13 ms·

Cloudflare is sponsoring Ladybird and Omarchy

776 points by jgrahamc 1y ago

nerpderp82 1y ago
How about Cloudflare stops penalizing non-chrome browsers with elevated rates of bot checks and captchas?
- acdha 1y ago
  They don’t penalize browsers for not being Chrome – Safari users almost never see those, because their devices support a protocol for attesting real hardware with a real user, in what is hopefully a privacy-preserving manner: https://blog.cloudflare.com/eliminating-captchas-on-iphones-and-macs-using-new-standard/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/eliminating-captchas-on-iphones-... That’s the underlying problem here: web sites are constantly getting suspicious traffic and if you do something like using Tor or a “free” VPN, the owners of those sites are probably going to ask companies like Cloudflare to validate or block you rather than try to tell whether you’re a bot. Anyone concerned with privacy really needs to be focused on that problem because most site owners care more about not going broke than supporting browsers or privacy tools which few of their customers use. It’s destroying the open web.
  - nerpderp82 1y ago
    So you are saying they don't penalize browser from not being Chrome and then link to a specific mechanism that they are allow listing Safari. That goes directly counter to what you are claiming. I have seen it myself, from my own system. Firefox, almost impossible to use the web due to non-stop bot checks by CF. For the same session, same site(s), I give up and use Chrome, with all the same browser extensions, and I sail right in. Multiple times. Suspicious traffic is using Firefox, because Chrome browsers are 90%+ of the traffic. And the rich mac users have a special mechanism for bypassing them as your article outlines. Using Firefox is the internet equivalent of DWB.
    - lkbm 1y ago
      Firefox on macOS is fine. I've been using it as my primary browser for years. I consistently get captchas on archive.is (and just verified I also do on Brave), but rarely see it elsewhere. I don't know the cause of what you're seeing, but it's not simply Firefox.
      - doublerabbit 1y ago
        I get them with Firefox on FreeBSD. Chromium on FreeBSD less so.
    - acdha 1y ago
      > Firefox, almost impossible to use the web due to non-stop bot checks by CF. For the same session, same site(s), I give up and use Chrome, with all the same browser extensions, and I sail right in. This is very much not my experience. I don't know if you use a VPN or have a ton of extensions but if I was hitting that so hard I'd consider trying a clean profile with no extensions and adding things back in to see if you can find the trigger condition.
    - esperent 1y ago
      Firefox on Ubuntu here. I switched over the past couple of months from using Chrome on Windows. I see exactly the same amount of security checks, as far as I can tell.
karussell 1y ago
It is late here so maybe I missed it in the article ... but what exactly do they mean with support for Ladybird? Giving them free coffee or developers or money? If yes, how much?
- alabhyajindal 1y ago
  Cloudflare is listed as a Platinum sponsor on the Ladybird website (https://ladybird.org https://ladybird.org). Also from their website: What are the sponsor tiers? Platinum USD $100,000 Gold USD $50,000 Silver USD $10,000 Bronze USD $5,000 Copper USD $1,000 (no logo, text only) Sponsorships run for one year, then you are welcome to renew.
xaxaxa123 1y ago
Isnt cloudflare NSA/CIA? lol
DC-3 1y ago
Glad to see them sponsoring struggling indie developers like DHH.
- youngtaff 1y ago
  You forgot the /s
  - DC-3 1y ago
    I wasn't being sarcastic? I heard they're making a new Koenigsegg and I'm genuinely concerned that without corporate sponsorship it might be out of his price range.
  - moralestapia 1y ago
    You forgot you're not on Reddit.
pizlonator 1y ago
Refreshing to see a big corpo support these cool projects!
dingdingdang 1y ago
Honestly nice move on CF's part, have to say; there's more real energy moving in the open source world since Lunduke started commenting.
ForHackernews 1y ago
Ladybird is great, but Omarchy is a weird choice. Why can't DHH / Basecamp sponsor David's hobby distro if he wants? The browser ecosystem is dangerously centralized and another independent rendering engine would be welcome. In contrast, I don't see the value in yet another flavor-of-the-week Linux distro. Even sponsoring Arch directly would make more sense here.
- indigodaddy 1y ago
  Also isn't it just a script to install some stuff and customize
  - EricRiese 1y ago
    That's what I thought but I just checked and 3.0.0 was released 5 days ago and it has an ISO.
  - ericd 1y ago
    I think the last mile polish has always been a big weakness of the oss ecosystem (on average), so this kind of integration into a nice package is important work, I think. Personally, I’m really enjoying Omarchy.
  - draven 1y ago
    omakub (https://omakub.org/ https://omakub.org/) is/was (for Ubuntu), this looks more like a "real" Arch derivative.
  - nomdep 1y ago
    Like Dropbox was "just an sftp server"
    - arrowtrench 1y ago
      Managing servers that store terabytes of data for you isn't exactly the same as configuring and stitching Linux programs together.
SubGenius 1y ago
Great to see CF sponsoring Ladybird! One of the most important projects out there right now. I run vanilla arch/i3, so not super interested in Omarchy itself - but am curious to know how polished of a distro they can come up with. I may give it a try soon.
- Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
  I was running hyprland with my own dotfiles and using omarchy was quite painless except the only gripe I had were quickly fixed and the other gripe that I have is that it doesn't have nm-applet manager to manage wifi etc. and has a terminal. So it turned out that my wifi adapter wasn't connected properly and I was giving a test and submission date was near and the wifi had died mid way and I couldn't connect to other wifi because I felt as if the terminal wasn't working and not the adapter... Definitely give me a bit of a pain. really wish that they can use nm-applet as well... Optionally support terminal wifi too but definitely give atleast an option to get gui wifi. Also I feel like omarchy focused quite much on bash and I used to use zsh with my custom dot filess which were really lovely. I had semi invented fish in zsh but it was my zsh and it was snappy. Now I tried to have one ble.sh in bash and it stutters like it turned 80 lol. I definitely love zsh over bash and wish omarchy supported that too... Luckily I have everything backed up so I will try to move away from bash I think, One thing that I like is that omarchy has its own aur-ish thing where I found things like bun which isn't arch extra and aur definitely felt clunky. Using the omarchy repo to install bun was kinda nice actually. I gave it a try because my system was bloated and I hadn't configured it properly in teh sense that my 100 gig was split into 40 40 and 8 swap and uh that 40 of home really got bloated somehow and I couldn't even update my pc using pacman and felt like a massive deal actually. So I just actually picked my dotfiles and moved on. Might recommend it, it seems that omarchy also has backup support using btrfs by default which I didn't have in my ext4 arch
- pkulak 1y ago
  I think it's pretty cool that I have something I can send to someone who uses a macbook and wants to try out linux. I use a custom Nix config that I've built up over the last 5 years; it's not exactly something I can recommend. I currently recommend Bluefin... but this might be good for an _even_ easier (though less stable) setup, that has all the tiling bling.
jmclnx 1y ago
My big question about Ladybird, will it support BSD also ? >Ladybird has since grown into a cross-platform browser supporting Linux, macOS, and other Unix-like systems Cool, seems it will support BSD, hopefully that sticks with this new funding.
ForHackernews 1y ago
> Omarchy 3.0 was released just last week with faster installation and increased Macbook compatibility, so if you’ve been Linux-curious for a while now, we encourage you to try it out! "If you're curious about trying Linux, why not install this obscure mouseless tiling TUI distro to guarantee you'll never attempt to use Linux again!"
- troupo 1y ago
  I use the mouse in Omarchy all the time. And I've used Macs since 2008 (and it's still my main work computer)
- quibono 1y ago
  Not mouseless or obscure but it definitely is a distro Granted, it does have a TUI focus
  - ForHackernews 1y ago
    > 310 FydeOS > 311 Omarchy > 312 Adélie https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity 311th is plenty obscure in my book.
    - articsputnik 1y ago
      Omarchy just got added to Distro watch. Ranking currently #10 on the last 7 days.
    - pmdr 1y ago
      Isn't their ranking based on how many hits their respective pages get? Omarchy hype is happening on social media for the most part.
    - erichocean 1y ago
      I, too, only look at position and not velocity or acceleration.
- TiredOfLife 1y ago
flykespice 1y ago
I'm curious what makes LadyBird so special compared to other major browsers like Firefox and Chromium?
- johannes1234321 1y ago
  It's not financed by Google.
- afandian 1y ago
  It's famously impossible to donate money to Firefox (at least for users).
  - voxic11 1y ago
    By this you mean that donations can only go to Mozilla and cannot be earmarked for the Firefox browser specifically right?
    - afandian 1y ago
      Yes. You can donate to the foundation but not only do they prevent earmarking, they actively don't use it for browser development. I even mailed them back in June to confirm. They replied: ... > When you donate to the Mozilla Foundation, your contribution goes directly toward advancing our mission to ensure the internet remains open and accessible for all. Our work focuses on issues like online privacy, open-source technologies, worthy AI and a digital world that puts people first. These funds directly support advocacy campaigns (i.e. asking irresponsible tech companies to protect your privacy), Mozilla’s fellowship program, MozFest gatherings, Common Voice, Responsible Computing Challenge, and so much more. > However, it’s important to note that donations to Mozilla Foundation do not support the development of Firefox or any other Mozilla products. > While we are a public-benefit 501(c)(3) organization under US law and the parent organization for the corporate entities that own Firefox, donations do not fund the Firefox browser and revenue is completely generated from within the product itself. ...
  - delfinom 1y ago
    Why even donate to a business that keeps paying their CEO more and more while laying off employees?
ksec 1y ago
May be one day Ladybird will be the default on Omarchy. And on a fast system with fast USB you could install Omarchy in under 2 minute. Someday I hope Omarchu becomes the standard way to develop Ruby Rails on, just like how Ruby Rails was always on macOS and not Windows.
breakingcups 1y ago
Cool to see Ladybird get some corporate love. I wish Firefox got more varied sponsoring from multiple sources, too.
- rvz 1y ago
  > I wish Firefox got more varied sponsoring from multiple sources, too. Mozilla promised that decacdes ago and yet they are still stuck with Google's money.
- diath 1y ago
  The problem with Firefox is that the money has to go through Mozilla, and Mozilla is not spending most of that money on Firefox. You cannot sponsor the development of Firefox directly, so your money ends up being wasted.
  - cosmic_cheese 1y ago
    Firefox/Gecko also just can’t be as relevant as a Chrome/Blink competitor since Gecko doesn’t support embedding on desktop operating systems, which precludes things like Electron-style wrapping and hybrid apps. It’s a fatal flaw that Mozilla doesn’t seem to have any interest in addressing.
    - bigyabai 1y ago
      There is nothing wrong with using CEF/Electron for some apps and then browser-based Firefox clients for the other ones.
      - cosmic_cheese 1y ago
        Big names like Slack and Spotify can’t choose to use a Gecko-based Electron/CEF alternative though, which limits its potential impact.
    - 0x000xca0xfe 1y ago
      Maybe that's why Servo got the boot?
oefrha 1y ago
I’m skeptical. Cloudflare clearly wants to move us to a future where only approved browsers are allowed to access the web. People have been fiercely debating whether that’s a terrible thing, or whether that’s the least bad practical solution on offer for website owners. I don’t want to make a judgement on that, but I don’t think the observation that CF is pushing us in that direction is very controversial. But an independent open source web browser is obviously against that ethos. So what’s the play here exactly? Just for goodwill? (Regardless of motivation, they’re lending more support than most other companies, so it’s applaudable nonetheless.)
- imcritic 1y ago
  How do you call someone who has been doing evil things suddenly do one good thing?
  - jsheard 1y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reputation_laundering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reputation_laundering
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
- throwaway1777 1y ago
  [dead]
- MarsIronPI 1y ago
  By your argument, this could still be interpreted as Cloudflare approving Ladybird. I don't see how indie genuine browsers (i.e. not bots) are "against the ethos" of restricting the web to approved browsers only.
  - oefrha 1y ago
    "Approved browser" in this context have technical restrictions on user freedom, e.g. https://developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/reference/cryptographic-personhood/ https://developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/reference/cry... I'm not talking about someone at CF just adding a random browser to an approved list. More empirically speaking, a browser can't be considered approved if you can freely fork it and not revoke the approved status.
gigatexal 1y ago
not sure - if I were holding the CF purse strings I'd give any money to DHH or his endeavors but I do think the folks over at Ladybird are doing some awesome things wrt to the browser.
SoKamil 1y ago
This sponsorship is very important for the project. Not for financial reasons, but because it gathered recognition from the company that creates much of the critical infrastructure and bot protection services. Without this recognition, the engine could have been blocked by impassable CAPTCHAs, which for the end user would mean the project is dead at its roots.
- minton 1y ago
  Maybe one company should not be able to decide which browsers we are allowed to use.
  - SoKamil 1y ago
    I agree with you. But that’s the reality we have to deal with.
    - nkotov 1y ago
      No we don't. We're accepting it as if it's our only option.
      - WhyNotHugo 1y ago
        What’s the other option?
        l___l 1y ago
        Consumers can pay for Ladybird themselves. A culture that encourages rewarding creators for their work.
        mr90210 1y ago
        Sure, as long as consumers are not forced to update which will justify a subscription model.
      - 1y ago
femiagbabiaka 1y ago
I cannot for the life of me understand the Omarchy hype. The Linux community has been theming their distribution installs for decades. What distinguishes this from that?
- rs_rs_rs_rs_rs 1y ago
  >What distinguishes this from that? More eyes on it, DHH has a big following.
  - leoc 1y ago
    Also, there's always been a section of the desktop-Linux user community which is inclined to get very excited about about hypebeast window managers. Back in the day Slashdot was absolutely buzzing about Enlightenment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_(window_manager) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_(window_manager) .
- nixosbestos 1y ago
  Dude, if you ever find out, let me know. I don't get it, and it makes me incredibly skeptical of people that acted like Linux was unusable until this god-send of a shipped default config came around. I cannot possibly roll my eyes harder. Just goes to show how much hype accounts for, still, even in nerd circles.
- Avicebron 1y ago
  Omarchy is DHH of rails fame. Lots of us like ruby a lot (myself very much included), that being said I've got Omarchy running on a vm as a test case and in the <2 minutes I've looked at it i dont really think it's very intuitive.
  - sonar_un 1y ago
    I spent 2 days trying to get it to run in a VM and it was not playing well. So I just gave it up.
- ilogik 1y ago
rs186 1y ago
The post does not mention how much money they are giving. Maybe I am a pessimist, but unless the number is in tens of millions or hundreds of millions (very unlikely), I don't think it helps the development of an independent browser very much. Google probably has poured over billions of dollars into Chrome development over the years, and if you look at what Chrome supports, it's massive. I seriously doubt anybody else can match their feature set, not to mention involvement in drafting the latest standards.
- 9cb14c1ec0 1y ago
  Go look at what the Ladybird project has accomplished with much fewer resources. Ladybird will soon be as good as Firefox.
  - tracker1 1y ago
    For relative definitions of "soon" and depending on the feature you use. I'd say it's probably 2 years or so away from being a real competitive option to FF/Chrome.
- zarzavat 1y ago
  LuaJIT was developed by one person. Ladybird doesn't need hundreds of millions of dollars, it needs interpreter specialists who are willing to lend their time to the project, and an army of volunteers to work on the rest of the rendering engine.
  - nurbel 1y ago
    why do you think the js interpreter is that special compared to all the rest? AFAIU, CSS is a much more complex beast, as the spec has not been written to reflect the way it could be implemented
    - zarzavat 1y ago
      Writing JS JITs is a specialized skill that requires a deep knowledge of compilers, JavaScript, and CPU architectures. CSS is complicated but it's not as complex. It's just a matter of throwing enough sufficiently competent developers at the problem. Ladybird doesn't even have a JIT right now. They used to, but it got taken out because as best as I can tell, nobody on the project knows how to write one.
MitPitt 1y ago
These 2 projects are so different in complexity. Ladybird is a foundational ground-up browser, meanwhile Omarchy is just an opinionated arch setup. I wonder why they were both mentioned in one article.
- leoc 1y ago
  I think it’s likely the politics, I’m afraid: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45334359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45334359
- hakunin 1y ago
  For one, I don't think complexity is determinative of impact. At least I hope not, otherwise my startup ideas are all DOA. For two, Omarchy is becoming more complex as more maintainers come in to write way more automation. You can kind of foresee where this is going: an Arch wrapper slowly growing into effectively a separate OS that's pushing other software to accommodate its choices. (See getting chromium to support live theme reloading, trying to get Fortnight to support Linux, etc). IOW, Ladybird has depth, Omarchy has breadth.
sylens 1y ago
The momentum that Omarchy seems to have is impressive. I wonder if a tighter collaboration with Framework is in the cards, especially with their founder and CEO submitting pull requests to the project[1]. [1] https://github.com/basecamp/omarchy/pull/1368 https://github.com/basecamp/omarchy/pull/1368
shafyy 1y ago
[flagged]
jwhiles 1y ago
hmm. Increasingly it feels like I shouldn't be using cloudflare.
- odie5533 1y ago
  I too hate when companies sponsor open source projects.
  - jwhiles 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - pmdr 1y ago
      > Not someone you publicly associate your organisation with him unless you want to send a certain message. ... that you like Linux, Rails and despise Apple?
      - jwhiles 1y ago
        Your interpretation of my comment, though I guess intended as a joke, can only really mean two things: 1. You are unaware of DHH’s more recent favoured topics 2. You don’t think there is a problem with DHH’s opinions Either is fine, I don’t really care. The issue for me is that Cloudflare’s PR team obviously are aware what DHH writes about. And they’re sponsoring his project anyway. Cloudflare knows that this is repellant to a lot of people, that some of us will begin removing them from our stacks in response. But they don’t care, because they think it’s more valuable to cosy up to a bunch of mid life crises who’ve spent too much time on twitter.
        pmdr 1y ago
        I've always met his non-tech posts with an eye-roll after at most skimming through them. > 1. You are unaware of DHH’s more recent favoured topics No, apparently I wasn't fully updated. Looks likes he's turned it up a notch or two. > 2. You don’t think there is a problem with DHH’s opinions Tech-related ones I agree with. Political ones, I mostly don't. Now should he be censored or 'canceled' for his opinions? I don't think so. Criticized? Absolutely. His once wrote on his blog that politics should stay out of tech. I think he's beginning to break away from that, and even though he's not explicitly tying his views to his products as far as I can see, he risks undoing all the good work.
gsibble 1y ago
I don't use it myself since I'm a long time Linux user, but I'm a big fan of Omarchy brining Linux to the masses. This is great that Cloudflare is sponsoring it!
account42 1y ago
> Supporting the future of the open web This really is some orwellian language coming from Cloudflare.
icar 1y ago
I'm well into the Linux world and have been for years. I've never heard of Omarchy. Do they also sponsor the same way projects that are the basis of Arch Linux, for example? I'm thinking about pacman, infra, etc.
- Perz1val 1y ago
  It's a very new "distro". DHH (that ruby on rails guy) shared it like 3 months ago as a distribution of his configs, then it grew rapidly. https://youtu.be/I5Mnni7cea8 https://youtu.be/I5Mnni7cea8
captainepoch 1y ago
Ladybird is doomed with this.
pkulak 1y ago
Why is it that Servo has been around for ages, chugging along, making progress, and then Ladybird comes along and gets, pretty much instantly, anointed as the last great hope against Chrome? What does everyone else know about Servo that I don't?
- sauercrowd 1y ago
  I can think of two reasons - it's a browser engine, not a browser - it was created and maintained for the longest time by mozilla, before the linux foundation took over a couple years ago. That creates history and governance that I could image puts of contributors or the broader excitement
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- veeti 1y ago
  I think if you look at old threads there was a lot of hype and similar high hopes for Servo back in the days, but Mozilla never positioned it as a new browser, only a testbed for parts to integrate into Firefox.
- okanat 1y ago
  Servo was a side-project. Mozilla laid off the Servo team. Its development then stopped. It eventually found a home in Linux Foundation but it lost the initial acceleration. It lost the ambition. Many key developers moved on. Whatever nature your project is, closed or open source, when you lose key people and stop training new ones, the project slowly dies. People matter much much more than the license or the parent organization. Ladybird didn't lose its initial speed. There is a leader with strong vision. There is no shenanigans from half-assed management. There is clear and responsible funding. It attracts similarly ambitious people. All of that ends up with visible and real progress.
  - pkulak 1y ago
    I've actually been watching all the Ladybird update videos (because I'm absolutely giddy at the prospect of a new, open-source browser engine), and they compare their test passing numbers to other browsers, including Servo. And from their own slides, Servo is behind them, but not by much, and making progress at about the same rate. Maybe that says it all, considering how much of a head start Servo had, but Servo also took a very long... break, as you said.
pmdr 1y ago
ITT: some of you would rather see Omarchy fail and thus Linux desktop adoption slowed down because you don't agree with DHH's 'controversial' political views. Guess we'll have to keep waiting for someone with a 'clean' record to show up and promote Linux.
- hshshshshsh 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - micaleel 1y ago
    This is the only situation where I'd fault the messenger and discard the message. DHH has been a huge turn-off for me since I discovered his ideology. Omarchy is not for me.
- maleldil 1y ago
  > someone with a 'clean' record Just don't be a fascist. We're not asking for much here.
hshshshshsh 1y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- tibbydudeza 1y ago
  I never thought he of all people would go there !!! Yes Britian is changing -like the US will be where minorities will outnumber the white population - I am a minority living in a black country, the same one where Elon was born and really it is not as scary :). Totally irrational fear - they need to think seriously about themselves.
- resize2996 1y ago
  Posted elsewhere in this thread, it appears that ladybird does not have a great record in this dept. https://hyperborea.org/reviews/software/ladybird-inclusivity/ https://hyperborea.org/reviews/software/ladybird-inclusivity...
  - globular-toast 1y ago
    Wow, ok, now I'm actually quite interested in Ladybird seeing that they're actually serious and focused on their goal. Wish I could say the same for Mozilla. Been using Firefox for decades but can only imagine how much better it would be if the resources were allocated properly.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
lukaslalinsky 1y ago
I really wish the open source projects that actually have meaningful impact on the whole industry were target of sponsorship, not the ones with good marketing, but I know how hard that is to achieve. Taking money from someone is unfortunately complicated in this society. In many cases it's easier not to even ask for sponsorship, unless you are willing to deal with the bureaucracy. Ladybird is at least fighting for diversity, but I don't see the added value of Omarchy.
- TiredOfLife 1y ago
  Archlinux refused the sponsorship
  - boomboomsubban 1y ago
    Source?
    - TiredOfLife 1y ago
      A month ago Arch came under ddos attack. DHH and others were offering to either pay for or get Cloudflare to sponsor antiddos protection for Arch. Instead of accepting the offers or even saying why they won't various Arch services were down for almost a month. Then Arch published https://archlinux.org/news/recent-services-outages/ https://archlinux.org/news/recent-services-outages/ essentially saying that they are seeking ideologically pure service
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      - altfredd 1y ago
        Arch (and most FOSS Linux distributions) are highly resistant to ddos attacks. Good luck trying to ddos their mirrors and mailing lists.
        TiredOfLife 1y ago
rkapsoro 1y ago
Timely sponsorship, downloading the Omarchy 3 ISO last week sat at about 600 KiB/s. Appreciated!
nextworddev 1y ago
Browser war is probably going to be won by one of Google or Openai, and $net is late to the party
observationist 1y ago
Embrace, extend, extinguish.
pelasaco 1y ago
so crazy to think that 2025 will be finally the "Year of the Linux Desktop (TM)" and it's all DHH fault! love it <3
- pelasaco 1y ago
  people downvoting is fine. Omarchy is great. Worked 12 years for a Linux Distro and they were never able to achieve what he did in months (on top of Arch for sure).
sylware 1y ago
It should sponsor an attempt at making the netsurf browser libs handle javascript with quickjs. They are C, namely bringing something really significantly new: you could build a web engine with a simple C compiler.
xenelor 1y ago
The hype around Omarchy is just insane.. It is not an installer script (anymore), so instead you have to download a 7GB ISO file (in the name of 'good UX') that ships with Zoom, Spotify, Hey, Basecamp, Steam, Minecraft (??), etc. but you still end up using the same package mirrors (arch's). If it was an install script, like LARBS or many others (before and after omarchy), I'd (almost) get it. If it was a derivative distro, like endeavour or manjaro, I'd (almost) get it. But this just makes no sense. I'm all for making Linux more accessible, but this ain't it, chief.
- cal85 1y ago
  7 gigabytes? With a “G”? That must take 10s of seconds, minutes even. And for what, a ‘good experience’? Humans make no sense to me either.
  - dmix 1y ago
    People online will always find some angle to complain about things other people are enjoying.
  - xenelor 1y ago
    "This is a 7GB ISO that includes the entire system for offline installation (just 1/10th the size of macOS!)." This is literally from Omarchy's release notes. How is it a problem if I make a comparison but it's ok when DHH does it :) Anyhow, you do you.
  - Sammi 1y ago
    I feel like quoting that classic hn comment reaction to the release of Dropbox. Why do we need this good experience? We already have ftp!
    - latexr 1y ago
      > I feel like quoting that classic hn comment reaction to the release of Dropbox. You mean the one where the commenter was respectful and helpful and had a productive conversation, just like HN encourages? Every time you mention that comment in a bad light, you worsen dang’s day. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27068148 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27068148
osigurdson 1y ago
I haven't tried Omarchy but based on DHH videos, while I like the idea, I'd say it is a little too opinionated - including random stuff that DHH likes / uses on a day-to-day basis and by his employees. It also kind of begs the question, how deep in the "supply chain" should support go. Maybe if the Hyprland folks got a bit more sponsorship the setup would be easy. The same goes for Arch itself (though I do think some of the "squirrel catchers" are there on purpose).
iooi 1y ago
Google started out by sponsoring Firefox, then hired many of their key developers to build Chrome. Cloudflare is likely doing the same thing, they know that strategically they depend too much on Google for the browser. This will get their foot in the door without making a large commitment. If the project goes well, it will be absorbed into Cloudflare in a few years.
gethly 1y ago
Keep in mind that cloudflare is essentially a MITM "totally not created and backed by any spy agency that might come to mind" free service that lives off of few large clients but otherwise offers their services essentially for free because they are just a good company that wants to help people with DDOS and CDN and .... Cloudflare is to online communication what Facebook is to personal identity.
lordofgibbons 1y ago
Maybe a stupid question but: given the massive vulnerability surface area that a browser presents, why would one choose to build it in C++ instead of something memory and concurrency safe like Rust? I know Rust doesn't automatically make the software safe, but it does rule out a very large % of the exploitable vulnerabilities allowed by unsafe languages like C and C++.
- npalli 1y ago
  Who knows, maybe they cared about shipping a working product and not spend all their time fighting the borrow checker and harassing everyone else about memory safety. See Servo for ex.
- wojtek1942 1y ago
  Why build a new browser in C++ when safer and more modern languages are available? [1] > 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. [1] https://ladybird.org/#faq:~:text=Why%20build%20a%20new%20browser%20in%20C++%20when%20safer%20and%20more%20modern%20languages%20are%20available https://ladybird.org/#faq:~:text=Why%20build%20a%20new%20bro...?
  - QuantumNoodle 1y ago
    Wow! This is great news. While no language can make JS interpretation more safe, I am just happy to hear the the codebase will be in something other than C++. Having started my career with C++, I've enjoyed almost every other language more. The issue I had was I didn't _want_ to touch C++ so it is unlikely I would've contributed. But when Swift makes up more of the codebase, I might go and look around.
ggm 1y ago
Not to disrespect omarchy intent, but if you want provably safe OS, is there not a more reduced surface yet, such as .. dare I say it nix? If that kind of reductionism is too far, how about Alpine?
blinkingled 1y ago
I am happy for a new browser/engine but I'm highly skeptical that Ladybird will ever come close to Chrome or Firefox in terms of features, compatibility and performance. It's just very hard to imagine. There's servo and look at where it is after 13 years! No offense to anyone really but browser engines are inhumane amount of talent and effort. Might as well just keep making Firefox better.
- jm4 1y ago
  The problem with Firefox is Mozilla. That’s also a common thread with Servo. Maybe Servo will get better now that it doesn’t have that baggage anymore. If we’re going to have a chromium alternative, it won’t be anything from Mozilla.
- krmboya 1y ago
  Firefox doubled down on using/selling user data for advertising purposes, so that's a big reason for avoiding it. I held onto it as someone who didn't even like the politics of the people behind it (the beauty of open source), for the sake of browser engine diversity, but changing terms of service of use of personal data was the final blow
  - john01dav 1y ago
    It seems irrational to me to switch to chrome (and where else could you switch to?) over data sale concerns. A more rational approach could be a Firefox fork that preserves privacy.
    - krmboya 1y ago
      Privacy is a big deal for many, especially if you grew up before the age of telemetry everywhere. For now, a privacy preserving chromium fork will do, until hopefully the Ladybird project is mature enough to provide alternatives
      - john01dav 1y ago
        Why a chromium fork over a Firefox fork? Both preserve privacy
sidcool 1y ago
Good karma
sebstefan 1y ago
>Will Ladybird work on Windows? >We don't have anyone actively working on Windows support, and there are considerable changes required to make it work well outside a Unix-like environment. >We would like to do Windows eventually, but it's not a priority at the moment. What's the user share again? 70% of desktop users?
- akimbostrawman 1y ago
  What is the state of the project again? Alpha status?
  - sebstefan 1y ago
    Yeah, and it supports Mac, with the worst compilation experience on the market and 10% of the userbase. Starting support for another OS this late in the project is going to be a nightmare, it's insane to do it for Windows last.
M95D 1y ago
But why would anyone use Omarchy (based on Arch) and not use Gentoo directly? Not a separate project based on Gentoo, but a Gentoo Reference System [1]? Gentoo already has all dev tools installed - they're an indispensable part of the package manager. [1] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:RelEng_GRS https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:RelEng_GRS
- SahAssar 1y ago
  Why bring up Gentoo at all?
  - M95D 1y ago
    Because > Gentoo already has all dev tools installed
jojomodding 1y ago
I wish they would fund Mozilla (or Firefox) instead of creating yet another browser. Clawing Firefox out of the hole that Mozilla and its dependency on Google have dug for it would be a true service to humanity. Replacing it by yet another browser only causes churn and standard proliferation.
slimebot80 1y ago
DHH seems to be driven by bitterness at Apple charging for inclusion in their walled garden. Fair enough, his choice. Interesting he includes his paid email service bundled in Omarchy.

776 points by jgrahamc 1y ago

nerpderp82 1y ago

How about Cloudflare stops penalizing non-chrome browsers with elevated rates of bot checks and captchas?

acdha 1y ago
They don’t penalize browsers for not being Chrome – Safari users almost never see those, because their devices support a protocol for attesting real hardware with a real user, in what is hopefully a privacy-preserving manner: https://blog.cloudflare.com/eliminating-captchas-on-iphones-and-macs-using-new-standard/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/eliminating-captchas-on-iphones-... That’s the underlying problem here: web sites are constantly getting suspicious traffic and if you do something like using Tor or a “free” VPN, the owners of those sites are probably going to ask companies like Cloudflare to validate or block you rather than try to tell whether you’re a bot. Anyone concerned with privacy really needs to be focused on that problem because most site owners care more about not going broke than supporting browsers or privacy tools which few of their customers use. It’s destroying the open web.
- nerpderp82 1y ago
  So you are saying they don't penalize browser from not being Chrome and then link to a specific mechanism that they are allow listing Safari. That goes directly counter to what you are claiming. I have seen it myself, from my own system. Firefox, almost impossible to use the web due to non-stop bot checks by CF. For the same session, same site(s), I give up and use Chrome, with all the same browser extensions, and I sail right in. Multiple times. Suspicious traffic is using Firefox, because Chrome browsers are 90%+ of the traffic. And the rich mac users have a special mechanism for bypassing them as your article outlines. Using Firefox is the internet equivalent of DWB.
  - lkbm 1y ago
    Firefox on macOS is fine. I've been using it as my primary browser for years. I consistently get captchas on archive.is (and just verified I also do on Brave), but rarely see it elsewhere. I don't know the cause of what you're seeing, but it's not simply Firefox.
    - doublerabbit 1y ago
      I get them with Firefox on FreeBSD. Chromium on FreeBSD less so.
  - acdha 1y ago
    > Firefox, almost impossible to use the web due to non-stop bot checks by CF. For the same session, same site(s), I give up and use Chrome, with all the same browser extensions, and I sail right in. This is very much not my experience. I don't know if you use a VPN or have a ton of extensions but if I was hitting that so hard I'd consider trying a clean profile with no extensions and adding things back in to see if you can find the trigger condition.
  - esperent 1y ago
    Firefox on Ubuntu here. I switched over the past couple of months from using Chrome on Windows. I see exactly the same amount of security checks, as far as I can tell.

karussell 1y ago

It is late here so maybe I missed it in the article ... but what exactly do they mean with support for Ladybird? Giving them free coffee or developers or money? If yes, how much?

alabhyajindal 1y ago
Cloudflare is listed as a Platinum sponsor on the Ladybird website (https://ladybird.org https://ladybird.org). Also from their website: What are the sponsor tiers? Platinum USD $100,000 Gold USD $50,000 Silver USD $10,000 Bronze USD $5,000 Copper USD $1,000 (no logo, text only) Sponsorships run for one year, then you are welcome to renew.

xaxaxa123 1y ago

Isnt cloudflare NSA/CIA? lol

DC-3 1y ago

Glad to see them sponsoring struggling indie developers like DHH.

youngtaff 1y ago
You forgot the /s
- DC-3 1y ago
  I wasn't being sarcastic? I heard they're making a new Koenigsegg and I'm genuinely concerned that without corporate sponsorship it might be out of his price range.
- moralestapia 1y ago
  You forgot you're not on Reddit.

pizlonator 1y ago

Refreshing to see a big corpo support these cool projects!

dingdingdang 1y ago

Honestly nice move on CF's part, have to say; there's more real energy moving in the open source world since Lunduke started commenting.

ForHackernews 1y ago

Ladybird is great, but Omarchy is a weird choice. Why can't DHH / Basecamp sponsor David's hobby distro if he wants? The browser ecosystem is dangerously centralized and another independent rendering engine would be welcome. In contrast, I don't see the value in yet another flavor-of-the-week Linux distro. Even sponsoring Arch directly would make more sense here.

indigodaddy 1y ago
Also isn't it just a script to install some stuff and customize
- EricRiese 1y ago
  That's what I thought but I just checked and 3.0.0 was released 5 days ago and it has an ISO.
- ericd 1y ago
  I think the last mile polish has always been a big weakness of the oss ecosystem (on average), so this kind of integration into a nice package is important work, I think. Personally, I’m really enjoying Omarchy.
- draven 1y ago
  omakub (https://omakub.org/ https://omakub.org/) is/was (for Ubuntu), this looks more like a "real" Arch derivative.
- nomdep 1y ago
  Like Dropbox was "just an sftp server"
  - arrowtrench 1y ago
    Managing servers that store terabytes of data for you isn't exactly the same as configuring and stitching Linux programs together.

SubGenius 1y ago

Great to see CF sponsoring Ladybird! One of the most important projects out there right now. I run vanilla arch/i3, so not super interested in Omarchy itself - but am curious to know how polished of a distro they can come up with. I may give it a try soon.

Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
I was running hyprland with my own dotfiles and using omarchy was quite painless except the only gripe I had were quickly fixed and the other gripe that I have is that it doesn't have nm-applet manager to manage wifi etc. and has a terminal. So it turned out that my wifi adapter wasn't connected properly and I was giving a test and submission date was near and the wifi had died mid way and I couldn't connect to other wifi because I felt as if the terminal wasn't working and not the adapter... Definitely give me a bit of a pain. really wish that they can use nm-applet as well... Optionally support terminal wifi too but definitely give atleast an option to get gui wifi. Also I feel like omarchy focused quite much on bash and I used to use zsh with my custom dot filess which were really lovely. I had semi invented fish in zsh but it was my zsh and it was snappy. Now I tried to have one ble.sh in bash and it stutters like it turned 80 lol. I definitely love zsh over bash and wish omarchy supported that too... Luckily I have everything backed up so I will try to move away from bash I think, One thing that I like is that omarchy has its own aur-ish thing where I found things like bun which isn't arch extra and aur definitely felt clunky. Using the omarchy repo to install bun was kinda nice actually. I gave it a try because my system was bloated and I hadn't configured it properly in teh sense that my 100 gig was split into 40 40 and 8 swap and uh that 40 of home really got bloated somehow and I couldn't even update my pc using pacman and felt like a massive deal actually. So I just actually picked my dotfiles and moved on. Might recommend it, it seems that omarchy also has backup support using btrfs by default which I didn't have in my ext4 arch
pkulak 1y ago
I think it's pretty cool that I have something I can send to someone who uses a macbook and wants to try out linux. I use a custom Nix config that I've built up over the last 5 years; it's not exactly something I can recommend. I currently recommend Bluefin... but this might be good for an _even_ easier (though less stable) setup, that has all the tiling bling.

jmclnx 1y ago

My big question about Ladybird, will it support BSD also ? >Ladybird has since grown into a cross-platform browser supporting Linux, macOS, and other Unix-like systems Cool, seems it will support BSD, hopefully that sticks with this new funding.

ForHackernews 1y ago

> Omarchy 3.0 was released just last week with faster installation and increased Macbook compatibility, so if you’ve been Linux-curious for a while now, we encourage you to try it out! "If you're curious about trying Linux, why not install this obscure mouseless tiling TUI distro to guarantee you'll never attempt to use Linux again!"

troupo 1y ago
I use the mouse in Omarchy all the time. And I've used Macs since 2008 (and it's still my main work computer)
quibono 1y ago
Not mouseless or obscure but it definitely is a distro Granted, it does have a TUI focus
- ForHackernews 1y ago
  > 310 FydeOS > 311 Omarchy > 312 Adélie https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity 311th is plenty obscure in my book.
  - articsputnik 1y ago
    Omarchy just got added to Distro watch. Ranking currently #10 on the last 7 days.
  - pmdr 1y ago
    Isn't their ranking based on how many hits their respective pages get? Omarchy hype is happening on social media for the most part.
  - erichocean 1y ago
    I, too, only look at position and not velocity or acceleration.
TiredOfLife 1y ago

flykespice 1y ago

I'm curious what makes LadyBird so special compared to other major browsers like Firefox and Chromium?

johannes1234321 1y ago
It's not financed by Google.
afandian 1y ago
It's famously impossible to donate money to Firefox (at least for users).
- voxic11 1y ago
  By this you mean that donations can only go to Mozilla and cannot be earmarked for the Firefox browser specifically right?
  - afandian 1y ago
    Yes. You can donate to the foundation but not only do they prevent earmarking, they actively don't use it for browser development. I even mailed them back in June to confirm. They replied: ... > When you donate to the Mozilla Foundation, your contribution goes directly toward advancing our mission to ensure the internet remains open and accessible for all. Our work focuses on issues like online privacy, open-source technologies, worthy AI and a digital world that puts people first. These funds directly support advocacy campaigns (i.e. asking irresponsible tech companies to protect your privacy), Mozilla’s fellowship program, MozFest gatherings, Common Voice, Responsible Computing Challenge, and so much more. > However, it’s important to note that donations to Mozilla Foundation do not support the development of Firefox or any other Mozilla products. > While we are a public-benefit 501(c)(3) organization under US law and the parent organization for the corporate entities that own Firefox, donations do not fund the Firefox browser and revenue is completely generated from within the product itself. ...
- delfinom 1y ago
  Why even donate to a business that keeps paying their CEO more and more while laying off employees?

ksec 1y ago

May be one day Ladybird will be the default on Omarchy. And on a fast system with fast USB you could install Omarchy in under 2 minute. Someday I hope Omarchu becomes the standard way to develop Ruby Rails on, just like how Ruby Rails was always on macOS and not Windows.

breakingcups 1y ago

Cool to see Ladybird get some corporate love. I wish Firefox got more varied sponsoring from multiple sources, too.

rvz 1y ago
> I wish Firefox got more varied sponsoring from multiple sources, too. Mozilla promised that decacdes ago and yet they are still stuck with Google's money.
diath 1y ago
The problem with Firefox is that the money has to go through Mozilla, and Mozilla is not spending most of that money on Firefox. You cannot sponsor the development of Firefox directly, so your money ends up being wasted.
- cosmic_cheese 1y ago
  Firefox/Gecko also just can’t be as relevant as a Chrome/Blink competitor since Gecko doesn’t support embedding on desktop operating systems, which precludes things like Electron-style wrapping and hybrid apps. It’s a fatal flaw that Mozilla doesn’t seem to have any interest in addressing.
  - bigyabai 1y ago
    There is nothing wrong with using CEF/Electron for some apps and then browser-based Firefox clients for the other ones.
    - cosmic_cheese 1y ago
      Big names like Slack and Spotify can’t choose to use a Gecko-based Electron/CEF alternative though, which limits its potential impact.
  - 0x000xca0xfe 1y ago
    Maybe that's why Servo got the boot?

oefrha 1y ago

I’m skeptical. Cloudflare clearly wants to move us to a future where only approved browsers are allowed to access the web. People have been fiercely debating whether that’s a terrible thing, or whether that’s the least bad practical solution on offer for website owners. I don’t want to make a judgement on that, but I don’t think the observation that CF is pushing us in that direction is very controversial. But an independent open source web browser is obviously against that ethos. So what’s the play here exactly? Just for goodwill? (Regardless of motivation, they’re lending more support than most other companies, so it’s applaudable nonetheless.)

imcritic 1y ago
How do you call someone who has been doing evil things suddenly do one good thing?
- jsheard 1y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reputation_laundering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reputation_laundering
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
throwaway1777 1y ago
[dead]
MarsIronPI 1y ago
By your argument, this could still be interpreted as Cloudflare approving Ladybird. I don't see how indie genuine browsers (i.e. not bots) are "against the ethos" of restricting the web to approved browsers only.
- oefrha 1y ago
  "Approved browser" in this context have technical restrictions on user freedom, e.g. https://developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/reference/cryptographic-personhood/ https://developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/reference/cry... I'm not talking about someone at CF just adding a random browser to an approved list. More empirically speaking, a browser can't be considered approved if you can freely fork it and not revoke the approved status.

gigatexal 1y ago

not sure - if I were holding the CF purse strings I'd give any money to DHH or his endeavors but I do think the folks over at Ladybird are doing some awesome things wrt to the browser.

SoKamil 1y ago

This sponsorship is very important for the project. Not for financial reasons, but because it gathered recognition from the company that creates much of the critical infrastructure and bot protection services. Without this recognition, the engine could have been blocked by impassable CAPTCHAs, which for the end user would mean the project is dead at its roots.

minton 1y ago
Maybe one company should not be able to decide which browsers we are allowed to use.
- SoKamil 1y ago
  I agree with you. But that’s the reality we have to deal with.
  - nkotov 1y ago
    No we don't. We're accepting it as if it's our only option.
    - WhyNotHugo 1y ago
      What’s the other option?
      - l___l 1y ago
        Consumers can pay for Ladybird themselves. A culture that encourages rewarding creators for their work.
        mr90210 1y ago
        Sure, as long as consumers are not forced to update which will justify a subscription model.
    - 1y ago

femiagbabiaka 1y ago

I cannot for the life of me understand the Omarchy hype. The Linux community has been theming their distribution installs for decades. What distinguishes this from that?

rs_rs_rs_rs_rs 1y ago
>What distinguishes this from that? More eyes on it, DHH has a big following.
- leoc 1y ago
  Also, there's always been a section of the desktop-Linux user community which is inclined to get very excited about about hypebeast window managers. Back in the day Slashdot was absolutely buzzing about Enlightenment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_(window_manager) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_(window_manager) .
nixosbestos 1y ago
Dude, if you ever find out, let me know. I don't get it, and it makes me incredibly skeptical of people that acted like Linux was unusable until this god-send of a shipped default config came around. I cannot possibly roll my eyes harder. Just goes to show how much hype accounts for, still, even in nerd circles.
Avicebron 1y ago
Omarchy is DHH of rails fame. Lots of us like ruby a lot (myself very much included), that being said I've got Omarchy running on a vm as a test case and in the <2 minutes I've looked at it i dont really think it's very intuitive.
- sonar_un 1y ago
  I spent 2 days trying to get it to run in a VM and it was not playing well. So I just gave it up.
ilogik 1y ago

rs186 1y ago

The post does not mention how much money they are giving. Maybe I am a pessimist, but unless the number is in tens of millions or hundreds of millions (very unlikely), I don't think it helps the development of an independent browser very much. Google probably has poured over billions of dollars into Chrome development over the years, and if you look at what Chrome supports, it's massive. I seriously doubt anybody else can match their feature set, not to mention involvement in drafting the latest standards.

9cb14c1ec0 1y ago
Go look at what the Ladybird project has accomplished with much fewer resources. Ladybird will soon be as good as Firefox.
- tracker1 1y ago
  For relative definitions of "soon" and depending on the feature you use. I'd say it's probably 2 years or so away from being a real competitive option to FF/Chrome.
zarzavat 1y ago
LuaJIT was developed by one person. Ladybird doesn't need hundreds of millions of dollars, it needs interpreter specialists who are willing to lend their time to the project, and an army of volunteers to work on the rest of the rendering engine.
- nurbel 1y ago
  why do you think the js interpreter is that special compared to all the rest? AFAIU, CSS is a much more complex beast, as the spec has not been written to reflect the way it could be implemented
  - zarzavat 1y ago
    Writing JS JITs is a specialized skill that requires a deep knowledge of compilers, JavaScript, and CPU architectures. CSS is complicated but it's not as complex. It's just a matter of throwing enough sufficiently competent developers at the problem. Ladybird doesn't even have a JIT right now. They used to, but it got taken out because as best as I can tell, nobody on the project knows how to write one.

MitPitt 1y ago

These 2 projects are so different in complexity. Ladybird is a foundational ground-up browser, meanwhile Omarchy is just an opinionated arch setup. I wonder why they were both mentioned in one article.

leoc 1y ago
I think it’s likely the politics, I’m afraid: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45334359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45334359
hakunin 1y ago
For one, I don't think complexity is determinative of impact. At least I hope not, otherwise my startup ideas are all DOA. For two, Omarchy is becoming more complex as more maintainers come in to write way more automation. You can kind of foresee where this is going: an Arch wrapper slowly growing into effectively a separate OS that's pushing other software to accommodate its choices. (See getting chromium to support live theme reloading, trying to get Fortnight to support Linux, etc). IOW, Ladybird has depth, Omarchy has breadth.

sylens 1y ago

The momentum that Omarchy seems to have is impressive. I wonder if a tighter collaboration with Framework is in the cards, especially with their founder and CEO submitting pull requests to the project[1]. [1] https://github.com/basecamp/omarchy/pull/1368 https://github.com/basecamp/omarchy/pull/1368

shafyy 1y ago

[flagged]

jwhiles 1y ago

hmm. Increasingly it feels like I shouldn't be using cloudflare.

odie5533 1y ago
I too hate when companies sponsor open source projects.
- jwhiles 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - pmdr 1y ago
    > Not someone you publicly associate your organisation with him unless you want to send a certain message. ... that you like Linux, Rails and despise Apple?
    - jwhiles 1y ago
      Your interpretation of my comment, though I guess intended as a joke, can only really mean two things: 1. You are unaware of DHH’s more recent favoured topics 2. You don’t think there is a problem with DHH’s opinions Either is fine, I don’t really care. The issue for me is that Cloudflare’s PR team obviously are aware what DHH writes about. And they’re sponsoring his project anyway. Cloudflare knows that this is repellant to a lot of people, that some of us will begin removing them from our stacks in response. But they don’t care, because they think it’s more valuable to cosy up to a bunch of mid life crises who’ve spent too much time on twitter.
      - pmdr 1y ago
        I've always met his non-tech posts with an eye-roll after at most skimming through them. > 1. You are unaware of DHH’s more recent favoured topics No, apparently I wasn't fully updated. Looks likes he's turned it up a notch or two. > 2. You don’t think there is a problem with DHH’s opinions Tech-related ones I agree with. Political ones, I mostly don't. Now should he be censored or 'canceled' for his opinions? I don't think so. Criticized? Absolutely. His once wrote on his blog that politics should stay out of tech. I think he's beginning to break away from that, and even though he's not explicitly tying his views to his products as far as I can see, he risks undoing all the good work.

gsibble 1y ago

I don't use it myself since I'm a long time Linux user, but I'm a big fan of Omarchy brining Linux to the masses. This is great that Cloudflare is sponsoring it!

account42 1y ago

> Supporting the future of the open web This really is some orwellian language coming from Cloudflare.

icar 1y ago

I'm well into the Linux world and have been for years. I've never heard of Omarchy. Do they also sponsor the same way projects that are the basis of Arch Linux, for example? I'm thinking about pacman, infra, etc.

Perz1val 1y ago
It's a very new "distro". DHH (that ruby on rails guy) shared it like 3 months ago as a distribution of his configs, then it grew rapidly. https://youtu.be/I5Mnni7cea8 https://youtu.be/I5Mnni7cea8

captainepoch 1y ago

Ladybird is doomed with this.

pkulak 1y ago

Why is it that Servo has been around for ages, chugging along, making progress, and then Ladybird comes along and gets, pretty much instantly, anointed as the last great hope against Chrome? What does everyone else know about Servo that I don't?

sauercrowd 1y ago
I can think of two reasons - it's a browser engine, not a browser - it was created and maintained for the longest time by mozilla, before the linux foundation took over a couple years ago. That creates history and governance that I could image puts of contributors or the broader excitement
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
veeti 1y ago
I think if you look at old threads there was a lot of hype and similar high hopes for Servo back in the days, but Mozilla never positioned it as a new browser, only a testbed for parts to integrate into Firefox.
okanat 1y ago
Servo was a side-project. Mozilla laid off the Servo team. Its development then stopped. It eventually found a home in Linux Foundation but it lost the initial acceleration. It lost the ambition. Many key developers moved on. Whatever nature your project is, closed or open source, when you lose key people and stop training new ones, the project slowly dies. People matter much much more than the license or the parent organization. Ladybird didn't lose its initial speed. There is a leader with strong vision. There is no shenanigans from half-assed management. There is clear and responsible funding. It attracts similarly ambitious people. All of that ends up with visible and real progress.
- pkulak 1y ago
  I've actually been watching all the Ladybird update videos (because I'm absolutely giddy at the prospect of a new, open-source browser engine), and they compare their test passing numbers to other browsers, including Servo. And from their own slides, Servo is behind them, but not by much, and making progress at about the same rate. Maybe that says it all, considering how much of a head start Servo had, but Servo also took a very long... break, as you said.

pmdr 1y ago

ITT: some of you would rather see Omarchy fail and thus Linux desktop adoption slowed down because you don't agree with DHH's 'controversial' political views. Guess we'll have to keep waiting for someone with a 'clean' record to show up and promote Linux.

hshshshshsh 1y ago
[flagged]
- micaleel 1y ago
  This is the only situation where I'd fault the messenger and discard the message. DHH has been a huge turn-off for me since I discovered his ideology. Omarchy is not for me.
maleldil 1y ago
> someone with a 'clean' record Just don't be a fascist. We're not asking for much here.

hshshshshsh 1y ago

[flagged]

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
tibbydudeza 1y ago
I never thought he of all people would go there !!! Yes Britian is changing -like the US will be where minorities will outnumber the white population - I am a minority living in a black country, the same one where Elon was born and really it is not as scary :). Totally irrational fear - they need to think seriously about themselves.
resize2996 1y ago
Posted elsewhere in this thread, it appears that ladybird does not have a great record in this dept. https://hyperborea.org/reviews/software/ladybird-inclusivity/ https://hyperborea.org/reviews/software/ladybird-inclusivity...
- globular-toast 1y ago
  Wow, ok, now I'm actually quite interested in Ladybird seeing that they're actually serious and focused on their goal. Wish I could say the same for Mozilla. Been using Firefox for decades but can only imagine how much better it would be if the resources were allocated properly.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]

lukaslalinsky 1y ago

I really wish the open source projects that actually have meaningful impact on the whole industry were target of sponsorship, not the ones with good marketing, but I know how hard that is to achieve. Taking money from someone is unfortunately complicated in this society. In many cases it's easier not to even ask for sponsorship, unless you are willing to deal with the bureaucracy. Ladybird is at least fighting for diversity, but I don't see the added value of Omarchy.

TiredOfLife 1y ago
Archlinux refused the sponsorship
- boomboomsubban 1y ago
  Source?
  - TiredOfLife 1y ago
    A month ago Arch came under ddos attack. DHH and others were offering to either pay for or get Cloudflare to sponsor antiddos protection for Arch. Instead of accepting the offers or even saying why they won't various Arch services were down for almost a month. Then Arch published https://archlinux.org/news/recent-services-outages/ https://archlinux.org/news/recent-services-outages/ essentially saying that they are seeking ideologically pure service
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - altfredd 1y ago
      Arch (and most FOSS Linux distributions) are highly resistant to ddos attacks. Good luck trying to ddos their mirrors and mailing lists.
      - TiredOfLife 1y ago

rkapsoro 1y ago

Timely sponsorship, downloading the Omarchy 3 ISO last week sat at about 600 KiB/s. Appreciated!

nextworddev 1y ago

Browser war is probably going to be won by one of Google or Openai, and $net is late to the party

observationist 1y ago

Embrace, extend, extinguish.

pelasaco 1y ago

so crazy to think that 2025 will be finally the "Year of the Linux Desktop (TM)" and it's all DHH fault! love it <3

pelasaco 1y ago
people downvoting is fine. Omarchy is great. Worked 12 years for a Linux Distro and they were never able to achieve what he did in months (on top of Arch for sure).

sylware 1y ago

It should sponsor an attempt at making the netsurf browser libs handle javascript with quickjs. They are C, namely bringing something really significantly new: you could build a web engine with a simple C compiler.

xenelor 1y ago

The hype around Omarchy is just insane.. It is not an installer script (anymore), so instead you have to download a 7GB ISO file (in the name of 'good UX') that ships with Zoom, Spotify, Hey, Basecamp, Steam, Minecraft (??), etc. but you still end up using the same package mirrors (arch's). If it was an install script, like LARBS or many others (before and after omarchy), I'd (almost) get it. If it was a derivative distro, like endeavour or manjaro, I'd (almost) get it. But this just makes no sense. I'm all for making Linux more accessible, but this ain't it, chief.

cal85 1y ago
7 gigabytes? With a “G”? That must take 10s of seconds, minutes even. And for what, a ‘good experience’? Humans make no sense to me either.
- dmix 1y ago
  People online will always find some angle to complain about things other people are enjoying.
- xenelor 1y ago
  "This is a 7GB ISO that includes the entire system for offline installation (just 1/10th the size of macOS!)." This is literally from Omarchy's release notes. How is it a problem if I make a comparison but it's ok when DHH does it :) Anyhow, you do you.
- Sammi 1y ago
  I feel like quoting that classic hn comment reaction to the release of Dropbox. Why do we need this good experience? We already have ftp!
  - latexr 1y ago
    > I feel like quoting that classic hn comment reaction to the release of Dropbox. You mean the one where the commenter was respectful and helpful and had a productive conversation, just like HN encourages? Every time you mention that comment in a bad light, you worsen dang’s day. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27068148 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27068148

osigurdson 1y ago

I haven't tried Omarchy but based on DHH videos, while I like the idea, I'd say it is a little too opinionated - including random stuff that DHH likes / uses on a day-to-day basis and by his employees. It also kind of begs the question, how deep in the "supply chain" should support go. Maybe if the Hyprland folks got a bit more sponsorship the setup would be easy. The same goes for Arch itself (though I do think some of the "squirrel catchers" are there on purpose).

iooi 1y ago

Google started out by sponsoring Firefox, then hired many of their key developers to build Chrome. Cloudflare is likely doing the same thing, they know that strategically they depend too much on Google for the browser. This will get their foot in the door without making a large commitment. If the project goes well, it will be absorbed into Cloudflare in a few years.

gethly 1y ago

Keep in mind that cloudflare is essentially a MITM "totally not created and backed by any spy agency that might come to mind" free service that lives off of few large clients but otherwise offers their services essentially for free because they are just a good company that wants to help people with DDOS and CDN and .... Cloudflare is to online communication what Facebook is to personal identity.

lordofgibbons 1y ago

Maybe a stupid question but: given the massive vulnerability surface area that a browser presents, why would one choose to build it in C++ instead of something memory and concurrency safe like Rust? I know Rust doesn't automatically make the software safe, but it does rule out a very large % of the exploitable vulnerabilities allowed by unsafe languages like C and C++.

npalli 1y ago
Who knows, maybe they cared about shipping a working product and not spend all their time fighting the borrow checker and harassing everyone else about memory safety. See Servo for ex.
wojtek1942 1y ago
Why build a new browser in C++ when safer and more modern languages are available? [1] > 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. [1] https://ladybird.org/#faq:~:text=Why%20build%20a%20new%20browser%20in%20C++%20when%20safer%20and%20more%20modern%20languages%20are%20available https://ladybird.org/#faq:~:text=Why%20build%20a%20new%20bro...?
- QuantumNoodle 1y ago
  Wow! This is great news. While no language can make JS interpretation more safe, I am just happy to hear the the codebase will be in something other than C++. Having started my career with C++, I've enjoyed almost every other language more. The issue I had was I didn't _want_ to touch C++ so it is unlikely I would've contributed. But when Swift makes up more of the codebase, I might go and look around.

ggm 1y ago

Not to disrespect omarchy intent, but if you want provably safe OS, is there not a more reduced surface yet, such as .. dare I say it nix? If that kind of reductionism is too far, how about Alpine?

blinkingled 1y ago

I am happy for a new browser/engine but I'm highly skeptical that Ladybird will ever come close to Chrome or Firefox in terms of features, compatibility and performance. It's just very hard to imagine. There's servo and look at where it is after 13 years! No offense to anyone really but browser engines are inhumane amount of talent and effort. Might as well just keep making Firefox better.

jm4 1y ago
The problem with Firefox is Mozilla. That’s also a common thread with Servo. Maybe Servo will get better now that it doesn’t have that baggage anymore. If we’re going to have a chromium alternative, it won’t be anything from Mozilla.
krmboya 1y ago
Firefox doubled down on using/selling user data for advertising purposes, so that's a big reason for avoiding it. I held onto it as someone who didn't even like the politics of the people behind it (the beauty of open source), for the sake of browser engine diversity, but changing terms of service of use of personal data was the final blow
- john01dav 1y ago
  It seems irrational to me to switch to chrome (and where else could you switch to?) over data sale concerns. A more rational approach could be a Firefox fork that preserves privacy.
  - krmboya 1y ago
    Privacy is a big deal for many, especially if you grew up before the age of telemetry everywhere. For now, a privacy preserving chromium fork will do, until hopefully the Ladybird project is mature enough to provide alternatives
    - john01dav 1y ago
      Why a chromium fork over a Firefox fork? Both preserve privacy

sidcool 1y ago

Good karma

sebstefan 1y ago

>Will Ladybird work on Windows? >We don't have anyone actively working on Windows support, and there are considerable changes required to make it work well outside a Unix-like environment. >We would like to do Windows eventually, but it's not a priority at the moment. What's the user share again? 70% of desktop users?

akimbostrawman 1y ago
What is the state of the project again? Alpha status?
- sebstefan 1y ago
  Yeah, and it supports Mac, with the worst compilation experience on the market and 10% of the userbase. Starting support for another OS this late in the project is going to be a nightmare, it's insane to do it for Windows last.

M95D 1y ago

But why would anyone use Omarchy (based on Arch) and not use Gentoo directly? Not a separate project based on Gentoo, but a Gentoo Reference System [1]? Gentoo already has all dev tools installed - they're an indispensable part of the package manager. [1] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:RelEng_GRS https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:RelEng_GRS

SahAssar 1y ago
Why bring up Gentoo at all?
- M95D 1y ago
  Because > Gentoo already has all dev tools installed

jojomodding 1y ago

I wish they would fund Mozilla (or Firefox) instead of creating yet another browser. Clawing Firefox out of the hole that Mozilla and its dependency on Google have dug for it would be a true service to humanity. Replacing it by yet another browser only causes churn and standard proliferation.

slimebot80 1y ago

DHH seems to be driven by bitterness at Apple charging for inclusion in their walled garden. Fair enough, his choice. Interesting he includes his paid email service bundled in Omarchy.