4 ms·

This Month in Ladybird – April 2026

507 points by richardboegli 5mo ago

aorth 5mo ago
> GTK4 / libadwaita frontend Nice! Looks good. I prefer GTK UI/UX over Qt. Looking forward to seeing the development progress on that.
- samtheDamned 5mo ago
  Same here. I also think having multiple front-ends is a good way to demonstrate the flexibility of the engine.
bityard 5mo ago
It looks like this is getting pretty usable! This post reminded me of gaming emulator updates that I also love to read. "Fixed X bug to make Y behave correctly, which means game Z works now." (One of the things they fixed was CSS Doom, so I guess there is some legitimate overlap to gaming at any rate.)
- adamrt 5mo ago
  Good call! I’ve heard Andreas say multiple times building a browser is like building an emulator. Each website uses different features in different ways, and he likens websites to roms.
- aucisson_masque 5mo ago
  There is a difference tho between being'pretty usable' and actually being usable with your passwords, data and just being reliable enough for everyday. I think the gap between having nothing to having a prototype is way smaller than between having something 'pretty usable' and something that is usable.
imagetic 5mo ago
Can’t ship it soon enough.
Imustaskforhelp 5mo ago
https://ladybird.org/assets/img/newsletter-apr-2026-reddit-gallery.webm https://ladybird.org/assets/img/newsletter-apr-2026-reddit-g... To whoever had the evangelion r/unixporn as a way to test out ladybird reddit. I respect you so much as I really liked reading about evangelion (I haven't watched it as much BUT I have watched countless documentaries explaining it and had evangelion as my wallpaper for sometime) Now coming to the point, the fact that reddit is working in ladybird sounds crazy good, I am not sure if youtube is working or not but I hope that youtube works too and Ladybird sounds to really work. Also, thanks to https://jakubsteplow.ski/ https://jakubsteplow.ski/ for donating the money to ladybird. I mean I would like to actively promote people who donate to open source projects as a better way than what google ads or others too and jakub I wish you nothing but the best and I hope other people donate to projects like ladybird too (Independent donors/donations), also thanks to human rights foundation https://hrf.org/program/ai-for-individual-rights/ https://hrf.org/program/ai-for-individual-rights/ It's amazing how browsers had an almost mono/(duo or trio?)-poly yet it took a single guy to do all of this. Its really inspiring.
- smallerize 5mo ago
  https://ladybird.org/#about https://ladybird.org/#about > How many people are working on the browser today? > We currently have 8 paid full-time engineers working on Ladybird. There is also a large community of volunteer contributors.
- JLO64 5mo ago
  I love EVA, but I’ll cautiously recommend it. I feel like there are two sides to it: the mecha/alien/monster sci-fi side which has an amazing aesthetic, and the personal drama focusing on self loathing and loneliness. I think the first side is the most attractive to most people, but what really sticks with me to this day is the latter. If you do end up watching I have to warn about the watch order. There are two timelines, the original TV series plus the movie “End of Evangelion”, and then the “Rebuild of Eva” movie series which started as a complete reboot but somehow ended as the ultimate Reboot/Remake/Sequel to the original stuff.
  - 5mo ago
satvikpendem 5mo ago
If you want to use no-Javascript browser as well, this browser prototype [0] is getting pretty good too. It's developed by Dioxus, a GUI framework in Rust, as part of its native renderer which seeks to create their own alternative to Skia, similar to Flutter, but it'll work on the web as well with HTML and CSS standards unlike Flutter web which is just a canvas. It's also a from scratch implementation, sort of, using existing Rust crates like stylo (which servo also uses) and taffy, but it doesn't rely on any code from existing browsers such as Chromium, Gecko or WebKit. [0] https://github.com/DioxusLabs/blitz https://github.com/DioxusLabs/blitz (in /apps/browser)
- pgwalsh 5mo ago
  This is great. I'm building a site that has JavaScript but is fully functional without it, this would be fun to see how it renders it. I use htmx, AlpineJS and Vanilla JS just for additional help for users with forms and search but works fine without it. Thanks for sharing this. I will recompile ladybird too. Last time it had made great progress but was no where near read for regular use.
  - satvikpendem 5mo ago
    There are now binaries available for Blitz: https://blitz.is/downloads https://blitz.is/downloads I used to disable Javascript by default but found that it was hard to actually get anything done on the Internet but maybe now we can use this sort of browser for pure informational websites and also save RAM. That is in fact what Dioxus Native is all about which wraps Blitz for a UI framework.
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
    - niutech 5mo ago
      For a no-JS web browser, try also Dillo, it is very lightweight ad it has been recently updated.
geophph 5mo ago
> strava.com : Login works now that Navigator.getBattery throws the spec-mandated error type instead of one of our own (#8770). what’s Strava want with my battery level?
- yurishimo 5mo ago
  Maybe it uses some that battery API as a heuristic for a lower-power version of the site? Or maybe they have a web-only version in developing markets? Low battery means it should query for your location less often to save battery? Totally spitballing here. Strava being a website that requests battery does not seem wildly outlandish to me, albeit it is a bit suspicious in general.
  - einpoklum 5mo ago
    > it uses some that battery API as a heuristic for a lower-power version of the site? As a naive user I would expect websites to not be able to receive information about my battery state. With that information they can track my mobile phone usage pattern, and with some cross-referencing gain even more specific private information.
    - lukan 5mo ago
      I think it is great that the API exists, but it is not great, that no permission from the user is needed to access it.
  - geophph 5mo ago
    [dead]
- charcircuit 5mo ago
  Bots trying to brute force accounts may not have the API implemented like a real device may.
  - fooqux 5mo ago
    Sure, and my desktop computer just reports 100% battery level? Which can't be easily replicated by a static header in the bot? This would be a silly thing to use to identify bots.
einpoklum 5mo ago
> Human Rights Foundation ... “AI for Individual Rights” program That sounds quite dodgy. Ladybird doesn't have AI, why would such a program support its development? But even before that: "Human Rights Foundation" sounds like "The Human League" which George makes up in Seinfeld as a fake charity. And promoting AI as a "human right" is quite suspicious. If I had to, I might be that this is something backed by one of the corporations burning through Billions of dollars and Gigawatt-hours on LLMs. Looking at their annual report summaries and their huge staff, my guess slants a bit towards either bodies like the CIA or some ideologically-motivated billionaires (e.g. talk about the "dictator Maduro", focus on Iran etc.)
- technothrasher 5mo ago
  > "The Human League" which George makes up in Seinfeld as a fake charity It was actually The Human Fund. The Human League is an English pop band, most successful in the 1980s with their hit single "Don't You Want Me".
- NicuCalcea 5mo ago
  There's quite a big difference between "AI for individual rights" and "AI as a human right".
- vondur 5mo ago
  Ha I immediately thought of the Human Fund from Seinfeld. Their fake slogan “money for humans”
- radlad 5mo ago
  If you're interested in the program, you can find more details here: https://hrf.org/program/ai-for-individual-rights/ai-for-individual-rights-fund/ https://hrf.org/program/ai-for-individual-rights/ai-for-indi... They offer grants for "Using AI tools and platforms to more efficiently build movements and resist oppression" in addition to many other things.
- jordand 5mo ago
  Ladybird has a close relationship with FUTO which is a pretty oddly behaved private for-profit company ran by a bored multi-millionaire. https://drewdevault.com/blog/Whats-up-with-FUTO/ https://drewdevault.com/blog/Whats-up-with-FUTO/
cynicalsecurity 5mo ago
Interesting, I've checked the LinkedIn link of Jakub Stęplowski, a software developer proudly presenting himself as "from Poland" - 10 years of working outside of Poland in Italy and Switzerland. Yep, that checks out. I was wondering where he could have gotten $1,000 to generously burn on this project as a sponsor, with Polish salaries. Nothing bad about it, of course. It's just it's long time overdue to move to Switzerland as well, I see.
- qingcharles 5mo ago
  There was a developer who I worked with at a mortgage company who had moved to the UK from Czech Republic. He would sit at his desk playing games on his phone all day and had outsourced his entire job to his friend back home for 25% of his UK salary.
sikozu 5mo ago
Ladybird is coming along so well. I am a long-term Firefox user and I'll definitely be an early adopter of Ladybird when it enters very early alpha and precompiled builds start being released.
- DANmode 5mo ago
  Mozilla needs a kick in the pants to say the least.
  - dlcarrier 5mo ago
    They're a lost cause. It's been at least a decade since they've made a decision that wasn't the worst possible.
- allusernamesare 5mo ago
  It's pretty easy to compile yourself, especially if you ask Claude code to do it for you.
  - lionkor 5mo ago
    Are you illiterate? There are step by step instructions, it's accessible too.
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
  - glitchcrab 5mo ago
    I deposit for those who would rather ask a robot than do something simple themselves.
- cuu508 5mo ago
  BTW if you want to kick the tires at the current stage, building it locally is easy, just a couple of commands to install dependencies and run the build script: https://github.com/LadybirdBrowser/ladybird/blob/master/Documentation/BuildInstructionsLadybird.md https://github.com/LadybirdBrowser/ladybird/blob/master/Docu...
NBPEL 5mo ago
The hardest part for browser development has always been "artificial" web compatibility, as you know a lot of websites are forcefully blocking specific browser from loading, only allow Chromium to load their websites, that is the reality check for Ladybird, and seriously what stopping new web browsers from being able to compete, same with DRM Widevine, it's REALLY hard to acquire (unobtainiumware) for new browser, even big browser like Zen Browser with 10M users failed to acquire it
- Onavo 5mo ago
  They can mock the User Agent for the purposes of compatibility testing. When you control the browser itself, nothing's impossible. (aside from DRM specific issues)
- JoRyGu 5mo ago
  How common is this that they would even care about it anyways? I've run Firefox exclusively for the last 2 decades and have never once run into a site that told me I needed to switch to Chromium for compatibility.
  - MarsIronPI 5mo ago
    And honestly, I've only ever once encountered a website that required Widevine. And that site was a media site. So if you don't watch DRMed movies in your browser then you don't need Widevine in my experience.
    - saintfire 5mo ago
      I've found widewine a blessing because news sites that autoplay trash seem to be the only group that uses it (other than paid media platforms like Netflix and Spotify). The blessing is I can just reject it and it blocks all their videos from playing/downloading.
  - progval 5mo ago
    Common enough that Mozilla has full-time engineers working on triaging compatibility issues, so they can either be fixed in Firefox or reported to webmasters. Here are the reports they get: https://webcompat.com/issues https://webcompat.com/issues
jiehong 5mo ago
Congratulations! However, the screenshots for "List markers in RTL text" are the same it seems. The list markers are on the left in both cases.
- dlcarrier 5mo ago
  In this after picture: https://ladybird.org/assets/img/newsletter-apr-2026-rtl-after.png https://ladybird.org/assets/img/newsletter-apr-2026-rtl-afte..., the bullet points in the lower left panel are to the right of the text, whereas in this before picture: https://ladybird.org/assets/img/newsletter-apr-2026-rtl-before.png https://ladybird.org/assets/img/newsletter-apr-2026-rtl-befo... they are not only to the left of the text, but they are so far to the left of the text they are nearly exiting the panel itself.
- Narishma 5mo ago
  It's subtle but they aren't the same. The list makers are now to the right of the text entries as they should. But it's hard to see because it's somewhat hidden by the glaring issues the rest of the page still has.
shevy-java 5mo ago
> It’s inspired by GNOME Web (Epiphany) So basically, it will be useless. How many use epiphany please? That thing has been so extremely ineffective. It's like 1999 (not that everything was bad in 1999). > follows GNOME’s design guidelines: no menubar, a hamburger menu Oh. my. god. So Ladybird worships uselessness now. Also, GTK progressively gets worse and with GTK5 they will (try to) kill of xorg-server too. Some people disagree with that - https://github.com/X11Libre/xserver https://github.com/X11Libre/xserver and https://git.devuan.org/Daemonratte/gtk2-ng https://git.devuan.org/Daemonratte/gtk2-ng; I get it that there are not that many folks using that, but the point is that the GNOME corporate mindset has a tiny bit of competition. Perhaps that seed of competition grows over time until the corporate gnomeys have to change course (won't happen, as they are paid to abolish what is "old", but more competition is good, if only to try to "reason" with mr. ebassi and other hardcore gnomeys; sadly KDE also goes that way with wayland-only, thanks to anti Robin Hood Nate and his donation-pester daemon. Oldschool KDE devs didn't waylay people for money, now it is "pay or get nagged", thanks to Natey Nate). We kind of need competition in the browser landscape, so in some ways having Ladybird is good. I don't really have much hope that ladybird will be able to challenge the evil Google empire though. But perhaps more people realise that Google controlling so much of the www-ecosystem (again, just look at how they nerfed google search in the last years) is a huge problem.
- monax 5mo ago
  I like the approach of ladybird to provides as many native chrome as possible it gives peoples choice and let the browser feel native in whatever DE they choose to use :)
- preisschild 5mo ago
  I'm pretty happy with GNOME. Feel free to use software from conspiracy lunatics (XLibre) though
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
exploraz 5mo ago
Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47985497 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47985497
dlcarrier 5mo ago
I really like what SerenityOS is going for, and hope they can maintain that focus in the Ladybird browser.
- bennett_dev 5mo ago
  AFAIK Ladybird is separated from SerenityOS completely now (https://hackaday.com/2024/07/02/fork-ladybird-browser-and-serenityos-to-go-separate-ways/ https://hackaday.com/2024/07/02/fork-ladybird-browser-and-se...) so the Ladybird contributors can fully focus on it
- LeFantome 5mo ago
  I love SerenityOS too but it has totally lost momentum since Andreas left. And ladybird does not even support SerenityOS anymore.
KingMob 5mo ago
[flagged]
- djhn 5mo ago
  Evidence? Harsh accusation.
  - lukan 5mo ago
    No evidence for that. What Kling did say was white developers were being discriminated in the bay area. Small debate and links at the last ladybird post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47899424 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47899424
  - KingMob 5mo ago
    Here he is praising Charlie Kirk: https://x.com/awesomekling/status/1966456391146606806 https://x.com/awesomekling/status/1966456391146606806 Boosting the idea that white males are discriminated against in SV: https://x.com/awesomekling/status/1874518295350837401 https://x.com/awesomekling/status/1874518295350837401 Defending DHH: https://xcancel.com/awesomekling/status/1971287738268909576 https://xcancel.com/awesomekling/status/1971287738268909576 (DHH himself has gone full-mask-off, and wrote a whole blog post complaining that there were immigrants in London: https://web.archive.org/web/20250925050154/https://world.hey.com/dhh/as-i-remember-london-e7d38e64 https://web.archive.org/web/20250925050154/https://world.hey...) Kling has been pretty quiet so far himself, but he's keeping dubious company.
jurschreuder 5mo ago
Too bad LadyBird is being translated to LLM generated Rust. It's nice that Rust is so beginner friendly but it would be nicer to have a pure C++ browser for the more experienced developers, to use as a basis for their projects like Chromium is used.
- teruakohatu 5mo ago
  If LLMs allow them to speedrun to an alternative mainstream browser, then full speed ahead. A third runner in this space would make the browser market a lot healthier than the current chrome/webkit and Firefox duopoly.
  - latexr 5mo ago
    I’d rather have a good browser which took its time to get things right than a speed run one. Too much software is written like that, and the result is that most things are shit. What are we in such a hurry for? To get more time to work more? Fucking chill. Do things slowly and right. As a side thought, speed running seems like the wrong analogy for software. Speed runners in games are people who spend a ton of time doing the exact same steps over and over to find tiny optimisations and develop muscle memory to do something repeatable. They take the time to do it well. Being a good speed runner means embracing slow progress. It’s the antithesis of software, where rushing to get it out also means you barely look at it. You do it fast but seldom right.
    - TehCorwiz 5mo ago
      What are your thoughts on the current code quality? Have you had a chance to review it?
      - latexr 5mo ago
        I have, but that’s irrelevant. I’m commenting on the general sentiment, not any specific project.
    - dirasieb 5mo ago
AYHAM_MEZHER1 5mo ago
[flagged]
qzgrid37 5mo ago
[dead]
tomaskafka 5mo ago
I thinkk it's about time Ladybird got some official prebuilt binaries - I'd love to try it, but I'm not going to install its whole dev environment and build it from source.
- ramon156 5mo ago
  They planned an alpha build in june :) so, just a bit longer!
  - tomaskafka 5mo ago
    Thanks! Looking forward!
- fabrice_d 5mo ago
  If you are interested in new browsers / web runtimes, Servo publishes binaries monthly: https://servo.org/download/ https://servo.org/download/
jojomodding 5mo ago
Is pdf.js the renderer that VSCode uses? You know, the one where everything becomes extremely blurry when you zoom in for absolutely no reason at all except (I would imagine) developer incompetence?
- preisschild 5mo ago
  Its the one firefox uses and it works well.
tejohnso 5mo ago
Independence is great, but I'm curious about features. Will Ladybird have any built-in ad blocking like Brave? Useful tab management? Dark mode?
- worksonmine 5mo ago
  I think plugins is the better solution, then you can't pay the browser to get your ads through.
- LeFantome 5mo ago
  They block all ads in current builds. Probably mostly more performance and to create more consistency when testing a website (not having to worry about errors from lots of low quality JavaScript in the ads). I think they have dark mode already.
polycaster 5mo ago
I don't want to dampen the positive vibes around this project in any way, in fact I'm very glad such projects exists. But it just struck me that my immediate associations with the "non-profit" label - which in this project's context is clearly being positioned against Mozilla's for-profit subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation - don't quite match reality. Even though it is indeed a non-profit, the website features a not exactly short listing of sponsors, including platinum-tier sponsor Cloudflare. Platinum, per Ladybird's own sponsorship page, means $100,000+ per year. Money that, per the site, comes from "just people and companies who believe in an open web." Cloudflare, then.
- greggh 5mo ago
  Uhh, yes? Non-profits take donations to keep doing their work.
  - polycaster 5mo ago
    Sure and Mozilla is arguably the cautionary tale here. They also started as a non-profit taking donations. AOL seeded them with $2M, Red Hat and Sun pitched in too. Within a year they had the Google search deal. By 2006, ~92% of revenue came from Google.
- Retr0id 5mo ago
  "non-profit" does not mean it has to run off unicorn farts
mtlynch 5mo ago
Worth noting that at this point, it's still somewhat trivial to find exploitable remote code execution bugs in Ladybird using AI tools.[0] The userbase of Ladybug users is so small that it's probably not worth the attackers' time, but keep in mind that it's an enormous step down in security from the mainstream browsers who are actively searching for bugs using the latest tools and paying bug bounties on external reports. [0] https://blog.calif.io/p/mad-bugs-rce-in-ladybird https://blog.calif.io/p/mad-bugs-rce-in-ladybird
benchwright 5mo ago
I managed to build this the other day. Looking good! As noted by other authors, there does seem to be a wide surface area for attacks so, security remediation does seem to be a top-of-queue thing to be handled. All in all, keep up the good work!

507 points by richardboegli 5mo ago

aorth 5mo ago

> GTK4 / libadwaita frontend Nice! Looks good. I prefer GTK UI/UX over Qt. Looking forward to seeing the development progress on that.

samtheDamned 5mo ago
Same here. I also think having multiple front-ends is a good way to demonstrate the flexibility of the engine.

bityard 5mo ago

It looks like this is getting pretty usable! This post reminded me of gaming emulator updates that I also love to read. "Fixed X bug to make Y behave correctly, which means game Z works now." (One of the things they fixed was CSS Doom, so I guess there is some legitimate overlap to gaming at any rate.)

adamrt 5mo ago
Good call! I’ve heard Andreas say multiple times building a browser is like building an emulator. Each website uses different features in different ways, and he likens websites to roms.
aucisson_masque 5mo ago
There is a difference tho between being'pretty usable' and actually being usable with your passwords, data and just being reliable enough for everyday. I think the gap between having nothing to having a prototype is way smaller than between having something 'pretty usable' and something that is usable.

imagetic 5mo ago

Can’t ship it soon enough.

Imustaskforhelp 5mo ago

https://ladybird.org/assets/img/newsletter-apr-2026-reddit-gallery.webm https://ladybird.org/assets/img/newsletter-apr-2026-reddit-g... To whoever had the evangelion r/unixporn as a way to test out ladybird reddit. I respect you so much as I really liked reading about evangelion (I haven't watched it as much BUT I have watched countless documentaries explaining it and had evangelion as my wallpaper for sometime) Now coming to the point, the fact that reddit is working in ladybird sounds crazy good, I am not sure if youtube is working or not but I hope that youtube works too and Ladybird sounds to really work. Also, thanks to https://jakubsteplow.ski/ https://jakubsteplow.ski/ for donating the money to ladybird. I mean I would like to actively promote people who donate to open source projects as a better way than what google ads or others too and jakub I wish you nothing but the best and I hope other people donate to projects like ladybird too (Independent donors/donations), also thanks to human rights foundation https://hrf.org/program/ai-for-individual-rights/ https://hrf.org/program/ai-for-individual-rights/ It's amazing how browsers had an almost mono/(duo or trio?)-poly yet it took a single guy to do all of this. Its really inspiring.

smallerize 5mo ago
https://ladybird.org/#about https://ladybird.org/#about > How many people are working on the browser today? > We currently have 8 paid full-time engineers working on Ladybird. There is also a large community of volunteer contributors.
JLO64 5mo ago
I love EVA, but I’ll cautiously recommend it. I feel like there are two sides to it: the mecha/alien/monster sci-fi side which has an amazing aesthetic, and the personal drama focusing on self loathing and loneliness. I think the first side is the most attractive to most people, but what really sticks with me to this day is the latter. If you do end up watching I have to warn about the watch order. There are two timelines, the original TV series plus the movie “End of Evangelion”, and then the “Rebuild of Eva” movie series which started as a complete reboot but somehow ended as the ultimate Reboot/Remake/Sequel to the original stuff.
- 5mo ago

satvikpendem 5mo ago

If you want to use no-Javascript browser as well, this browser prototype [0] is getting pretty good too. It's developed by Dioxus, a GUI framework in Rust, as part of its native renderer which seeks to create their own alternative to Skia, similar to Flutter, but it'll work on the web as well with HTML and CSS standards unlike Flutter web which is just a canvas. It's also a from scratch implementation, sort of, using existing Rust crates like stylo (which servo also uses) and taffy, but it doesn't rely on any code from existing browsers such as Chromium, Gecko or WebKit. [0] https://github.com/DioxusLabs/blitz https://github.com/DioxusLabs/blitz (in /apps/browser)

pgwalsh 5mo ago
This is great. I'm building a site that has JavaScript but is fully functional without it, this would be fun to see how it renders it. I use htmx, AlpineJS and Vanilla JS just for additional help for users with forms and search but works fine without it. Thanks for sharing this. I will recompile ladybird too. Last time it had made great progress but was no where near read for regular use.
- satvikpendem 5mo ago
  There are now binaries available for Blitz: https://blitz.is/downloads https://blitz.is/downloads I used to disable Javascript by default but found that it was hard to actually get anything done on the Internet but maybe now we can use this sort of browser for pure informational websites and also save RAM. That is in fact what Dioxus Native is all about which wraps Blitz for a UI framework.
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - niutech 5mo ago
    For a no-JS web browser, try also Dillo, it is very lightweight ad it has been recently updated.

geophph 5mo ago

> strava.com : Login works now that Navigator.getBattery throws the spec-mandated error type instead of one of our own (#8770). what’s Strava want with my battery level?

yurishimo 5mo ago
Maybe it uses some that battery API as a heuristic for a lower-power version of the site? Or maybe they have a web-only version in developing markets? Low battery means it should query for your location less often to save battery? Totally spitballing here. Strava being a website that requests battery does not seem wildly outlandish to me, albeit it is a bit suspicious in general.
- einpoklum 5mo ago
  > it uses some that battery API as a heuristic for a lower-power version of the site? As a naive user I would expect websites to not be able to receive information about my battery state. With that information they can track my mobile phone usage pattern, and with some cross-referencing gain even more specific private information.
  - lukan 5mo ago
    I think it is great that the API exists, but it is not great, that no permission from the user is needed to access it.
- geophph 5mo ago
  [dead]
charcircuit 5mo ago
Bots trying to brute force accounts may not have the API implemented like a real device may.
- fooqux 5mo ago
  Sure, and my desktop computer just reports 100% battery level? Which can't be easily replicated by a static header in the bot? This would be a silly thing to use to identify bots.

einpoklum 5mo ago

> Human Rights Foundation ... “AI for Individual Rights” program That sounds quite dodgy. Ladybird doesn't have AI, why would such a program support its development? But even before that: "Human Rights Foundation" sounds like "The Human League" which George makes up in Seinfeld as a fake charity. And promoting AI as a "human right" is quite suspicious. If I had to, I might be that this is something backed by one of the corporations burning through Billions of dollars and Gigawatt-hours on LLMs. Looking at their annual report summaries and their huge staff, my guess slants a bit towards either bodies like the CIA or some ideologically-motivated billionaires (e.g. talk about the "dictator Maduro", focus on Iran etc.)

technothrasher 5mo ago
> "The Human League" which George makes up in Seinfeld as a fake charity It was actually The Human Fund. The Human League is an English pop band, most successful in the 1980s with their hit single "Don't You Want Me".
NicuCalcea 5mo ago
There's quite a big difference between "AI for individual rights" and "AI as a human right".
vondur 5mo ago
Ha I immediately thought of the Human Fund from Seinfeld. Their fake slogan “money for humans”
radlad 5mo ago
If you're interested in the program, you can find more details here: https://hrf.org/program/ai-for-individual-rights/ai-for-individual-rights-fund/ https://hrf.org/program/ai-for-individual-rights/ai-for-indi... They offer grants for "Using AI tools and platforms to more efficiently build movements and resist oppression" in addition to many other things.
jordand 5mo ago
Ladybird has a close relationship with FUTO which is a pretty oddly behaved private for-profit company ran by a bored multi-millionaire. https://drewdevault.com/blog/Whats-up-with-FUTO/ https://drewdevault.com/blog/Whats-up-with-FUTO/

cynicalsecurity 5mo ago

Interesting, I've checked the LinkedIn link of Jakub Stęplowski, a software developer proudly presenting himself as "from Poland" - 10 years of working outside of Poland in Italy and Switzerland. Yep, that checks out. I was wondering where he could have gotten $1,000 to generously burn on this project as a sponsor, with Polish salaries. Nothing bad about it, of course. It's just it's long time overdue to move to Switzerland as well, I see.

qingcharles 5mo ago
There was a developer who I worked with at a mortgage company who had moved to the UK from Czech Republic. He would sit at his desk playing games on his phone all day and had outsourced his entire job to his friend back home for 25% of his UK salary.

sikozu 5mo ago

Ladybird is coming along so well. I am a long-term Firefox user and I'll definitely be an early adopter of Ladybird when it enters very early alpha and precompiled builds start being released.

DANmode 5mo ago
Mozilla needs a kick in the pants to say the least.
- dlcarrier 5mo ago
  They're a lost cause. It's been at least a decade since they've made a decision that wasn't the worst possible.
allusernamesare 5mo ago
It's pretty easy to compile yourself, especially if you ask Claude code to do it for you.
- lionkor 5mo ago
  Are you illiterate? There are step by step instructions, it's accessible too.
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
- glitchcrab 5mo ago
  I deposit for those who would rather ask a robot than do something simple themselves.
cuu508 5mo ago
BTW if you want to kick the tires at the current stage, building it locally is easy, just a couple of commands to install dependencies and run the build script: https://github.com/LadybirdBrowser/ladybird/blob/master/Documentation/BuildInstructionsLadybird.md https://github.com/LadybirdBrowser/ladybird/blob/master/Docu...

NBPEL 5mo ago

The hardest part for browser development has always been "artificial" web compatibility, as you know a lot of websites are forcefully blocking specific browser from loading, only allow Chromium to load their websites, that is the reality check for Ladybird, and seriously what stopping new web browsers from being able to compete, same with DRM Widevine, it's REALLY hard to acquire (unobtainiumware) for new browser, even big browser like Zen Browser with 10M users failed to acquire it

Onavo 5mo ago
They can mock the User Agent for the purposes of compatibility testing. When you control the browser itself, nothing's impossible. (aside from DRM specific issues)
JoRyGu 5mo ago
How common is this that they would even care about it anyways? I've run Firefox exclusively for the last 2 decades and have never once run into a site that told me I needed to switch to Chromium for compatibility.
- MarsIronPI 5mo ago
  And honestly, I've only ever once encountered a website that required Widevine. And that site was a media site. So if you don't watch DRMed movies in your browser then you don't need Widevine in my experience.
  - saintfire 5mo ago
    I've found widewine a blessing because news sites that autoplay trash seem to be the only group that uses it (other than paid media platforms like Netflix and Spotify). The blessing is I can just reject it and it blocks all their videos from playing/downloading.
- progval 5mo ago
  Common enough that Mozilla has full-time engineers working on triaging compatibility issues, so they can either be fixed in Firefox or reported to webmasters. Here are the reports they get: https://webcompat.com/issues https://webcompat.com/issues

jiehong 5mo ago

Congratulations! However, the screenshots for "List markers in RTL text" are the same it seems. The list markers are on the left in both cases.

dlcarrier 5mo ago
In this after picture: https://ladybird.org/assets/img/newsletter-apr-2026-rtl-after.png https://ladybird.org/assets/img/newsletter-apr-2026-rtl-afte..., the bullet points in the lower left panel are to the right of the text, whereas in this before picture: https://ladybird.org/assets/img/newsletter-apr-2026-rtl-before.png https://ladybird.org/assets/img/newsletter-apr-2026-rtl-befo... they are not only to the left of the text, but they are so far to the left of the text they are nearly exiting the panel itself.
Narishma 5mo ago
It's subtle but they aren't the same. The list makers are now to the right of the text entries as they should. But it's hard to see because it's somewhat hidden by the glaring issues the rest of the page still has.

shevy-java 5mo ago

> It’s inspired by GNOME Web (Epiphany) So basically, it will be useless. How many use epiphany please? That thing has been so extremely ineffective. It's like 1999 (not that everything was bad in 1999). > follows GNOME’s design guidelines: no menubar, a hamburger menu Oh. my. god. So Ladybird worships uselessness now. Also, GTK progressively gets worse and with GTK5 they will (try to) kill of xorg-server too. Some people disagree with that - https://github.com/X11Libre/xserver https://github.com/X11Libre/xserver and https://git.devuan.org/Daemonratte/gtk2-ng https://git.devuan.org/Daemonratte/gtk2-ng; I get it that there are not that many folks using that, but the point is that the GNOME corporate mindset has a tiny bit of competition. Perhaps that seed of competition grows over time until the corporate gnomeys have to change course (won't happen, as they are paid to abolish what is "old", but more competition is good, if only to try to "reason" with mr. ebassi and other hardcore gnomeys; sadly KDE also goes that way with wayland-only, thanks to anti Robin Hood Nate and his donation-pester daemon. Oldschool KDE devs didn't waylay people for money, now it is "pay or get nagged", thanks to Natey Nate). We kind of need competition in the browser landscape, so in some ways having Ladybird is good. I don't really have much hope that ladybird will be able to challenge the evil Google empire though. But perhaps more people realise that Google controlling so much of the www-ecosystem (again, just look at how they nerfed google search in the last years) is a huge problem.

monax 5mo ago
I like the approach of ladybird to provides as many native chrome as possible it gives peoples choice and let the browser feel native in whatever DE they choose to use :)
preisschild 5mo ago
I'm pretty happy with GNOME. Feel free to use software from conspiracy lunatics (XLibre) though
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]

exploraz 5mo ago

Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47985497 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47985497

dlcarrier 5mo ago

I really like what SerenityOS is going for, and hope they can maintain that focus in the Ladybird browser.

bennett_dev 5mo ago
AFAIK Ladybird is separated from SerenityOS completely now (https://hackaday.com/2024/07/02/fork-ladybird-browser-and-serenityos-to-go-separate-ways/ https://hackaday.com/2024/07/02/fork-ladybird-browser-and-se...) so the Ladybird contributors can fully focus on it
LeFantome 5mo ago
I love SerenityOS too but it has totally lost momentum since Andreas left. And ladybird does not even support SerenityOS anymore.

KingMob 5mo ago

[flagged]

djhn 5mo ago
Evidence? Harsh accusation.
- lukan 5mo ago
  No evidence for that. What Kling did say was white developers were being discriminated in the bay area. Small debate and links at the last ladybird post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47899424 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47899424
- KingMob 5mo ago
  Here he is praising Charlie Kirk: https://x.com/awesomekling/status/1966456391146606806 https://x.com/awesomekling/status/1966456391146606806 Boosting the idea that white males are discriminated against in SV: https://x.com/awesomekling/status/1874518295350837401 https://x.com/awesomekling/status/1874518295350837401 Defending DHH: https://xcancel.com/awesomekling/status/1971287738268909576 https://xcancel.com/awesomekling/status/1971287738268909576 (DHH himself has gone full-mask-off, and wrote a whole blog post complaining that there were immigrants in London: https://web.archive.org/web/20250925050154/https://world.hey.com/dhh/as-i-remember-london-e7d38e64 https://web.archive.org/web/20250925050154/https://world.hey...) Kling has been pretty quiet so far himself, but he's keeping dubious company.

jurschreuder 5mo ago

Too bad LadyBird is being translated to LLM generated Rust. It's nice that Rust is so beginner friendly but it would be nicer to have a pure C++ browser for the more experienced developers, to use as a basis for their projects like Chromium is used.

teruakohatu 5mo ago
If LLMs allow them to speedrun to an alternative mainstream browser, then full speed ahead. A third runner in this space would make the browser market a lot healthier than the current chrome/webkit and Firefox duopoly.
- latexr 5mo ago
  I’d rather have a good browser which took its time to get things right than a speed run one. Too much software is written like that, and the result is that most things are shit. What are we in such a hurry for? To get more time to work more? Fucking chill. Do things slowly and right. As a side thought, speed running seems like the wrong analogy for software. Speed runners in games are people who spend a ton of time doing the exact same steps over and over to find tiny optimisations and develop muscle memory to do something repeatable. They take the time to do it well. Being a good speed runner means embracing slow progress. It’s the antithesis of software, where rushing to get it out also means you barely look at it. You do it fast but seldom right.
  - TehCorwiz 5mo ago
    What are your thoughts on the current code quality? Have you had a chance to review it?
    - latexr 5mo ago
      I have, but that’s irrelevant. I’m commenting on the general sentiment, not any specific project.
  - dirasieb 5mo ago

AYHAM_MEZHER1 5mo ago

[flagged]

qzgrid37 5mo ago

[dead]

tomaskafka 5mo ago

I thinkk it's about time Ladybird got some official prebuilt binaries - I'd love to try it, but I'm not going to install its whole dev environment and build it from source.

ramon156 5mo ago
They planned an alpha build in june :) so, just a bit longer!
- tomaskafka 5mo ago
  Thanks! Looking forward!
fabrice_d 5mo ago
If you are interested in new browsers / web runtimes, Servo publishes binaries monthly: https://servo.org/download/ https://servo.org/download/

jojomodding 5mo ago

Is pdf.js the renderer that VSCode uses? You know, the one where everything becomes extremely blurry when you zoom in for absolutely no reason at all except (I would imagine) developer incompetence?

preisschild 5mo ago
Its the one firefox uses and it works well.

tejohnso 5mo ago

Independence is great, but I'm curious about features. Will Ladybird have any built-in ad blocking like Brave? Useful tab management? Dark mode?

worksonmine 5mo ago
I think plugins is the better solution, then you can't pay the browser to get your ads through.
LeFantome 5mo ago
They block all ads in current builds. Probably mostly more performance and to create more consistency when testing a website (not having to worry about errors from lots of low quality JavaScript in the ads). I think they have dark mode already.

polycaster 5mo ago

I don't want to dampen the positive vibes around this project in any way, in fact I'm very glad such projects exists. But it just struck me that my immediate associations with the "non-profit" label - which in this project's context is clearly being positioned against Mozilla's for-profit subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation - don't quite match reality. Even though it is indeed a non-profit, the website features a not exactly short listing of sponsors, including platinum-tier sponsor Cloudflare. Platinum, per Ladybird's own sponsorship page, means $100,000+ per year. Money that, per the site, comes from "just people and companies who believe in an open web." Cloudflare, then.

greggh 5mo ago
Uhh, yes? Non-profits take donations to keep doing their work.
- polycaster 5mo ago
  Sure and Mozilla is arguably the cautionary tale here. They also started as a non-profit taking donations. AOL seeded them with $2M, Red Hat and Sun pitched in too. Within a year they had the Google search deal. By 2006, ~92% of revenue came from Google.
Retr0id 5mo ago
"non-profit" does not mean it has to run off unicorn farts

mtlynch 5mo ago

Worth noting that at this point, it's still somewhat trivial to find exploitable remote code execution bugs in Ladybird using AI tools.[0] The userbase of Ladybug users is so small that it's probably not worth the attackers' time, but keep in mind that it's an enormous step down in security from the mainstream browsers who are actively searching for bugs using the latest tools and paying bug bounties on external reports. [0] https://blog.calif.io/p/mad-bugs-rce-in-ladybird https://blog.calif.io/p/mad-bugs-rce-in-ladybird

benchwright 5mo ago

I managed to build this the other day. Looking good! As noted by other authors, there does seem to be a wide surface area for attacks so, security remediation does seem to be a top-of-queue thing to be handled. All in all, keep up the good work!