{"id":46973,"date":"2025-03-06T16:35:30","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T21:35:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=46973"},"modified":"2025-03-06T16:35:30","modified_gmt":"2025-03-06T21:35:30","slug":"ladybird-browser","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/06\/ladybird-browser\/","title":{"rendered":"Ladybird Browser"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joe Brockmeier<\/a> (via Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n

Ladybird<\/a> is an open-source\nproject aimed at building an independent web browser, rather than\nyet another browser based on Chrome. It is written in C++ and licensed under a\ntwo-clause BSD license. The effort \nbegan as part of the SerenityOS<\/a> project, but\ndeveloper Andreas Kling announced<\/a>\non June 3 that he was “forking” Ladybird as a separate project and stepping away from\nSerenityOS to focus his attention on the browser completely. Ladybird\nis not ready to replace Firefox or Chrome for regular use, but it is showing\ngreat promise.<\/p>

Kling started working on SerenityOS in 2018 as a therapy project\nafter completing a substance-abuse rehabilitation program. The SerenityOS name is a\nnod to the serenity\nprayer<\/a>. Prior to working on the project, he had worked on\nWebKit-based browsers at Apple and Nokia. Eventually he made\nSerenityOS his full-time job<\/a>, and funded the work through\ndonations, sales of SerenityOS merchandise, and income from\nYouTube.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

Comparing the README<\/a> file in the standalone Ladybird repository\nagainst the README<\/a>\nfile in the SerenityOS repository, the goal has\nevolved from creating a standards-compliant, independent web browser with\nno third-party dependencies<\/q> to developing an independent browser using a\nnovel engine based on web standards<\/q>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Tim Anderson<\/a> (Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n

According to a post<\/a> this week, the new 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, with initial directors being lead developer Andreas Kling and GitHub co-founder Chris Wanstrath, is funded entirely by sponsorships from those who “care about the open web” and will only accept “unrestricted donations.” <\/p>

The software is open source on GitHub<\/a> and uses the permissive BSD-2-Clause License which is means it is free software and approved by the open source initiative.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Jack Kelly<\/a> (Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n

\n

Chrome is eating the web. I have wanted to\nhelp fund a serious alternative browser for quite some time, and while\nFirefox remains the largest potential alternative, Mozilla has never let\nme. Since I can’t fund Firefox, I’m going to show there’s money in\nuser-funded web browsers by funding Ladybird instead<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Robert O’Callahan<\/a>:<\/p>\n

If you’ve done all that and implemented all the Web specs, you might still only be a less-Web-compatible Firefox or Chromium. What can you do better? My knowledge is a bit out of date, but here are a few guesses.<\/p>

Go parallel from the ground up. You’ll get more and more E-cores, so you should try to use them. Parallel parsing and layout seem like endless opportunity.<\/p>

Use a programming language that lets you write clean, fast, memory-safe, parallel data-race-free code — probably Rust.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Andreas Kling<\/a> (Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n

We’ve been evaluating a number of C++ successor languages for \n@ladybirdbrowser, and the one best suited to our needs appears to be \n@SwiftLang 🪶<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

Something that matters to us a lot is OO. Web specs & browser internals tend to be highly object-oriented, and life is easier when you can model specs closely in your code. Swift has first-class OO support, in many ways even nicer than C++.<\/p>

The Swift team is also investing heavily in C++ interop, which means there’s a real<\/em> path to incremental adoption, not just gigantic rewrites.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n