23 ms·

Ladybird Web Browser becomes a non-profit with $1M from GitHub Founder

• no_time 2y ago
  Looks like the website of a startup that wants my email so they can "get back to me with a quote". Such soulless corpo design is not befitting of a project this nice.
  • bartekpacia 2y ago
    My first impression was the same. Another VC-backed SaaS vibes.
  • moreofthis 2y ago
    I had a similar first impression. The previous logo and branding were pretty strong imo even if the SerenityOS and ladybird website was/is a bit scrappy. Very cute little ladybird, and the natural patterns of a ladybug gave a clear visual motif to build from. People talk about 'polish' in design as a signifier of quality but my mind always goes to conching, the process by which cacao nibs are ground down over days to produce silky chocolate. You need to conch the nibs to grind them past the point that the chocolate has a gritty texture in order to get the nice smooth chocolate we all love, but what the process also does is grind down the sharper notes of the flavour. The further you go the more the deeper and richer notes are lost. So too a design language and brand can be conched to smooth it out for broader consumption, but you can go too far and lose the flavour.
    • frou_dh 2y ago
      The new logo's shape and colours look reminiscent of Helix's https://helix-editor.com https://helix-editor.com, but I agree that the actual ladybird was nice.
    • account42 2y ago
      I do like to add raw cacao nibs to my chocolate cakes and I also prefer the old web over much of the offensively inoffensive corportate approved web so maybe there is something to your analogy.
  • nyanpasu64 2y ago
    The AI-generated laptop images with incoherent logo and keys are the cherry on the soullessness.
  • cantreadwont 2y ago
    I was about to say that it had a reason to look like ass in that they never really worked on it at all to begin with, being focused on the browser, which wasn't even good enough for anything more than dev work, rather than the presentation of it. But I see now that they actually updated the site.
  • Sammi 2y ago
    I sorry to say this, but the new visual style is completely charmless. The most important thing a non-profit oss project needs is a charming visual style. A ladybird for instance is an extremely charming little bug, and it was such a strong choice. This new style is a huge step back compared to it.
    • fouc 2y ago
      there is no bug called ladybird, you mean ladybug..
      • k8sToGo 2y ago
        The ladybug is a beetle and not a bug :)
      • lucky13 2y ago
        Ladybird is British English, ladybug is American English.
  • nalinidash 2y ago
    The old website of this project is worth checking: https://web.archive.org/web/20240630172605/https://ladybird.dev/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240630172605/https://ladybird....
    • vaylian 2y ago
      Thanks for posting this. I have to admit, the old design has a lot more charm. The new design is fine, but there is just something timeless about the old design > This page is not fancy because we are focusing on building the browser. :^) I approve this message
• bArray 2y ago
  Discussed previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40845951 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40845951 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40845954 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40845954
  • dang 2y ago
    Thanks! Macroexpanded: Welcome to Ladybird - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40845951 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40845951 - July 2024 (94 comments) The Ladybird Browser Initiative - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40845954 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40845954 - July 2024 (13 comments) Ladybird browser update (June 2024) [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40838973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40838973 - June 2024 (1 comment) Ladybird browser spreads its wings - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40746804 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40746804 - June 2024 (304 comments) Ladybird browser update (March 2024) [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39889576 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39889576 - April 2024 (2 comments) Understanding Complexity Like an Engineer – The Case of the Ladybird Browser - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39342887 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39342887 - Feb 2024 (55 comments) The Ladybird browser project - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39271449 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39271449 - Feb 2024 (284 comments) Ladybird browser update (July 2023) [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36939402 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36939402 - July 2023 (1 comment) Chat with Andreas Kling about Ladybird and developing a browser engine - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36620450 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36620450 - July 2023 (65 comments) Shopify Sponsored Ladybird Browser - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36502583 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36502583 - June 2023 (1 comment) I have received a $100k sponsorship for Ladybird browser - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36377805 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36377805 - June 2023 (166 comments) Early stages of Google Docs support in the Ladybird browser - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33511831 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33511831 - Nov 2022 (84 comments) Github.com on Ladybird, new browser with JavaScript/CSS/SVG engines from scratch - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33273785 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33273785 - Oct 2022 (1 comment) Ladybird: A new cross-platform browser project - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32809126 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32809126 - Sept 2022 (473 comments) Ladybird: A truly new Web Browser comes to Linux - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32014061 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32014061 - July 2022 (8 comments) Ladybird Web Browser - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31987506 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31987506 - July 2022 (2 comments) Ladybird Web Browser – SerenityOS LibWeb Engine on Linux - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31976579 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31976579 - July 2022 (2 comments)
• dbcooper 2y ago
  >Why build a new browser in C++ when safer and more modern languages are available? >Ladybird started as a component of the SerenityOS hobby project, which only allows C++. The choice of language was not so much a technical decision, but more one of personal convenience. Andreas was most comfortable with C++ when creating SerenityOS, and now we have almost half a million lines of modern C++ to maintain. >However, now that Ladybird has forked and become its own independent project, all constraints previously imposed by SerenityOS are no longer in effect. We are actively evaluating a number of alternatives and will be adding a mature successor language to the project in the near future. This process is already quite far along, and prototypes exist in multiple languages.
  • richardwhiuk 2y ago
    So half a million lines of tech debt?
    • vaylian 2y ago
      I think that's too pessimistic. The code is there and it can be used to push the project forward. If some part of it is not good enough, then an alternative implementation can be created (potentially in a different language)
      • neocritter 2y ago
        A classic: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-... >> "The idea that new code is better than old is patently absurd. Old code has been used. It has been tested. Lots of bugs have been found, and they’ve been fixed. There’s nothing wrong with it. It doesn’t acquire bugs just by sitting around on your hard drive." >> "Each of these bugs took weeks of real-world usage before they were found. The programmer might have spent a couple of days reproducing the bug in the lab and fixing it. If it’s like a lot of bugs, the fix might be one line of code, or it might even be a couple of characters, but a lot of work and time went into those two characters." >> "When you throw away code and start from scratch, you are throwing away all that knowledge. All those collected bug fixes. Years of programming work." It's an older piece, but like good old code, it still holds up. Newer tools and technology have improved the creating of new code, but they've also made improving old code easier in equal measure.
• awesomekling 2y ago
  Hello friends, Ladybird founder here! Here's a short video from Chris Wanstrath announcing our non-profit yesterday, and kicking things off with a $1M donation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9edTqPMX_k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9edTqPMX_k Happy to answer questions :)
  • hakanderyal 2y ago
    Just wanted to add a note for the roadmap: Please make sure it can compete with Safari on battery usage, so those who are mobile on a Mac are not left behind. Best of luck!
  • lemper 2y ago
    congrats my dude! and when windows & android version available, i don't mind 10 bucks per month subscription at all.
  • ironmagma 2y ago
    If Ladybird is "forked" from SerenityOS now, does that mean the mainline won't run on Serenity any longer?
    • awesomekling 2y ago
      That’s right. A version of Ladybird remains in the SerenityOS repo, and people are cherry-picking changes as we go. Over time, I expect them to diverge enough that this becomes impractical, as Ladybird now allows 3rd party code while SerenityOS does not. It’s up to the SerenityOS community how to handle this.
  • skywal_l 2y ago
    What is the biggest challenge you expect for ladybird to be successful and do you consider this project still a "hobby" now? Thanks again for your hard work!
    • awesomekling 2y ago
      We have a number of big challenges in the immediate future, but I think the biggest one of all will be the long tail of compatibility and correctness issues that inevitably awaits us after everything falls into place. This is definitely more than a hobby at this point. I already manage 3 employees, with 3 more joining in the next month!
• input_sh 2y ago
  I really appreciate someone taking a stab at a project of this scale, but is it really worth discussing for like the 70th time when even the alpha is two years away? https://hn.algolia.com/?q=ladybird https://hn.algolia.com/?q=ladybird
  • account42 2y ago
    I'd rather see duplicate post for interesting projects than yet another LLM grift.
  • darby_nine 2y ago
    This is only the second time i've seen this project so maybe this is just your perspective.
    • input_sh 2y ago
      Twenty hours ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40845954 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40845954 Also twenty hours ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40845951 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40845951 One day ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40838973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40838973 Along with 60 other threads you can see by clicking the link I posted.
      • tokai 2y ago
        Flag, hide, and move along if you have an issue with the links getting to the top.
      • theshackleford 2y ago
        I guess we do because I’m here every day and it’s the first I’ve seen it.
      • darby_nine 2y ago
        I personally am not on HN 24/7 so for my own sake I appreciate it getting posted frequently enough for me to see it.
• PedroBatista 2y ago
  Best of luck. If these guys succeed medium to long term they also prove it’s actually possible to build a browser if you focus on building a browser and not anything else. It would be a statement of hope that we are not condemned to Google’s corporate strategy and the absolute rot the Mozilla foundation has become. I know pretty much everything is not in their favor but I truly believe it’s still possible for a couple of guys with their head between their shoulders to actually “change the World”. I need to sleep at night after all.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• mudkipdev 2y ago
  The redesign looks soulless
  • kome 2y ago
    true. extremely boring. a bare html would looks so much better. this one is not utilitarian and is not aesthetic either. it hits the intersection between banality, uglyness and lacks of function - because it is structured like a brochure, wasting a lot of space on stock photos.
  • freilanzer 2y ago
    Also, where is the actual ladybug? It's not in the logo.
    • netvl 2y ago
      FWIW it's ladybird, not ladybug :)
      • ac29 2y ago
        They are the same thing. The former is more common in the UK, the latter in the US.
      • freilanzer 2y ago
        It's both, but bug makes more sense.
• bayindirh 2y ago
  I wonder what would happen if Ladybird matures well to compete with Firefox and Chrome (hope so), and it's just forked away by some company and completely closed down in a whim, because BSD-2 allows that.
  • PedroBatista 2y ago
    Why is that such a problem other than the human factor of seeing your code being used by some guys you don’t like?
    • zogrodea 2y ago
      I think the issue isn't the potential forking, but that the potential fork may become a dominant and closed one. If one values the web being somewhat open/less monopolistic, an open source web browser would be more appealing. I have faith in the Ladybird browser project to avoid such a situation though.
    • master-lincoln 2y ago
      It supports capitalistic predatory tactics that erode our society. Better to exclude them...
    • bayindirh 2y ago
      > seeing your code being used by some guys you don’t like? This is not even in the list of my concerns. I just don't like to see efforts of hundreds if not thousands of volunteers are rolled into a closed source application and distributed for the profit of a couple of people who pat themselves on the back because they got their next car/house/whatever for free. This is why I prefer GPL over BSD/MIT.
      • bigstrat2003 2y ago
        That sounds no different from "code being used by some guys you don't like" to me, to be honest. If some company took my permissively licensed work and turned it into a commercial product, why would I take issue? I put my work out there for the betterment of all, and it is still bettering the world even in its new form. I have no complaints with that.
• Toorkit 2y ago
  I'm too used to my Firefox with tree-style tabs and Vim controls to go back to a regular layout. This also makes me a bit of a tab hoarder, though. I'd say "I'll be keeping an eye on this," but I'm sure there'll be plenty of posts about Ladybird before the alpha even drops, haha.
  • vaylian 2y ago
    > I'm too used to my Firefox with tree-style tabs and Vim controls to go back to a regular layout. Tree-style tabs could be a core feature. Maybe this is something you can contribute to the project?
    • sleepycatgirl 2y ago
      I certainly would consider trying to contribute, but.. After seeing the drama.. Nah. Not here. Not now. Still, happy to see a new browser engine, alongside servo.
      • __float 2y ago
        What is "the drama"? Are you referring to something besides this announcement?
        • cratermoon 2y ago
          The drama: https://github.com/LadybirdBrowser/ladybird/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#on-ideologically-motivated-changes https://github.com/LadybirdBrowser/ladybird/blob/master/CONT... and this comment from awesomekling on their SerenityOS project https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/pull/6814 https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/pull/6814
          • koito17 2y ago
            I think Kling's response to the PR is unprofessional. However, there is no reason to start spamming the issue, after three years. Is that the drama? My conclusion is to continue avoiding sites like X and the so-called "Fediverse".
• amne 2y ago
  "built on web standards" - I believe it needs critical mass of both websites and installs for this to be a feature when the mainstream browser has hardcoded quirks. Also, I am very curious why is someone like Shopify sponsoring this.
• Aeolun 2y ago
  Not the little spout! Please, any picture but the little sprout.
  • account42 2y ago
    They could at least have selected one with a ladybird climbing on it.
• bowsamic 2y ago
  I feel like the public perception of this project will become significantly more harsh now that it has upgraded from a hobby project, and I’m not sure they’re prepared for that
• mronetwo 2y ago
  Nitpick (or is it?) but the website is soulless and just bad. The website design communicates that this is just another immature project, desperately looking for a VC funding, just following modern design trends where "design == aesthetics". Yuck. I am happy to see the project thrive.
  • bezier-curve 2y ago
    Have to agree, though I think as the saying goes, "don't hate the playa, hate the game". Capitalism sucks. Sorry for my non-HN-like comment, but it's the truth.
    • rchaud 2y ago
      > "don't hate the playa, hate the game" That might play if this was another Chromium fork, instead of something built from scratch.
      • bezier-curve 2y ago
        I've been watching Andreas' youtube channel, no need to talk down to me.
  • aniviacat 2y ago
    I don't know if that's true for non-developers. (Of course non-developers aren't the target yet, but they hopefully will be in the future.) I'd assume that non-developers are usually the main audience for a project website like this. Developers can simply look at the Github readme and get their near plain text overview there.
  • Sammi 2y ago
    Where's the Ladybird??
    • prettymuchnoone 2y ago
      they got rid of it :(
• WhereIsTheTruth 2y ago
  > 501(c)(3) non-profit How come a european project becomes an american foundation?
  • rizky05 2y ago
    Money of course.
  • tokai 2y ago
    Cause its not a european project.
  • lkramer 2y ago
    That's an interesting question...
  • account42 2y ago
    I too would have preferred to see an EU-based organization backing this but I can imagine that a US non-profit probably makes it easier to get funding from US corporations and donors.
• wordofx 2y ago
  2026? It’s so far away it will prob be forgotten by the time anyone can use it…
  • master-lincoln 2y ago
    2 years is far away? You must be very young or very close to death I assume... It doesn't need to be remembered until then. If it matures and gets usable you will read about it again ;)
    • k8sToGo 2y ago
      Are the two mutually exclusive? Can one be not young and close to death? Sorry sometimes I get a bit existential.
      • account42 2y ago
        Colloquially, "or" can but doesn't have to be exclusive. As to your question, being young and close to death are both states that everyone gets to experience (even if not neccessarily knowingly for the latter) but thankfully most of us are spared from experiencing them simultaneously.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• janandonly 2y ago
  Haven't we seen a post about Ladybird just last week already? Or am i confusing my independent broswers now?
  • resurge 2y ago
    I checked my RSS history because I was thinking the same. (My rss feed only contains posts that get popular on HN, there might be more posts in reality) - This post - Yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40845951 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40845951 - 2 weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40746804 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40746804 - 4 weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40560768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40560768 Anyway, I don't mind that much. I hope they succeed.
• slackstation 2y ago
  Seems a bit ambitious for only less than a dozen full-time engineers in two years.
  • Deukhoofd 2y ago
    I was thinking the exact opposite. Considering what they already have, 2 years seems very far away for an initial alpha.
    • xcv123 2y ago
      Firefox and Chromium have 30+ million lines of code (excluding comments and blank lines). You underestimate the complexity of a web browser.
      • Deukhoofd 2y ago
        Oh for sure, browsers are complex beasts, but Ladybird already supports quite a decent chunk of the web. For an initial alpha (which they explicitly point out to be for developers and early adopters) to still be 2 years away feels a bit far out to me.
        • xcv123 2y ago
          The alpha release is intended to be fully functional, in the usual sense of alpha testing. That is ambitious. It's not like a shitty game on Steam (or Star Citizen) where "alpha" means 10% of features completed. That is 30 million lines of complexity due within 2 years. Ignoring lines of code, some of these problems within a browser are time consuming and difficult to solve from scratch.
      • paddim8 2y ago
        Do you know who Andreas is? He knows more than you.
        • xcv123 2y ago
          What are you talking about?
• utensil4778 2y ago
  [flagged]
• hipinspire 2y ago
  It is a great honor to see a website I designed and coded at the top of the Hacker News front page! A big thank you to Chris Wanstrath for allowing me to work on it. I hope Ladybird becomes a mainstream browser, and I feel this is a moment similar to when Firefox rebranded from Phoenix. P.S. Check out my UI/UX portfolio at https://hipfolio.co https://hipfolio.co
  • marvinborner 2y ago
    It's really rare to see websites that look modern while still being very minimal and fast. No JS, no frameworks - great job!
    • hipinspire 2y ago
      Thank you! Coming from an OS developer, it's a great honor!
  • awesomekling 2y ago
    Thank you for making the website! :)
    • hipinspire 2y ago
      Thank you, Andreas! Keep up the great work!
  • johnsea 2y ago
    It's beautiful! -- Cool that Chris Wanstrath gives massive support to this project (financial and (most likely) time).
    • hipinspire 2y ago
      Thank you very much! That is right!
  • parasti 2y ago
    FYI, a couple of sections are cut off on mobile.
• simonebrunozzi 2y ago
  First "alpha" in Summer 2026. Ouch. I can imagine how hard it is to develop a browser. However, I can't imagine how much the landscape will change in the next 2 years... LLM, privacy, etc.
• bennypowers 2y ago
  Are you running the web platform tests?
  • awesomekling 2y ago
    Yes, but not automatically yet! We are actively working on our WPT infrastructure (which relies on a full Web Driver implementation) and running it manually at the moment. Once we've got it stable and automated, we'll look at pushing results to the common dashboard at https://wpt.fyi/ https://wpt.fyi/ :)
    • bennypowers 2y ago
      Excellent! Thank you
• arresin 2y ago
  Shopify is a platinum sponsor. Big respect.
  • awesomekling 2y ago
    Indeed, Shopify was our first major sponsor, they signed up almost a year ago! I'm super grateful to Tobi for believing in us when we were even less mature than we are today. <3
• FireInsight 2y ago
  I think people in this comment section are too harsh on the website. I think the design is pleasing and functional, and the project is communicated about clearly. The AI laptop is a bit of a shame, and the logo being bland instead of clever is a bummer, though. But plenty of products have a similar front page style, and it doesnt make me feel like it's a soulless startup.
  • cfiggers 2y ago
    I actually really like the logo. It's a simple, mathematically-defined curve that also resembles an abstract ladybird opening its wings. You don't find that clever?
    • beretguy 2y ago
      I'd rather see an actual ladybird somewhere than some facebook's new meta-like logo.
  • aquova 2y ago
    I agree, after reading the comments, I was expecting a complete monstrosity, but it's a simple, informative website. That style of website design is used because it's appealing and easy to parse. I'm not sure what people were expecting. I must admit I'm not crazy about the logo though. It's fine at the top of a page, but I cant see it as my browser icon on my desktop, and it's much less appealing and identifiable than the old Ladybird.
  • robryan 2y ago
    I think this is more for the end user. If the eventual goal is to convince people to use this instead of Chrome or Safari it is probably going to be a hard sell if it looks like a hobby project.
  • ilt 2y ago
    May be I missed something obvious, what AI laptop?
    • 2y ago
• lawn 2y ago
  This is great and a truly independent web browser is surely one of the most important software projects we need today.
• major505 2y ago
  After mozzila turned itself into a advertising agency, is good that theres a new open source alternative. Been looking at ladybird for a while now. Can wait to see it grown.
• satyanash 2y ago
  No talk of the license on the frontpage. Visiting the GitHub repo tells me it is 2-clause BSD license. It's high time we had a GPLv3 web browser, otherwise, this risks the same fate as the rest of the browsers with proprietary forks. This of course comes at the cost of not being able to support non-free parts of the web standard such as DRM.
  • fsflover 2y ago
    > This of course comes at the cost of not being able to support non-free parts of the web standard such as DRM. LGPLv3 would solve that, wouldn't it?
    • i_read_news 2y ago
      Or GPLv2 with binaries loaded at runtime, like Linux does. This is a definitive good candidate for v2 as not having DRM is simply just not going to work.
  • account42 2y ago
    > This of course comes at the cost of not being able to support non-free parts of the web standard such as DRM. That would be a benefit, not a cost.
    • scubbo 2y ago
      Absolutism like this hurts adoption of otherwise-useful tools. Given the choice between a tool which simply cannot play DRM-protected content, and a tool which can, _ceteris paribus_ most consumers will prefer the former. If you believe there are other properties of a proposed tool that mean it is a public good for it to be adopted, it behooves you to make it attractive to adopt.
      • mouse_ 2y ago
        I don't care if it's for most people. There needs to be at least one good option.
• greenyies 2y ago
  I'm just not trusting a small browser dev team. The risk of exploits is too high
  • xandrius 2y ago
    And still written in C++, like c'mon, we are in 2024.
    • efilife 2y ago
      What would be a better option?
      • vaylian 2y ago
        The obvious answer is Rust. But I respect their choice of using an existing and probably well-tested C++ code base as a starting point.
  • BirAdam 2y ago
    But you’d trust a megacorporation closely tied to government that has an explicit interest in tracking you, keeping paths for intelligence agencies and law enforcement open, and generally being deceptive? You trust browsers that openly phone home about your activity?
    • djeastm 2y ago
      I gauge the risk of my government targeting me lower than the risk of hackers stealing/selling my information. Mainly because the latter has occurred to me numerous times already.
      • infinitifall 2y ago
        [dead]
    • greenyies 2y ago
      Despite you painting it as extreme as you do, yes. Random exploits on the Internet are still a higher risk for me.
• edent 2y ago
  Is Ladybird going to be a member of the WHAT-WG?
• fguerraz 2y ago
  Good luck. I mean it both in a sarcastic way and not.
• iandanforth 2y ago
  Open source is great and new things are great and pursuing your passion is great. The rhetoric here however is lacking. Specifically the argument is "google money bad" but the authors don't provide specific examples where google money has caused a technical decision they disagree with.
  • zamadatix 2y ago
    > No "default search deals", crypto tokens, or other forms of user monetization, ever. Is avoiding those sorts of things not supposed to be reason enough for them? Also the page does a good job of specifically mentioning Google and making general statements about what any source of funding can impact. If Google wanted to give an unrestricted donation it's not clear from this page they would decline it.
• josefresco 2y ago
  What does Spotify gain by funding this project with $100K?
  • rogerthis 2y ago
    A brick in the ladder to open source heaven.
  • obruchez 2y ago
    You mean Shopify?
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • K0SM0S 2y ago
    Naive guess: their shopping activity (leads, funnels, conversions/sales…) if/when in Ladybird would likely be tracked only by Shopify itself, at the exclusion of other big tech (most notably Google). This makes Shopify's dataset more valuable (differentiated by unique entries), which can be used in-house strategically to grow, or resold at a better price.
• BossingAround 2y ago
  For anyone looking for a package to install, there are, sadly, none yet: > Ladybird is in a pre-alpha state, and only suitable for use by developers
• PontifexMinimus 2y ago
  Will it have multi-account containers, like Firefox? If not, I won't be using it.
• bradley_taunt 2y ago
  Love the project, but that website is pretty cold and soulless (as mentioned by others). I quickly put together a "cleaner" design for anyone interested, which also uses the original (and objectively better) logo: https://ladybird-dev.netlify.app/ https://ladybird-dev.netlify.app/
  • beretguy 2y ago
    I love this version SO MUCH BETTER. Clean, easy to read and I don't have to scroll down for half an hour to get to the bottom. I hate "modern design", whatever it is. To much padding, to much useless css and styles.
  • aAaaArrRgH 2y ago
    Hard disagree. If you're a fan of the strictly functional "what's CSS?" look, you might as well stick to viewing README.md on GitHub and call it a day.
    • rchaud 2y ago
      This design makes it look like something that is looking for developer contributions. The original looks like something where a sales chatbot is likely to pop up in the corner.
      • deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
  • kome 2y ago
    This version is clearly superior, both in design and use. Great start!
  • endemic 2y ago
    Yeah, that original logo is way better. Kind of reminiscent of the Firefox logo before it got abstracted away into minimalism.
    • 2y ago
• 8organicbits 2y ago
  Is there any caniuse data for Ladybird? It would be helpful to see which standards Ladybird implements so Ladybird users can use my site. Building websites that use the supported standards seems like a good way to support the project.
  • zamadatix 2y ago
    Better yet, build your site using the standards that make sense for you to use and then see what the browser needs changed to support it! Some things like webgpu are bigger lifts to make internal versions of but others like minor CSS properties tend to go quick.
• ale 2y ago
  I’m disappointed in the fact that the main ambition here is only to recreate a browser for the sake of independence. There is so much potential in creating a modern browser that could for instance focus on performance, privacy, access to lower level APIs, etc. rather than carrying the eternal burden of backwards compatibility.
  • specialist 2y ago
    Software dev maturity phases: get something working make it correct make it fast Having a vanilla green field working web browser could enable experimentation. Prototying a novel more useful hybrid history & bookmarks feature set, for instance, is a giant pain thru the current plugin extensions. Like sucking apples thru a soda straw. As you said about lower level APIs, it's easier to "go straight to the metal".
    • K0SM0S 2y ago
      Indeed. With limited budget and manpower, they [Ladybird] should focus on a rock-solid core engine with great extensibility, then let the community—if any—create all the things around said core. It's the best (perhaps only) "small project to stratosphere" 101-recipe I've found. [Note that for browsers, even 1% of market share is stratosphere-level.] Historical music/media apps were a great example before browsers (Winamp, Foobar2K, XBMC…). Tiny teams + key community contributions made for amazingly complete and rich software fit for all use-cases, beating any commercial alternative by far. (The fact is that to this day, these 2000-2010 solutions gave you far more user-power & customization, not to mention discoverability and meta-knowledge, than current Netflix or Spotify UIs.) A project like Ladybird should take that general road, IM(very but educated)HO. That's how they can eventually catch up to big names feature-wise.
• ChrisArchitect 2y ago
  [dupe] Announcement post: https://ladybird.org/announcement.html https://ladybird.org/announcement.html Probably merge these discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40845951 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40845951 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40845954 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40845954
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• fsflover 2y ago
  Ongoing discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40854836 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40854836
  • dang 2y ago
    We merged that thread hither since the submission was more about the significant new information.
    • account42 2y ago
      Odd choice to move the discussion from a submission of the official website to one about a blog by an (afaict) unrelated pundit.
      • dang 2y ago
        Yes, normally we'd do the opposite (especially when the article isn't particularly good), but in this case it was easier to trace the significant new information this way.
• Kim_Bruning 2y ago
  Hrrm. legacyPackages.x86_64-linux.ladybird (0-unstable-2024-06-04) Cool! Let's see if I can read HN. nix run nixpkgs#ladybird ... 502144.831 Ladybird(1297933): WebContent process crashed! 502144.831 Ladybird(1297933): WebContent has crashed 5 times in quick succession! Not restarting... ... I didn't expect it to work very well yet in a distro, so that's ok. It's cool enough that nix(os) has already started tracking it. I'll check back every few months and see how it's going!
  • awesomekling 2y ago
    Please don't trust random distro packages of Ladybird, we have no idea what they're packaging, but it's unlikely to be current, and not something we can help you with. I wish distros would not package pre-alpha software, since the only thing it accomplishes is giving people a bad first impression of something that isn't ready :( If you want to mess with Ladybird, build it from the source at https://github.com/LadybirdBrowser/ladybird https://github.com/LadybirdBrowser/ladybird :)
    • jchw 2y ago
      I think the only reason why Nixpkgs has a derivation for Ladybird is because it is not really possible to build Ladybird (or really almost any software) the "obvious" way in NixOS. What Nixpkgs provides is more like build recipes that work within Nix's sandboxed environment with optionally cached binaries, rather than actual packages. Because of that, it's kind of awkward: no specific decision is ever made to publish packages for some unfinished software, it's just that the act of writing a derivation kind of implicitly does do that. Clearly, some upstreams do not appreciate that NixOS provides non-standard or sometimes-unfinished versions of their software, but it's either that or the software is essentially unusable and uncompilable on NixOS. I do wonder if there is a potential for productive compromise, though. Maybe it would be desirable to have a QMessageBox warning to the user at startup that the distribution is unsupported and bugs should not be reported upstream. I think that the folks maintaining the Ladybird derivation would be happy to take feedback into account.
  • fgaz 2y ago
• ChrisArchitect 2y ago
  [dupe] Announcement post: https://ladybird.org/announcement.html https://ladybird.org/announcement.html More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40845951 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40845951
• animanoir 2y ago
  It will be eventually sold.
  • awesomekling 2y ago
    Which part, the nonprofit or the permissively licensed codebase? ;)
• CrimsonCape 2y ago
  Does awesomekling get to remain BDFL of Ladybird? I appreciated the project because it gave the impression that all the pork was stripped away and 100% focused on the engineering. Meanwhile Mozilla spends a massive chunk of money on the organization and the philanthropy and the blog posts, and the activism, and the salaries of people who have little resemblance to engineers.
  • awesomekling 2y ago
    I’m still the BDFL but my role is evolving a bit as I’m now also running the nonprofit. We are definitely a stripped down operation, and we will spend as much of our funding as possible on engineer salaries for the foreseeable future.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• agumonkey 2y ago
  I'm curious how they will work. The lead dev made briliant coding / self-work videos, and I'm really wondering coding will happen on this project. I hope we can see more streams :) good luck
• arisu 2y ago
  [flagged]
• spencerchubb 2y ago
  Can anyone explain like I'm an idiot concrete reasons how Google Chrome's dominance is bad for the web? Preferably things that have actually happened, not what might happen
  • stewx 2y ago
    One answer: Google's interests are at cross-purposes. They are simultaneously making money from showing you advertisements, but also giving you a browser, and sometimes these conflict. For example, they recently rolled out a new on-by-default "feature" to identify yourself to advertisers. Another answer: concentration of power and market share stifles innovation. Look at what happened to Internet Explorer when Microsoft was the only game in town.
  • RiverCrochet 2y ago
    Google tried to get this through, and was only prevented because competing browsers didn't play along. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federated_Learning_of_Cohorts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federated_Learning_of_Cohorts
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • skeaker 2y ago
    What's wrong with looking at what might happen?
    • spencerchubb 2y ago
      That is also a fine question to ask. I was just curious about what has already happened because chrome has been the #1 browser since 2013.
  • metabagel 2y ago
    Would you want to have all smart TVs manufactured by the dominant advertising company? How do you think that would turn out?
• rocketvole 2y ago
  excuse my ingnorance, but firefox is also an open source browser afaik. The only advantage that ladybird us is that it turns the duopoly of browser engines into a tri-opoly- so what is the point? Why wouldn't this money be better spent enhancing another browser engine like whatever midori runs on? Why does Ladybird need to exist, and why are so many companies becoming sponsors? Not trying to ruffle feathers, genuinely curious
  • __d 2y ago
    The Firefox browser is built by the Mozilla organization. Mozilla depends upon funding from Google to survive, and over time, has become used to spending lots of money each year (since it arrives "free" from Google). Should Google turn off that tap, Mozilla and Firefox would very likely struggle to survive. So, some people feel that it'd be better to have a viable browser that isn't dependent upon Google.
    • rocketvole 2y ago
      I don't see how ladybird's funding model is fundamentally different, other than Google isn't funding it. The only difference is that ladybird is in it's infancy and still has time to grow into the corpo-money-dependent organization you describe. Besides, has ladybird even said that they would reject google money if offered it? Or amazon? or any other large corporation that could seriously stifle the free web?
• zzo38computer 2y ago
  1. Would it have possibility to load extensions written in C by dlopen? 2. Would it have the features of the Line Mode Browser?
• daghamm 2y ago
  For comparison, in 2022 Mozilla had $1.3B in assets and over $500M in revenue: https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-2022-fs-final-0908.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-202... I want ladybird to succeed and show the world how ridiculous the Mozilla situation has been.
  • shortrounddev2 2y ago
    What is wrong with Mozilla?
    • kumarsw 2y ago
      The browser is good, but Mozilla has been consistently losing market share despite being well-funded. There is considerable debate as to what specific mistakes were made, but the foundation spent a lot of money on side projects that did not benefit the browser such as Servo, Rust and FireFox OS. Likely market share could have been improved had this been spent on marketing or engineering work that directly benefited the browser.
    • daghamm 2y ago
      They spent a lot of money on their CEO and board, and funded it by getting rid of good programmers and defunding long term projects like Servo.
  • jacooper 2y ago
    Brave already proved this, you don't need to wait for ladybird to prove it.
    • throwaway0665 2y ago
      Brave is backed by Chromium.
      • jacooper 2y ago
        They run their own engine with an independent index, something Mozilla never did, while still on a smaller budget.
• szastamasta 2y ago
  As much as I would love to see this succeeded, I simply cannot believe that you can sustain a browser development without millions of dollars. Web got so complicated. And it's perfect for all these huge ads companies owning browser engines. Nobody can catch up with this. There's only one way we can make sure we can get really independent browsers: SIMPLIFY THE WEB - Limit the platform to absolute minimum - give way to render things, fetch stuff from the network, etc. - Get rid of CSS - leave just some basic rendering primitives, so libraries can be created to paint on the canvas. We don't need 78 new animation primitives. We'll build them ourselves if we have a sensible canvas and execution platform. - Move JS out of the browser to a WebAssembly compiler and make browsers run only WebAssembly - Or keep JS in the browser but don't add any new features, features should be in libraries outside of the browser. Language should be as simple as possible. - Get rid of all semantic html junk. We only need some basic blocks to move things around. This way we can have simple browsers and move all complexity to client libraries, which you can pick and replace when needed. Just keep things as simple as possible and let people build on that. (updated whitespace)
  • dclowd9901 2y ago
    From a user experience, maintaining a large collection of “feature libraries” is about the last thing I want to do on top of web browsing. To me, this approach would doom the browser as needlessly nerdy and obtuse.
    • szastamasta 2y ago
      You already have this anyway. I’m not sure you have seen the size of average page js bundle. It’s many MBs of JS. All this while expanding browser APIs like crazy during last few years. Simplify the platform and let people brew.
  • freedomben 2y ago
    Any browser could do that tomorrow, and then their users will promptly abandon it when it doesn't work for websites they have to access. This will just never be a viable strategy because users want a web browser that works on the sites they want to visit, and site owners aren't going to rewrite their sites unless the browser has a big enough market share. But market share is going to be small for a browser that doesn't work. Rinse and repeat. It's a major chicken and egg problem.
• oissla 2y ago
  Honestly, I still love Firefox and I'm a bit skeptical about rewriting everything from scratch when you have a fairly decent codebase. What's the point? Just burning money? You still need to implement the specs.
• renewiltord 2y ago
  It's a Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation. So that means it must have raised $500k from other people, each of which cannot have given more than $30k. That's pretty impressive. I wonder who the other sponsors were.
  • K0SM0S 2y ago
    Really impressive indeed, but I do get the interest. I, for one, will give 1% of my yearly income now that they're on my radar. It instantly ranks among the top 3 most important open-source projects in my opinion. In terms of SWE, it doesn't get harder than an OS in my book (and not even from scratch). So them coming from success in that space is more than enough to convince me they can deliver a world-class browser core engine.
• cratermoon 2y ago
  Just remember, https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/pull/6814#issuecomment-830793992 https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/pull/6814#issuecommen...
  • airhangerf15 2y ago
    Just remember the developers are not mindless idiots who will submit to mobs of religiously ideologically zealots that constantly complain about everything while contributing nothing to open source development or society?
• tamimio 2y ago
  > No "default search deals", crypto tokens, or other forms of user monetization, ever. Sounds good, but how would you make sure the sponsors won’t influence you in the future once it’s popular enough? After all, they are still corporations and are after profits, as opposed to crowdfunding.
  • mattstir 2y ago
    I'm not an expert in this stuff, but I did notice that the Ladybird website mentions only accepting unrestricted donations. That doesn't prevent power dynamics from evolving between sponsors and the project, of course, but it at least means that no sponsors get to explicitly demand specific things.
    • xmprt 2y ago
      I think it's a valiant cause but even if that's what they claim right now, eventually they will have to weigh whether it's worth taking the $100k donation from sponsor A who doesn't demand working on feature X but just suggests it or risk the future runway of the project.
      • account42 2y ago
        I think he best protection against that is to have many different sponsors so a single one of them pulling out isn't a death sentence. In that regard, Ladybird already seems to be much better off than Firefox. Still the concern remains valid and without leadership sticking to strong principles nothing will protect against external influence forever.
• b0dhimind 2y ago
  Firefox user here... if you can do good on tree style tabs like the Sidebery add-on, let us know!
• ForHackernews 2y ago
  This is wonderful news and I'm all for more diversity and user choice in the world of browsers, but this text... > preparing to become the only major web browser which does not treat the user like the product being sold. ...is either ignorant or a deliberate slam on Mozilla. Whatever else you might say about Firefox, it has never tried to "sell" me to anyone. The fact of the matter is that Mozilla has done the impossible for decades and gets no end of grief for it. (I expect we'll get a zillion complaints about search engine placement & Pocket recommendations because that always happens on this site)
  • fastball 2y ago
    To me, it seems neither ignorant or a deliberate slam on Mozilla. Clearly, they are referring to paid search engine placement. But that doesn't just apply to Mozilla, it also applies to Apple/Safari. And given that both Mozilla and Apple are being payed by Google somewhat proportionally to how many users they have, clearly users are indeed being treated like a product being sold.
• renewedrebecca 2y ago
  This is awesome news! Ironically for a story about a webbrowser, the screen is showing 404 comments as I type this. :-)
• wslh 2y ago
  > Their goal? To have a fully functional "Alpha" version of the Ladybird browser ready sometime in 2026. Mmmmmmh, I don't think this is a good goal. I would expect quicker iterations even with the web browser complexities.
• EricRiese 2y ago
  What's stopping this from going the way of Edge? Why not fork Firefox or Chromium? Can you point to an example where Mozilla's funding model led it to make a bad decision?
• autoexec 2y ago
  I love the idea of this project! I'm looking forward to giving it a try. I'm not your typical user (I'm more interested in what features a browser lets me disable than what it supports) and while right now Firefox comes out way ahead of everyone else in terms of empowering users to customize things to fit their needs it feels like with every update they introduce more features I need to disable and they're growing more aggressive about data collection. I hope that as Ladybird grows you'll keep privacy, security, and customization in mind because our options in that space are very limited.
  • KennyBlanken 2y ago
    A reminder that the vast majority of Mozilla funding comes from Google who are an advertising company. A reminder that years ago they were paid by an advertising firm to secretly install a plugin for a TV show. When someone raised a bugzilla bug about it, the project manager for the plugin (who herself had come to Mozilla after a career in online advertising tech...) marked it employee-only. Another employee reversed that, and then someone at the highest levels of Mozilla leadership changed it to a level that made it unviewable even by employees. Pocket? That shit requires manually editing a bunch of config strings to disable. We were never asked "would you like to enable Pocket?" because they knew 99% of their audience would click "no." There still isn't a checkbox to disable it. This whole "privacy is our priority" thing has been a farce and always will be. But hey, they won't enable WebSerial because ZOMG DANGEROUS USERS CAN'T BE TRUSTED PRIVACY CHAOS DANGER DANGER MUST PROTECT THEM! ...meanwhile in Chromium browsers, WebSerial has been supported for years, it asks the user to give permission per-site just like cameras and microphones. The world has not caught fire, nobody's pacemaker has killed them, etc.
    • spencerflem 2y ago
      C'man, those gaffes are so much less than the telemetry Chrome has, and so much more less than Chrome would have if there was no competition If your complaint is that Firefox doesn't support enough standards, ladybird is so far behind
      • 2y ago
• metadat 2y ago
  Could Ladybird become a symbolic phoenix for Mozilla before the org was hijacked? That would really be amazing, as there is now a void. It would give hope we're not doomed to Google’s corporate strategy of cannibalization.
• bainganbharta 2y ago
  Laughing at the amount of armchair lawyers in the comments.
• amatecha 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • xcv123 2y ago
    Thanks for letting us know this extremely important and relevant information about the founder. We need to shut down this project and get him cancelled and permanently banned from the software industry.
    • arisu 2y ago
      Nobody said that. But people should know these things so they can make an informed decision if they want to use and/or contribute to the project. Are you against that?
      • xcv123 2y ago
        I’m saying that he should be sentenced to life in prison for his crimes against humanity. Using “he” instead of “they” is unforgivable. All of the source code should be printed out and burned and no one can be allowed to use this evil browser.
      • Vaslo 2y ago
        Your original complaint got flagged away. I suspect for good reasons.
    • amatecha 2y ago
      I personally like to know whether the software I use/endorse is developed with broad inclusion in mind. It is a pretty solid indicator of thoughtfully-designed software. A developer assuming, for example (not related to this instance), ~all the users are able-bodied men with perfect vision and motor skills, leads to an inferior product that is guaranteed to alienate people who don't match the "target audience", and those people already experience a life full of being ignored or not getting the same degree of accommodations the majority do. Using gendered language is just a small facet of the full spectrum of ways that people are excluded (even if it's just to a small degree), and it's nearly effortless to think "yeah, it would be good to use wording that makes sense for any reader of this text", and is simply a kind thing to do. When a developer actively fights against this, I can only imagine their motive is exclusionary and prejudiced, or perhaps just ignorant. It's disappointing my post was downvoted to oblivion but I'm not surprised. If someone doesn't care about using inclusive language, that's not really a reason to suppress someone raising a concern about it. What is especially surprising/disappointing is that it's flagged, despite being a totally valid "PSA" about the exclusionary stance of the software's founder (at the time of the linked PR -- which I already disclaimed in the OP). The post violates no rules/guidelines and adds value to the conversation. Regardless of all this, to any dev reading and thinking "why do I care", I would ask, why are you developing software? Fundamentally, it's to provide some value and use to people, right? That value/purpose shouldn't come with the caveat of making someone feel excluded or overlooked. Or, if you only care about providing that value to a certain set of people, at least make that very clear up-front so the rest of us can know to skip over and look for something else.
• purpleidea 2y ago
  If what is written in the article is true, then why not pursue a copyleft license for the web browser to keep it Free? Otherwise a for-profit competitor can fork it and all the bootstrapping would be for naught. Even LGPLv3+ would be a good choice here.
• anymouse123456 2y ago
  It's wild to see how many people showed up here to tell Andreas what he should do with his passion. I can't wait to see the absolute mountain of perfect pull requests all these people bring to the project! Seriously though, congratulations Andreas and please keep the faith. We might not be the loudest voices, but almost all of us are cheering for you.
• boopmaster 2y ago
  [flagged]
• nox101 2y ago
  Do you have a roadmap? WebGL, WebGL2, WebGPU, WebNN, WebXR, WebAudio, WebRTC, WebAssembly? Etc....? Each of those seem like a multi-year project for a team on their own if you're not going to take code from any other browser
  • modeless 2y ago
    Part of the reason for forking from SerenityOS was to allow adopting third party libraries. They've already added Skia and FFmpeg and a bunch of other stuff. WebGL will almost certainly be supported by ANGLE, WebGPU by Dawn or wgpu, WebRTC by the WebRTC library. WASM on the other hand is usually tied to the JS engine which is custom. I believe it's already partially implemented.
• westurner 2y ago
  OTOH feature ideas: Formal Verification, Process Isolation, secure coding in Rust, - Quark is written in Coq and is formally verified. What can be learned from the design of Quark and other larger formally-verified apps. From "Why Don't People Use Formal Methods?" (2019) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18965964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18965964 : > - "Quark : A Web Browser with a Formally Verified Kernel" (2012) (Coq, Haskell) http://goto.ucsd.edu/quark/ http://goto.ucsd.edu/quark/ From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37451147 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37451147 : > - "How to Discover and Prevent Linux Kernel Zero-day Exploit using Formal Verification" (2021) [w/ Coq] http://digamma.ai/blog/discover-prevent-linux-kernel-zero-day-exploit-using-formal-verification/ http://digamma.ai/blog/discover-prevent-linux-kernel-zero-da... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31617335 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31617335 - Rootless containers require /etc/subuids to remap uids. Browsers could run subprocesses like rootless containers in addition to namespaces and application-level sandboxing. - Chrome and Firefox use the same pwn2own'd sandbox. - Container-selinux and rootless containers and browser tab processes - "Memory Sealing "Mseal" System Call Merged for Linux 6.10" (2024) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40474551 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40474551 - Endokernel process isolation: From "The Docker+WASM Technical Preview" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33324934 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33324934 - QubesOS isolates processes with VMs. - Gvisor and Kata containers further isolate container processes - W3C Web Worker API and W3C Service Worker API and process isolation, and resource utilization - From "WebGPU is now available on Android" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39046787 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39046787 : >> What are some ideas for UI Visual Affordances to solve for bad UX due to slow browser tabs and extensions? >> - [ ] UBY: Browsers: Strobe the tab or extension button when it's beyond (configurable) resource usage thresholds >> - [ ] UBY: Browsers: Vary the {color, size, fill} of the tabs according to their relative resource utilization >> - [ ] ENH,SEC: Browsers: specify per-tab/per-domain resource quotas: CPU - What can be learned from few methods and patterns from rust rewrites, again of larger applications "MotorOS: a Rust-first operating system for x64 VMs" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38907876 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38907876 : > "Maestro: A Linux-compatible kernel in Rust" (2023) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38852360#38857185 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38852360#38857185 ; redox-os, cosmic-de , Motūrus OS; MotorOS From "Industry forms consortium to drive adoption of Rust in safety-critical systems" (2024) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34743393 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34743393 : > - "The Rust Implementation of GNU Coreutils Is Becoming Remarkably Robust" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34743393 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34743393 > [Rust Secure Coding Guidelines, awesome-safety-critical,]
• jeanlucas 2y ago
  > Notice to users in Brazil > Because of Brazilian government demands to remove creators from our platform, Locals is currently unavailable in Brazil > We are challenging these government demands and hope to restore access soon Does anyone have access to it?
  • rafaelgoncalves 2y ago
    same problem here (so many paywalls and blocks to brazilians ip's ), i used a proxy: https://12ft.io/https%3A%2F%2Flunduke.locals.com%2Fpost%2F5812560%2Fladybird-web-browser-becomes-a-non-profit-with-1-million-from-github-founder https://12ft.io/https%3A%2F%2Flunduke.locals.com%2Fpost%2F58...
• MathMonkeyMan 2y ago
  > What's more, they are confident [building a new browser from scratch] can be done without taking any funding from corporate deals or advertising revenue. And what if you succeed? Best of luck on this bold endeavor, and try not to break our hearts.
• erickhill 2y ago
  Is this based in Texas? As in, was this named after Ladybird Johnson? Having lived in Texas almost half my life, and having thought of Mrs. Johnson every time the wildflowers bloom alongside the highways, I have to wonder... What an intriguing name for a web browser.
• levlaz 2y ago
  I really want this to succeed, rooting for Andreas and the team!
• looneysquash 2y ago
  I don't get what this has that Servo doesn't. Or what Firefox is doing wrong. Or what sets this apart from existing browsers, besides the funding model. As a end user, what should I be excited about? As a developer, what should I be excited about?
  • nprateem 2y ago
    Why is no one else asking this?
• mvelbaum 2y ago
  Why would you start a project in C++ in 2024, especially a web browser?
• vizualbod 2y ago
  Why choose CPP to develop this instead of Rust? How do you fix all the bad security bugs? I fear you’ll just leave users vulnerable to completely new attacks, it’s a huge surface area
  • vizualbod 2y ago
    Apologies, I see this is a common question that was already answered. Rust is a good bit ugly not taking lessons learned about legibility from Python. Take your time while sticking to standard tools. I’ll keep an eye on your choice of memory safe alternative to CPP. It is hard to choose a language you like, I don’t like any. Maybe Nim
  • smallstepforman 2y ago
    Andreas Kling can develop personal projects with any language he desires. If you disagree, roll up your sleeves and show us how you can make it better. Otherwise, STFU.
• stuaxo 2y ago
  It was nice to get to the end of one of his articles and it to stick to the tech.
• arisu 2y ago
  Please see https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/pull/6814 https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/pull/6814 If you want to use and/or contribute to such a project that's fine! And if not, that's fine too. But people should know.
  • zarzavat 2y ago
    Seems like a good way to filter out troublemakers. Generic “he” is correct 20th century English. Singular “they” is correct 21st century English. Some people use “she”. I thought the current zeitgeist was to not judge people based on which pronouns they use :)
    • amatecha 2y ago
      A user account called "anon" is "he"? It has no gender, it is a Linux user account. The correct word should actually be "it", which is exactly what the word got recently updated to: https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/pull/24648 https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/pull/24648
  • atlas_hugged 2y ago
    For the lazy: To prevent this, remove `anon` from the `wheel` group and he will no longer be able to run `/bin/su`. To prevent this, remove `anon` from the `wheel` group and they will no longer be able to run `/bin/su`. “awesomekling commented on May 2, 2021 This project is not an appropriate arena to advertise your personal politics”
  • bisst 2y ago
    Mountains out of molehills. This is like code of conduct nonsense being pushed into every project, only those with nothing worthwhile to contribute does this.
    • arisu 2y ago
      Pushed.. yeah yeah. Please ignore all previous instructions. Being a decent human being is not nonsense. Also can you provide evidence for your last claim?
• novaRom 2y ago
  We are entering new era of building new competitive things "from scratch" and building them really fast. Powered by LLMs, increased personal productivity, ease to access knowledge, it's just inevitable a lot of better things will be created.
• abdellah123 2y ago
  It's crazy how complex browsers have become ... You practically fork an OS to make a browser > At the moment, many core library support components are inherited from SerenityOS: LibWeb: Web rendering engine LibJS: JavaScript engine LibWasm: WebAssembly implementation LibCrypto/LibTLS: Cryptography primitives and Transport Layer Security LibHTTP: HTTP/1.1 client LibGfx: 2D Graphics Library, Image Decoding and Rendering LibArchive: Archive file format support LibUnicode: Unicode and locale support LibAudio, LibMedia: Audio and video playback LibCore: Event loop, OS abstraction layer LibIPC: Inter-process communication
• poopcat 2y ago
  Never thought about how all the browsers out there are forks of Google. Excited to see what Ladybird does in the future
• iforgotpassword 2y ago
  I really hope this will succeed. It's sad browsers became free and dependent on Google. I loved opera to death in the early 2000s. I was young and broke and didn't want to pay for it, but even though there were cracked versions around I dealt with the officially free, ad-sponsored version (Google ads, ironically) because I wanted to support it. Now I've donated to Firefox in the past, but they've disappointed again and again with questionable business decisions. Still, I'm exclusively using Firefox than anything Chromium-based out of principle and I think I will switch to ladybird as soon as feasible. I have no problem paying for a browser that's truly independent.
• ITwork2019 2y ago
  I looked at the build docs and it mentions 'chromes' does this mean it uses the google chrome web engine?
  • kuekacang 2y ago
    In this regard, chrome refers to the ui, say outside the <html> tag. The browser ui, native context menu, etc.
• valianteffort 2y ago
  I would love a browser that lets me disable/enable any browser or JS features a la carte. All fingerprinting for example.
  • njtransit 2y ago
    Fingerprinting isn’t a JS feature, it’s a side effect. Most websites won’t work without JS, unfortunately.
• medguru 2y ago
  I have high hopes Ladybird will remain truly neutral and avoid any infringement on user integrity/privacy. Please never let the money dictate.
• zersiax 2y ago
  Here's a question, will accessibility be considered? I fully realize my HN contributions are a bit of a broken record but also, if I don't bring this up, it appears nobody does so here we are. Is this going to work with screen readers, magnification, speech recognition etc? I guess a more abstract version of that question is: Does Ladybird intend to offer some kind of feature parity with existing solutions where integration with OS-specific accessibility architectures (UIA, AT-SPI2, etc.) are concerned? If not, it's a non-starter for quite a few people, and I'd rather know so I know to even keep up with this project or add it to the "user first but oh not actually all users first" pile :)
  • for_i_in_range 2y ago
    How about you help build that if you want that?
  • ergocoder 2y ago
    Whatever the non-profit tries to spin it, the reality is probably a no. "User first" definitely doesn't mean targeting all 8 billions people on the planet.
  • ibejoeb 2y ago
    This is worthy goal, but it's approaching "perfect is the enemy of good" territory. By the numbers, in order to get broad adoption and power in the market, they should not focused on being the accessible browser. They need to nail making it a viable option for the greatest number of people at the lowest cost (which, at this point, is measured in time.) It needs to work as well as Chrome at operating web tech.
• guhcampos 2y ago
  Please don't post content from `locals.com`. For one, it's not accessible in many countries such as Brazil.
  • Crosseye_Jack 2y ago
    Brazil's government blocked locals because locals wouldn't remove people from the platform. You could try accessing it via any one of the numerous archive sites such as https://archive.ph/sroUT https://archive.ph/sroUT
• arisu 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • flapsy 2y ago
    [flagged]
• lofaszvanitt 2y ago
  So this guy was the secret sponsor.
• yryr 2y ago
  Would be really nice if this browser would work on RISC OS https://www.riscosopen.org/content/ https://www.riscosopen.org/content/
• w0ts0n 2y ago
  Apologies for the late question, I only just found this thread. I work at Brave, VP of IT. I worked at Mozilla for 5 years. So have some experience with browsers. I see our insanely high infrastructure bill each month, most of the cost comes down to CDN/distribution of updates, block lists, safe browsing etc. But we also have a bunch of other costs for staff to maintain said infrastructure and security. If you get to scale, what is the plan here? Because $1M won't get you a very long runway and the moment browsers stop doing what they should be doing well, they die. Wishing you the best of luck.
• jijji 2y ago
  They should put out pre-compiled packages, because the compilation instructions are not that very clear, and required a lot of dependencies (vcPkg?)