Futo just announced that they are granting $200k to the Ladybird Browser project. Mostly just posting to bring attention and generate discussion about this new potential alternative to chromium, firefox, and safari.
Any thoughts on this project?
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Definitely something I’m keeping an eye on.
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Really excited to see where this browser goes. I hope they keep it minimal, no JIT no advertising or telemetry.
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Let’s hope that Ladybird will focus on security more than Firefox.
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Telemetry is fine if it’s opt-in. I would probably enable it to support the development.
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TBH, I don’t know how this project can succeed, at least in a way to get some noticeable market share or to offer more than current ones. Today’s browsers are more than web page viewers, there are basically only 3 left, which are in development for 15+ years, by quite large teams (and lot of money invested).
But let’s wait and see
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They don’t need the amount of bloat and features that modern browsers have they can keep it light and clean.
Does anyone know how they intend to sustain/fund development?
I see they are non-profit, and they say they won’t (1) monetize the browser (2) rely on a search deal (3) rely on ads.
But I don’t see any indication of what they will rely on, building a browser engine is a huge task, are they hoping they can sustain themselves solely through grants and such?
I am really interested in the idea of another alternative and more modern browser engine with less technical debt and detritus, but it seems like a big uphill battle, the hard part is not in deciding to do it, Ladybird isn’t the first to try, the hard part is actually doing it (and sustaining and maintaining it over the long term), and I don’t really see Ladybird’s FAQ or website addressing any of that.
I’m not a developer so take this opinion with a huge grain of salt, but Ladybirds choice to use C++ and not use a more modern memory safe language (like Servo is trying to do with Rust) seems like a missed opportunity to modernize. Part of the attraction to a fresh start is not being constrained by decisions made way back in the 90’s or early 2k’s.
I wish and hope for the project to succeed, but I don’t really see them addressing the hard questions or difficult parts (but presumably they have considered these internally, time will tell, I wish them the best)
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They do address the issues with C++ as being a legacy from before they forked from SerenityOS in their FAQ. They are evaluating alternatives will be adding a mature successor language to the project in the near future.
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I have long believed that Mozilla could sustain themselves on donations and grants, if they were a single-mission-focused organization that only developed Firefox and contributed to web standards.
But of course Mozilla thinks of themselves and acts like any other big tech startup which requires a lot of ad money to sustain, so we will never know for sure… unless Ladybird proves my theory to be true 
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unless Ladybird proves my theory to be true
I hope that they (or anyone else) does prove this true, but I don’t share your confidence. And in my eyes, “proof” can’t come until at least 5-10 years after release.
Building the thing is only the first step (and the sexiest step, its when you’ll get the most attention, most donations, and most contributions, and there isn’t yet a product for people to complain about, sustaining the thing on donations alone over the long term once the allure has worn off, seems like the harder and less certain part).
Maybe you are right, maybe a singly focused lean organization can build and sustain a browser and browser engine, for a fraction of the cost of the existing browser engines. I hope so, I don’t think it’s impossible, but the only independent organization that has been able to persist in this space is Mozilla, and they got their start ~20 years ago in the web 1.0 era.
Are there other examples in different areas of tech that you’d point to as models and have stood the test of time? (Wikipedia is the only example I can think of that operates at a similar scale)
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If you visit their website, one of their main selling points is their singular focus on building the browser. If you look at Mozilla, they’re wasting a ton of money outside of building a browser. Also, look at how much their CEOs receive in a year.
Projects like F-Droid, GrapheneOS, etc. are doing fine with only being supported by donations and grants. We don’t need stupid advertisements.
These are extremely tiny projects in comparison.
A browser engine is a huge thing to build and maintain (Firefox is like ~35 million lines of code, Chromium is ~40 Million, each have over 1000 contributors in the past year). Mozilla’s development expenses alone are consistently over 200 million per year (and that ignores all other costs).
GrapheneOS would be a valid comparison if GOS/Micay built and maintained AOSP.
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Is this for Firefox alone or overall?
Mozilla corporations software development costs (so not just Firefox) But it has been consistently >200 million/yr for 10+ years, which predates almost all of Mozilla corporations other software projects, so I think it’s probably safe to infer that at the very least half and probably the lions share of that money goes to Firefox and its dependencies. But I can’t say that with 100% certainty.
Also note, as of the last year financials were published (2022) subscriptions, sponsored content, and other revenue generated 75M, so if you want to exclude all non core Firefox expenses, a sizeable amount of revenue would get eliminated as well.
edit: also just want to add, I think GrapheneOS is an amazing example of a project that really punches above its weight, and manages to be really impactful and do a lot of good as a small project. A great example of the impact a small project can have.
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Okay, so we can make some points now:
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Mozilla spends $200 million on all of the development they do, not just Firefox.
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Firefox has a lot of tech debt, which doesn’t help with costs.
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Firefox doesn’t focus on web standards, this is the same browser that dropped PWA support because “We don’t want to copy what other browsers do.” I’m not kidding, this is their actual response to why they removed PWA support.
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Firefox is available on Windows, Linux, MacOS, iOS, and Android, and I think both iOS and Android have two versions of Firefox: one is just Firefox and another is Firefox Focus.
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Firefox has a good number of features that aren’t essential and that aren’t used by the majority of Firefox users.
Now some points about Ladybird
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Ladybird is solely focusing on building a browser, period.
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Because they’re building a new browser, they will dodge all of the technical debt of Firefox.
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Ladybird is driven by a web standards first approach.
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Right now, they’re only working on building a browser for Linux, MacOS, and other Unix-based systems, which saves them a lot of resources in the beginning.
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They have the ability to build a simple, functional, clean browser that’s focused on web standards and essentials, without any bloat, etc.
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On ladybird:
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I concur, with points 2, 5 (#5 is what makes the idea of a new browser engine most attractive to me).
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#3 Sounds good. Time will tell.
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On #1, Ladybird can say anything they want right now, they are just getting started, and don’t yet know where the money will come from nor if it will be sufficient, and what they will need to do to sustain themselves. It would be great if it can come from donations alone, but if not it’ll need to come from somewhere, and that involves focusing on things other than the browser.
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On #4, saving money in the short term by not being crossplatform is fine if it helps them get off the ground, but it doesn’t help with long term sustainability, if they eventually intend to be crossplatform. And as mentioned, I see longterm sustainable funding as the much harder problem to solve for a donation based model. On the other hand if they could build a really great browser (easier said than done), showcase it on Unix, and generate enough interest, it might be a way to fund the next steps.
As points of comparison it would be interesting to learn more about the struggles and barriers that Servo has faced (and possibly others like Presto, KHTML, WebkitGTK, or even EdgeHTML)
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brew search --cask ladybird
Error: No formulae or casks found for "ladybird".
Nothing to test yet.
Yeah, they’re expecting a release in 2026 I believe? Right now there’s test builds on the github page from my understanding.
Yeah, I would get on the ladybird train when there’s not even an alpha out.