you shouldn’t use this browser the devs are transphobic sexist chuds
Announcing the Ladybird Browser Initiative
Submitted 4 days ago by Diabolo96@lemmy.dbzer0.com to technology@lemmy.world
https://ladybird.org/announcement.html
Comments
vantablack@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 days ago
interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
All this because they won’t change a “he” into “they” ? Who gives a fuck about such rampant whiteknightism ? Why does a browser even need to know your gender ? In what context even is there a pronoun in the user interface ?
Excrubulent@slrpnk.net 2 days ago
You could find out the context by reading the title of the thread, but then you’d have less to bitch about, so I can understand why you chose ignorance.
blind3rdeye@lemm.ee 2 days ago
Hmm. I just read the github thread that this is about. The devs made a mistake on this; but it seems to me that there is a bit of an over-reaction here. The people in the thread seem to be discussing it calmly and politely; and the issue (i.e. use of pronouns in the build instructions) ends up being resolved. By contrast, the reaction outside of the actual thread… is extreme.
Like I said, this seems like an overreaction to someone making a mistake of ignorance & indifference. It wasn’t an act of malice.
OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
Why don’t ya’ll contribute some meaningful code instead of finding ways to deny those who do
wholookshere@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
Please describe to me how someone who offered up changes to change “he” to “they” for them, and then the contributor getting pissy about “politics” is denying work.
babeuh@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Appears to be fixed now: github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/pull/24648
cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
they must be trying to go after the brave marketshare
Woht24@lemmy.world 2 days ago
… What
Moneo@lemmy.world 3 days ago
That website is completely unreadable what the fuck.
unconfirmedsourcesDOTgov@lemmy.sdf.org 3 days ago
The website makes it sound like all of the code being bespoke and “based on standards” is some kind of huge advantage but all I see is a Herculean undertaking with too few engineers and too many standards.
W3C lists 1138 separate standards currently, so if each of their three engineers implements one discrete standard every day, with no breaks/weekends/holidays, then having an alpha available that adheres to all 2024 web standards should be possible by 2026?
This is obviously also without testing but these guys are serious, senior engineers, so their code will be perfect on the first try, right?
Love the passion though, can’t wait to see how this project plays out.
weststadtgesicht@discuss.tchncs.de 3 days ago
W3C lists 1138 separate standards currently, so if each of their three engineers implements one discrete standard every day, with no breaks/weekends/holidays, then having an alpha available that adheres to all 2024 web standards should be possible by 2026?
Yes, that is exactly the plan: “We are targeting Summer 2026 for a first Alpha version”
fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de 3 days ago
a Herculean undertaking with too few engineers and too many standards
Yeah, as a layperson this is my take. If mozilla is struggling to stay in the game then I just don’t really see how an unfinanced indie team has a shot.
Scrollone@feddit.it 2 days ago
Let’s not forget that Mozilla (the company) is largely mismanaged, so that doesn’t help.
merthyr1831@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Mozilla has loads of projects, not just the browser. I doubt more than a 30 work exclusively on the engine nowadays.
Tywele@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
You are assuming that they only started now from point 0. They have probably been working on it for a bit before announcing everything.
JackbyDev@programming.dev 3 days ago
They say they already use it to manage GitHub issues so it’s definitely more than “point 0” right now.
Matriks404@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Exactly. They have been working on Ladybird Browser for few years already, before it was announced as standalone product (It was a part of SerenityOS).
0x0@programming.dev 3 days ago
Let’s not do zomething because it’s hard pretty much sums up every new generation.
Imagine if they said that when they had to program everything in assembly…
Holzkohlen@feddit.de 3 days ago
Software nowadays is a lot more complex. You’d get nowhere using assembly. Are you also gonna call me lazy if I say making a smartphone from scratch is complicated? “But the Nokia 1234 only had 4kb of memory” Is what you will probably say.
merthyr1831@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Sure, but an individual website may use only a few of those standards. Ladybird devs will pick a website they like to use - Reddit, Twitter, Twinings tea, etc. and improve adherence to X or Y standards to make that one website look better. In turn, thousands of websites suddenly work perfectly, and many others work better than before.
Ladybird is largely conformant to the majority of HTML standards now. It’s about the edge cases (and where standards aren’t followed by websites) and performance. This isn’t a new project.
NaoPb@eviltoast.org 2 days ago
Lol, mentioning Twinings tea together with Reddit and Twitter sounds so random
Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 2 days ago
They’ve been at it for four years and they plan to have an alpha by 2026. Maybe wait how it actually turns out?
rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
Wait, 1138? If there are any Star Wars fans in there, there won’t be more.
jojo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 days ago
Wasn’t this the transphobic one?
vantablack@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 days ago
Facebones@reddthat.com 3 days ago
Shoutout to the user pointing out that forcing “he” is just as, if not more, political ❤️
cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
i like how they’re like this isnt the place for personal politics while ignoring the fact that gendered readme files are patently stupid in the first place.
DAMunzy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
Changing to gender neutral seems like a no brainer to me but how is this transphobia?
cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
“Ladybird uses a brand new engine based on web standards, without borrowing any code from other browsers.” has the same energy as
blind3rdeye@lemm.ee 2 days ago
Not really. They aren’t inventing new standards. They are implementing an engine that confirms to existing standards.
decivex@yiffit.net 2 days ago
In this case having more browser engines not under Google’s control is probably a good thing. Although this effort might’ve been better spent working on Servo.
miridius@lemmy.world 2 days ago
builds a new browser from scratch without borrowing existing code
still chooses to do it in C++
Epic fail
ticho@lemmy.world 2 days ago
The language choice was because Ladybird started as a component of SerenityOS, which is also written in C++. With this separation, they are free to gradually introduce other language(s) into the codebase, and maybe eventually replace C++ entirely, piece by piece.
In Hackernews thread about this, the head maintainer mentioned that they have been evaluating several languages already, so we’ll see what the future brings.
In the meantime, let’s try to be mature about it, what do you say?
raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Not sure if you are trying to be funny, but if not: enlighten us?
SorteKanin@feddit.dk 2 days ago
C++ is a very old, extremely complex language. There are arguably objectively better modern alternatives, such as Rust.
miridius@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Sure :)
There are a lot of downsides of C++ compared to more modern languages that make it not a great choice if you’re starting a web browser from scratch
- Complexity of the language leading to increased bugs and slower development
- Manual memory management is error-prone and leads to issues like memory leaks or segmentation faults. Modern browsers need to handle large amounts of dynamic content, making memory management complicated
- C++ lacks some of the built-in safety features of more modern languages, which has led to the majority of security vulnerabilities found in major browsers. It’s so bad that Mozilla invented an entirely new programming language just to deal with this
- Compared to higher-level languages, C++ can be slower to develop in, which may impact the ability to quickly implement new web standards or features unless you have a massive team
- While C++ is cross-platform, ensuring consistent behavior across different operating systems can be more challenging than with some other languages.
- Newer languages often provide built-in support for concurrent programming, garbage collection, and other features useful for browser development, which C++ lacks.
So tl;dr: a browser but in C++ will take much longer to develop, have fewer features, more bugs, less concurrency and and more security vulnerabilities
Diabolo96@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
The dev has 30 years of experience with c++ and a lot of it was on browsers.
He tried to incorporate rust with the help of “JT”, one of the original rust designers/devs and it didn’t work that well due to the web being too objet oriented or something like that. They both worked together (well, mostly “JT”) to create a new safe programming language called “yakt” that transpile to c++, but the project is currently pretty much dead because nobody is really working on it anymore.
neclimdul@lemmy.world 2 days ago
The web being too object oriented for rust? Assuming that made sense, who wrote the dang language? If that’s true I’m even less confident they know what they’re doing then I was before.
witx@lemmy.sdf.org 2 days ago
I’m not sure 10 years old are allowed on the internet. Isn’t it time for Coco and bed?
miridius@lemmy.world 1 day ago
there’s a reason
Oh good that settles it, no further questions your honour
miridius@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I wouldn’t go around accusing people of being 10 years old when your English skills are worse than a 10 year old’s. Glass houses and all that.
Logh@lemmy.ml 4 days ago
Love the idea! Shopify as the highest tier sponsor? Not so much.
Spedwell@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I’m curious what issue you see with that? It seems like the project is only accepting unrestricted donations, but is there something suspicious about shopify that makes it’s involvement concerning (I don’t know much about them)?
themurphy@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
My best guess would be that Shopify either care about the open Web or had some disagreements with Google.
I can’t find anything shady on them, but maybe I’m looking the wrong places.
Prandom_returns@lemm.ee 3 days ago
Why? Shopify has been sponsoring stuff like community gaming events for a few years now.
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
I do not understand the urge to start from scratch instead of forking an existing, mature codebase. This is typically a rookie instinct, but they aren’t rookie so there’s perhaps an alternative motive of some sort.
accideath@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Because there are only like 3 browser engines: Chrome’s Blink, Firefox’s Gecko and Apple‘s WebKit. And while they are all open source, KHTML, the last independent browser engine got discontinued last year and hasn’t been actively developed since 2016.
There’s need in the space for an unaffiliated engine. Google’s share is far too high for a healthy market (roughly 75%), WebKit never got big outside of Safari (although there are a few like Gnome Web, there’s no up to date WebKit based browser on Windows) and Gecko has its own problems (like lack of HEVC support).
So, in my book, this is exciting news. Sure it‘ll take a while to mature and it is up against software giants but it‘s something because Mozilla doesn’t seem to have a working strategy to fight against Google‘s monopoly and Apple doesn’t have to.
rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
Also Gecko’s development is led by people thinking that it being usable outside of Firefox\Thunderbird is a bad thing. There was a time when Gnome’s browser was based on Gecko, not WebKit. And in general it’s influenced by bad practices.
SerenityOS is an amazing project, of course. To do so much work for something completely disconnected from the wider FOSS ecosystem, and with such results.
So it’s cool that they’ve decided to split off the browser as its own project.
ikidd@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Mozilla doesn’t seem to have a working strategy
Guess they couldn’t replicate the “own everything that people use to get stuff on the internet and make secret breaking changes to constantly mess up other browsers” strategy.
el_abuelo@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
Could they not add HEVC support? Or is there some technical limitation that meant starting from zero was a good idea?
pewgar_seemsimandroid@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 days ago
webkit and blink are based of KHTML
fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de 3 days ago
WDYM “independent” ?
Isn’t mozilla / gecko more or less independent?
thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world 3 days ago
No webkit browser on Android either. If there was gnome web for Android id switch in a heartbeat
vanderbilt@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Because software monocultures are bad. The vast majority of browsers are Chromium based. Since Google de-facto decides what gets in Chromium, sooner or later the downstream forks are forced to adopt their changes. Manifest V3 is a great example of this. You can only backport for so long, especially when upstream is being adversarial to your changes. We need an unaffiliated engine that corrects the mistakes we made with KHTML/Webkit.
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
Why are open source software monocultures bad? The vast majority of non-Windows OSes are Linux based. Teams who don’t like certain decisions of the mainline Linux team maintain their forks with the needed changes.
Manifest V3 is a great example of this. You can only backport for so long, especially when upstream is being adversarial to your changes. We need an unaffiliated engine that corrects the mistakes we made with KHTML/Webkit.
And we could get a functional one today by forking Chromium and never accepting a single upstream patch thereafter. I find it really hard to believe that starting a browser engine from scratch would require less labor. This is why I’m looking for an alternative motive. Someone mentioned licensing.
el_abuelo@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
I agree mostly, but forks don’t need to keep the upstream. They can go their own way.
schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 3 days ago
There is currently no implementation of web standards that is under a more permissive license than LGPL or MPL. I think that is a gap worth filling and if I recall that is what Ladybird is doing.
glukoza@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
i’d argue its better for software to max foss license like AGPL, not bsd that can be taken out by companies
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
I guess Chromium isn’t fully BSD. This could be the reason. Although I’d think reimplementing the non-BSD bits in Chromium would be less work than reimplementing all the bits, including the BSD ones.
merthyr1831@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Ladybird was born from SerenityOS, which is a hobbyist unix-like (or POSIX compliant?) OS that simply aimed to do things “from the ground up”. It just happened that they needed to make a browser, and the response was to make one from scratch.
From there it seemed to have brought a lot of attention organically to the point where it can stand on its own, but originally it was never intended to be a “third browser engine” from its inception.
rdri@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I can’t understand how people can continue relying on chrome and derivatives like electron, CEF etc. and not see it as a problem.
asdfasdfasdf@lemmy.world 3 days ago
C++
If they’re starting a browser from scratch, why would they not have chosen Rust? Seems very short sighted to not have learned from Firefox.
ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 3 days ago
They used c++ initially since it was spawned from SerenityOS, which was designed to be a mashup of win2000 and unix.
now that Ladybird is its own project, it’s not constrained to that goal, and they have said they will incorporate modern languages.
venoft@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Funny how in the video the guy say that all other browsers are based on Google’s code. But Firefox is also independent right?
linearchaos@lemmy.world 4 days ago
It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out. I’ve had more than a handful of people bitching at me that it’s impossible to make a new, open web browser in this day.
nixcamic@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Servo already exists and is independent and written in a modern language and way ahead of this.
vsis@feddit.cl 2 days ago
The project management may have some obvious problems (jOin dIsc0Rd sErVEr; w0rD “thEy” t0o p0liTicAl). But we really need an alternative to browsers funded by Google (Chrome and Firefox).
So I’ll do my best to actually build from sources and see what can I help with. Attacking the author is helping nobody.
And for the folks who are saying “wHy n0t rUst”, you can always show me the code.
hamsterkill@lemmy.sdf.org 4 days ago
Best of luck, I guess, but seems like a doomed project to me. Forking WebKit, Gecko, or even Servo would seem much more reasonable, and even that is a huge undertaking.
unlawfulbooger@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 days ago
They’re making a new browser engine from scratch in an open way, absolutely amazing!
I do have several questions:
Why would they use BSD instead of GPL? If you care about open-source so much, why would you make it possible for a company to run away with your fancy new engine?
Why are they creating a new browser, when even firefox has to struggle to keep some semblance of market share? I get that not every project needs to aim to be “the biggest”, and that even a smaller project (in terms of users), can be fun. It’s just that writing a browser engine that can handle the modern web seems like an almost Sisyphean task; which makes me wonder what their motivation(?) is.
Why the FLOSS are they using closed-source proprietary discord as their main communication channel?
Scotty_Trees@lemmy.world [bot] 2 days ago
Remind me in 2 years when this project becomes discontinued…
merthyr1831@lemmy.world 3 days ago
It would be nice if people read the post and the project before randomly making assumptions such as implying the project started from scratch yesterday or its run by some amateurs, this is a 4 year old project! It’s founded by a former KHTML/Webkit developer for Apple!
mynamesnotrick@lemmy.zip 4 days ago
Laaaaaaaaa^dybird.^
Toes@ani.social 4 days ago
Kudos to them. Opera gave up on this dream being unable to accommodate all the nuances of web standards and accounting for out of conformance behaviours that many websites rely on the daily.
I reckon this browser will need to be at least on par with reasonably recent version of Firefox to see significant adoption.
bobc7@lemmy.world 3 days ago
is it open source?
robocall@lemmy.world 4 days ago
I use Firefox.
Xeroxchasechase@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Good luck!
ComplexLotus@lemmy.world 3 days ago
As Firefox will introduce Manifest V3 which will make ad-blockers unusable, I hope they will not implement that as well … But I forsee this will not have any add-ons at all
96VXb9ktTjFnRi@feddit.nl 2 days ago
Is it true that there is no truly independent web browser or are there others?
solrize@lemmy.world 4 days ago
It’s hard to understand the purpose of this. The difficulty of the project (i.e. complexity of the web) is the real problem that needs solving. We don’t need another fork of the browser-verse. We need a fork of the web itself.
Caligvla@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
I hope this pans out, because I’ve long ago lost hope on Firefox being a worthy alternative to Chromium.
laxe@lemmy.world 4 days ago
I want to follow updates from this project. They have a Twitter account but not Mastodon sigh
infeeeee@lemm.ee 4 days ago
Image
RSS is not even enabled on the Newz page on the website.
Diabolo96@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
I share the disappointment.
mynamesnotrick@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
Im glad to see this. Discord is a nightmare. It’s the same as a Facebook only group to me.