 2y ago
• dilDDoS 2y ago
  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!
  • TingPing 2y ago
    I don’t think they are thinking of that yet, the UI is barebones, they are working on the web engine mostly.
• anta40 2y ago
  I'll keep my eyes on this. Considering now most browsers are either Chromium (including Opera and Edge) or Firefox-based, a new alternative built from scratch will be interesting.
• bix6 2y ago
  I’m very excited but how will this survive without some sort of monetization? In the old thread I see the non-profit was seeded with $1M. That’s 5 good US developers for 1 year. What next?
  • MrLeap 2y ago
    Andreas Kling is pouring his attention into this. He's a grit elemental. I believe he will accomplish this no matter how many people tell him it's a doomed effort, impossible, whatever. What happens in the longer term depends on if enough people value what he and his team does. Looking at what FF has recently decided about selling out its users, I think demand will catalyze.
    • bix6 2y ago
      I love that term “grit elemental”! Hopefully Chris will continue to support the project. Fun rabbit hole learning about all this.
  • ratg13 2y ago
    It says on the website they aim to always maintain 18 months of runway.. so basically scaling up and down as needed. They get sponsors through enthusiasm, which is the way it should be for a project like this. After reading their website, I know that I am going to request my company to donate, so there’s at least one more contribution.
    • BirAdam 2y ago
      Not just enthusiasm. Companies like Shopify will invest because a healthy ecosystem is good for their bottom line in the long term. Monopolies are not good for them in the long term.
  • LAC-Tech 2y ago
    Why does it need to be accomplished without monetization? I'd gladly pay for a good browser, that respects my privacy. Quite frankly we all need to start opening our pockets for this; the idea that big companies will benevolently supply stuff like this to us for free without trying to spy on us is naive.
• WillAdams 2y ago
  To anyone on the fence about this --- try it, it's fast.
  • somethingor 2y ago
    Fast is the last adjective I’d use to describe Ladybird in its current state
• thisislife2 2y ago
  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 https://www.netsurf-browser.org/ https://www.netsurf-browser.org/ - website is outdated because of lack of volunteers but the project has active development - https://source.netsurf-browser.org/netsurf.git/ https://source.netsurf-browser.org/netsurf.git/ (already has partial support for CSS3, and Flex layout). It can develop into a great alternative if it had some more volunteers. Servo (https://servo.org/ https://servo.org/) 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 ( http://www.palemoon.org/ http://www.palemoon.org/ ) 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.
  • your_challenger 2y ago
    Learning to market yourself and your projects is so important! I wish I had the skills.
  • leidenfrost 2y ago
    Also, I really, REALLY wish the devs don't surrender to user's pressure for the plethora of features offered by the commercial products, done ASAP. Please maintain the tinkering, passion and devs-first codebase it has now, and don't end up as a huge mess just because users want things like VDPAU asap. I don't mind waiting a few more years. For the "just works" part of my life, I already have chromium+Firefox
  • pizlonator 2y ago
    I think that Ladybird's success has more to do with the fact that kling is one of the few people who knows how to write the whole browser than with marketing. But yeah, kling is also a great communicator.
    • LeFantome 2y ago
      SerenityOS was already quite successful before they started Ladybird. So successful that he was already making enough off sponsorship to do it full time. It was having the time to take on something as ambitious as a full web browser for SerenityOS that led to the project to begin with. I agree that Ladybird is lucky to have a dev not only of his seniority but of his specific expertise. However, there is no denying that a huge reason for the success of his projects is non-technical and more about his ability to build community and engagement.
• deleted 2y ago
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• waltercool 2y ago
  [dead]
• ginkgotree 2y ago
  heck yeah!!
• shmerl 2y ago
  What's the motivation instead of let's say developing Servo?
  • your_challenger 2y ago
    More the merrier
    • timbit42 2y ago
      I'd rather have these merge and have the labour required to replace Firefox instead of duplicating effort over a dozen browsers.
      • shmerl 2y ago
        Yep, exactly. It's not like any of these efforts have enough resources to progress fast. And Servo looks by far as the best of them.
  • deleted 2y ago
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• cratermoon 2y ago
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  • LAC-Tech 2y ago
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    • snvzz 2y ago
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      • dancingavoid 2y ago
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      • cratermoon 2y ago
        Thanks for your insights, miss.
    • cratermoon 2y ago
      I'm sure they're happy to have your support, ma'am.
  • davexunit 2y ago
    [flagged]
    • anonfordays 2y ago
      [flagged]
  • bigstrat2003 2y ago
    I wouldn't call that "getting bent out of shape" by any stretch of the imagination. That was what I would call a very measured response to someone who was clearly trying to cause trouble by starting political fights.
    • 2y ago
• evo_9 2y ago
  How are Arc and / or Brave not truly independent? I’d really like to know, TY.
  • fragmede 2y ago
    Arc is VC funded, and Brave has Brandon Eich's fingerprints all over it (and he sometimes posts here) so we would have to first start by defining what we want independent to mean here, first.
    • aorth 2y ago
      I would say Brave is not independent because it uses Chromium.
  • jakereps 2y ago
    Did the title change since you asked, or what is claiming that they aren't? I don't see anything on the title, the README, or the website making the claim you want defended. It just says "a" truly independent web browser, that doesn't seemingly claim exclusivity to that status.
  • deleted 2y ago
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  • asadotzler 2y ago
    If it uses Chromium, it's hardly independent.
  • digitalPhonix 2y ago
    They both use chromium so they’re not independent of some technology decisions made by Google. Whether that level of independence is important is up to you I guess?
• your_challenger 2y ago
  I have to build it to use it? I am both annoyed and excited at the same time.
• mediumsmart 2y ago
  Looking forward to the alpha release. Can’t / shouldn’t this be financed by the users in the end to be fully independent? Like Orion or Kagi.
  • goplayoutside 2y ago
    Ladybird became an official non-profit[0] last year. There's also a Donorbox link in the upper-right corner of ladybird.org[1]. 0. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40856791 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40856791 1. https://ladybird.org/ https://ladybird.org/
• mastazi 2y ago
  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 https://donorbox.org/ladybird https://donorbox.org/ladybird
• goplayoutside 2y ago
  Ladybird is a BSD-2[0] project from Andreas Kling, the same person behind SerenityOS. 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. The updates also have video versions[2], which include demos of Ladybird's rendering. 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]. 0. https://github.com/LadybirdBrowser/ladybird/blob/master/LICENSE https://github.com/LadybirdBrowser/ladybird/blob/master/LICE... 1. https://buttondown.com/ladybird/archive/this-month-in-ladybird-january-2025/ https://buttondown.com/ladybird/archive/this-month-in-ladybi... 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l8epGysffQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l8epGysffQ 3. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40856791 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40856791 4. https://ladybird.org/ https://ladybird.org/
  • matsz 2y ago
    > Andreas Kling, the same person behind SerenityOS Important context - Andreas isn't involved with SerenityOS much anymore. He decided to prioritize Ladybird, which is arguably the more important project here. Also, he used to contribute to WebKit. Even ended up working at Apple for a period of time. Quite definitely the right person in the right place.
    • hnfong 2y ago
      More context: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40560768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40560768
  • qingcharles 2y ago
    I can highly recommend Andreas' YouTube updates if you're remotely interested in browser dev. Really fun.
    • biohazard2 2y ago
      Yes, they were fascinating! I truly miss them.
• arunc 2y ago
  If the goal is to create a truly privacy respecting, safe browser that's focused on the web, why not write it in Rust? 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!
  • inetknght 2y ago
    Your question is already asked and answered on the Ladybird.org website [0]? [0]: https://ladybird.org/ https://ladybird.org/ > Why build a new browser in C++ when safer and more modern languages are available? > Ladybird started as a component of the SerenityOS hobby project, which only allows C++. The choice of language was not so much a technical decision, but more one of personal convenience. Andreas was most comfortable with C++ when creating SerenityOS, and now we have almost half a million lines of modern C++ to maintain. > However, now that Ladybird has forked and become its own independent project, all constraints previously imposed by SerenityOS are no longer in effect. > We have evaluated a number of alternatives, and will begin incremental adoption of Swift as a successor language, once Swift version 6 is released. (More background.)
  • miere43 2y ago
    They were thinking about writing the browser in a more memory-safe language, and it looks like they are leaning toward Swift rather than Rust. https://x.com/awesomekling/status/1822236888188498031 https://x.com/awesomekling/status/1822236888188498031
  • robenkleene 2y ago
    You've gotten a couple of other answers, here already. I'll just add that unfortunately I don't have link but there's a podcast interview with Andreas out there where they go into more detail about this. He said that they tried write some features in Rust and the development team just didn't like working in the language, I think the overall reason was that object-orientated programming was not a first-class citizen in Rust. One other interesting tidbit is that the development team was excited to try Rust, but in practice disliked it, and the reverse was true for Swift.
• serviceberry 2y ago
  The practical trade-off is that it is very, very 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. 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.
  • stephen_g 2y ago
    Obviously there are many types of security vulnerabilities, but one thing that should start paying off for Ladybird eventually is the move to a memory and race safe language (Swift). Of course, that will be a gradual process (they haven't really started yet and they will be using the Swift C++ interop so there will be C++ parts of the browser for years to come). They do also benefit from using off-the-shelf libraries like Skia, OpenSSL, image libraries etc. that the other browsers are using too. Previously they were rolling their own for everything but changed after the split from SerenityOS.
    • pjmlp 2y ago
      Will they, or it will be like Jank, just a kind of side endevour without commitment to actually make use of? It isn't as if Swift developer experience is that great outside Apple's ecosystem. While I would definitly use it when on Apple's ground, I feel less inclined to thouch it for anything related to cross platform GUIs.
      • askonomm 2y ago
        I don't think they'd use Swift for GUI building. Ladybird's GUI's are platform-dependent (Qt on Linux, AppKit on Mac, etc). From what I understand they want to use Swift as a replacement for C++. I haven't done a lot of Swift, but I did play around with it recently, and it seems to work fine even outside of the Apple ecosystem. It has a LSP you can use so you don't need XCode, they even develop a first-class plugin for VSCode.
• northisup 2y ago
  I always read it as ⇧⌘?… because its help
• 38 2y ago
  Need native windows version, not WSL
• thatxliner 2y ago
  Put this back on HN when you can download it and try it out (like Servo).
  • ABS 2y ago
    you can do that today, I've been downloading and trying this out since before it was spun off SerenityOS HN is (supposed to be) a technical community so pulling the code and building it is no problem
  • ykonstant 2y ago
    No, this post is perfectly fine where it is: a dev forum full of people who may be interested in the source code and contributing to this ongoing project.
• dang 2y ago
  Related. Others? Ladybird browser to start using Swift language this fall - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41208836 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41208836 - Aug 2024 (192 comments) This Month in Ladybird: July 2024 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41123449 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41123449 - July 2024 (14 comments) Tell HN: When Firefox jumps the shark, the call to action is Ladybird - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40975596 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40975596 - July 2024 (47 comments) I'm funding Ladybird because I can't fund Firefox - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40900648 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40900648 - July 2024 (234 comments) Ladybird web browser funded by GitHub co-founder, promises 'no code' from rivals - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40870366 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40870366 - July 2024 (20 comments) Ladybird Web Browser becomes a non-profit with $1M from GitHub Founder - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40856791 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40856791 - July 2024 (744 comments) Welcome to Ladybird - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40845951 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40845951 - July 2024 (95 comments) Ladybird browser update (June 2024) [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40838973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40838973 - June 2024 (1 comment) Ladybird browser spreads its wings - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40746804 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40746804 - June 2024 (304 comments) I'm forking Ladybird and stepping down as SerenityOS BDFL - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40560768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40560768 - June 2024 (262 comments) Ladybird browser update (March 2024) [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39889576 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39889576 - April 2024 (2 comments) Understanding Complexity Like an Engineer – The Case of the Ladybird Browser - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39342887 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39342887 - Feb 2024 (55 comments) The Ladybird browser project - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39271449 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39271449 - Feb 2024 (284 comments) 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)
• zombot 2y ago
  This posting has fortuitous timing, as of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43200065 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43200065
• h4ny 2y ago
  I don't understanding how post ranking works. At the time of writing the ChatGPT announcement has the following stats: - 833 points | 10 hours ago | 652 comments | 2nd And this post the following: - 432 points 5 hours ago | 155 comments | 6th Also interesting is that the EA CoC post has the following stats: - 828 points | 12 hours ago | 222 comments | 13th 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. 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.?
  • consumer451 2y ago
    A lot could be said about this. Mostly there are algorithmic factors, and in some cases there are human fingers on the scales. > I don't understanding how post ranking works. The system is working as intended. Also, one of the rules of HN club: don't talk about the rules of HN club.
• ThatGuyRaion 2y ago
  I wish I could get excited, but several design choices and aspects of the status quo we are facing have me worried: 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? 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. The swift move means LLVM-only. Yay. \s 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. 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. That said, I begrudgingly am ok with it. I wish they did things different.
  • timschumi 2y ago
    > 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? Because C++ got better and better in recent versions? You are essentially asking to forego large amounts of improvements that allow for writing more maintainable code, just because you are too lazy to install a compiler that has been released 1 year and 10 months ago (in the case of GCC 13) or 1 year and 5 months (in the case of Clang 17).
  • account42 2y ago
    I agree with your concerns in general but starting a project like this with a bleeding edge language version does make sense - by the time the code is ready to be used those language versions will be old even esoteric systems will have a compiler that supports them. Swift is more of a concern no (only) because of the LLVM dependency but also because of the Apple dependency and no proven track record of being a good cross-platform foundation.
• fifticon 2y ago
  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. 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.. 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).
  • voshond 2y ago
    Because browsers don’t just browse these days, they do all the heavy lifting and not just for the nerds like us, but actually make it accessible to the normies. They do all the compliance work to all the standards too. There is no standards of sending something to space yet. I do so much in my browser these days, things I had to have 15 applications for back in the ie days.
    • astrobe_ 2y ago
      You still have 15 applications, it's just that now they appear as tabs in your browser - which is actually a virtual machine in disguise. I see the news in the front page of HN: Edge, Firefox, Ladybird. The problems with privacy, funding, etc. will remain as long as one refuses to do an "AT&T" on the Web, that is delegate the non-essential browser functions (text, image display) to other applications (e.g. VLC for video, audio). With a strong emphasis on banning remote code execution (JS), the father of all evils. It may be convenient to call a coworker from Teams in your browser, but it is not a sane way to do it because we end up to where we are now: browser oligopoly. Convenience can be a trap; scammers and phishing use it all the time by including "direct" links. People are told again and again to know better and use their bookmarks instead.
• applestone 2y ago
  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.
  • master-lincoln 2y ago
    Where is the connection? A browser is a software that accesses and renders the output of services. A search engine is a web service. Totally unrelated. That is like saying it would be cool if they had their own ice cream truck...
    • warkdarrior 2y ago
      I'd pay for a browser that came with its own ice cream truck. Don't care for a browser with a search engine.
• torginus 2y ago
  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. Does this have a CanIUse equivalent?
  • askonomm 2y ago
    It's fairly easy to compile and give it a spin to try stuff out. It'll log to terminal everything it does/doesn't do, including things it does not support. You can also then go to https://html5test.co/ https://html5test.co/ to see a bunch of stuff with relative ease.
  • zzo38computer 2y ago
    Can extensions to be used for implementing those (and other) features? I think that they should be implemented as extensions, that they can then be replaced with other implementations (or disabled entirely).
• samiv 2y ago
  I applaud the effort but seriously though I just wonder... 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. I can only conclude that: 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. 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? Or maybe the answer really is C thus making this a toy/hobby project? One could of course then hope that the answer is b) but somehow I don't feel like it is.
  • swiftcoder 2y ago
    The answer is probably some combination of all 3. The modern web is indeed insanely complicated, Chromium is a massive enterprise project with all the resulting inefficiencies one would expect, and a competing web browser should likely aim to support the 90% use-case and ignore a large fraction of the total complexity in the process.
  • jcelerier 2y ago
    Note that chrome's codebase loc count contains some huge third-party libraries such as ffmpeg - pretty sure a lot of it is unused.
    • cmrdporcupine 2y ago
      Chromium also includes things like a complete PDF renderer, etc. I used to work a bit in that codebase, but I don't recall the core "blink" renderer portion being at all the largest part of the codebase.
  • gawa 2y ago
    Regarding A, I found this blogpost from 2020 interesting to get some sense of scale : https://drewdevault.com/2020/03/18/Reckless-limitless-scope.html https://drewdevault.com/2020/03/18/Reckless-limitless-scope.... As for C, the "suitable" subset really depends what we expect from a browser. In my experience, I was forced to use a Chrome based browser only for work, because mostly for google web apps (Google Cloud and Google Meet come to mind). For browsing the small web, I'm sure smaller browsers can work well. I tried some, but was usually put off because of the lack of adblockers, and I also quickly miss the element picker zapper feature of the ublock origin extension.
• wolvesechoes 2y ago
  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. But I do not have much hope.
  • pjmlp 2y ago
    GPL is all about politics, that is Richard Stallman's background regarding his world view and how it applies to computing. All other FOSS licenses are only a rebranding of Public Domain and Shareware variants that we used to have, with the respective commercial value when used as carrot for commercial products.
    • wolvesechoes 2y ago
      Yes, Stallman and his generation was more aware of this reality, yet we are losing it. It is similar across all dimensions of the society, where younger folk take for granted what was gained only after long struggle, as a result losing it, bit by bit.
    • ChocolateGod 2y ago
      > GPL is all about politics People use this excuse to make open source software about politics that has nothing to do with software, ownership etc.
      • pjmlp 2y ago
        It is no excuse, it is literally Richard Stallman's view on the four user freedoms, how to enforce them legally, and naturally all of those that agree with his point of view. Note that all the hobby stuff I have on Github created by myself, unless forced by existing licenses, are GPL based. Even though I am not into FOSS politics, I once were, that time is long gone.
        • cmrdporcupine 2y ago
• globular-toast 2y ago
  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.
• nonelog 2y ago
  How is it financed?
  • roxolotl 2y ago
    Nonprofit[0] supported by sponsors[1] 0: https://ladybird.org/posts/announcement/ https://ladybird.org/posts/announcement/ 1: https://ladybird.org/#sponsors https://ladybird.org/#sponsors
• sylware 2y ago
  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). There is no independence at being dependent on the same ultra complex SDK.
  • TinkersW 2y ago
    I scanned through it, and it is actually pretty easy to read C++. Though they could use to learn what comments are.
    • sylware 2y ago
      You missed the point: c++ _is_ the issue (and usually similar language).
      • account42 2y ago
        You could go show the world that your favorite language is better by writing a browser in it instead of complaining about the work others are doing.
• pkphilip 2y ago
  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.
  • master-lincoln 2y ago
    Adoption is not wanted yet. This is pre-alpha stage software that is not ready for end users
• glitcher 2y ago
  Good timing with these other HN entries on the front page: Mozilla deletes promise to never sell Firefox data Microsoft begins turning off uBlock Origin and other extensions in Edge Looks like it will be an alternate browser kinda day in the top stories...
  • warkdarrior 2y ago
    It does not seem like Ladybird supports uBlock Origin, at least I cannot find any references. Does it?
    • BizarroLand 2y ago
      the browser is in pre-alpha, so it's not that it doesn't support it, it's that the groundwork hasn't been laid yet. Give it time
      • PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
        aka "no, it doesn't support it yet"
• exabrial 2y ago
  Can we have a "Disable Javascript" in the developer menu, pretty pretty please? Safari had this and some ding dong took it away.
• butlike 2y ago
  everyone using a lissajous curve for their logos nowadays; who's going to be the first to sue everyone else?