The new browser has found a new home called the Ladybird Browser Initiative: the non-profit organization aims to further the work on the project and find sponsors for development. Previously, Ladybird was part of SerenityOS, an operating system created under the direction of Andreas Kling. Kling is now also moving on to a project for a completely new web browser. Just a few days ago, Ladybird separated from SerenityOS so that both projects can focus on their respective goals again.
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enough money for development
At the same time, Ladybird has found another sponsor: Github founder Chris Wanstrath. Not only is he one of those responsible for the new initiative, but he is also contributing one million US dollars. Ladybird had already been able to find a paid sponsor with Shopify. However, Kling insists In the declarationthat Ladybird should remain a free project in the future. He does not pursue commercial interests with the web browser. Accordingly, funds flow exclusively into the further development of Ladybird, sponsors are not allowed to explicitly specify any specifications; therefore Kling believes he will have to give up some funds – for example, Google cannot automatically put its search engine as the default in Ladybird.
Unlike other independent browsers, Ladybird is not based on Chromium. Rather, it is a completely newly developed engine, independent of Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. The project is in a correspondingly early stage of development. However, Kling emphasizes that he and other developers already use the browser for certain tasks, including interacting with GitHub, exchanging ideas on forums, and general web browsing. Accordingly, developers focus on their own needs to extend Ladybird’s functions.
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In Interact with users on Hacker News Kling says that the main focus at the moment is on developing the engine. He sees its complete independence from the advertising industry as an outstanding feature compared to Chrome and Firefox. Especially compared to Mozilla, Ladybird’s goal is much narrower: the project wants to focus exclusively on a web browser that is meant for regular users – and whose data the developers never want to profit from. As a result, Kling expects the financial side of the project to be simpler. In recent years, Mozilla has repeatedly tried new projects that are not always successful – and it is also more or less dependent on advertising money from Google.
Kling also looks at the issue of ad blockers independently. Ladybird will definitely get such a feature. Kling says that using the web without such a feature is not pleasant at all. Kling also comments on the size of the project: Ladybird currently has three permanent developers, and three more are to be added next month. He emphasizes that this is clearly more than a hobby project. He currently considers their funding to be secure for 1.5 years.
Desktop comes first
If you want to try Ladybird despite its pre-alpha status, you’ll have to use one of the desktop ports. The official development goal is currently Linux and macOS. Windows users will have to use WSL 2; the browser is still located in its former home, SerenityOS. However, Kling expects that his developers won’t be able to adopt all the changes in the future: one of the fundamental changes in the fork was that Ladybird can now incorporate code from third-party projects, although SerenityOS still prohibits this. Ladybird’s old Android port currently lacks a maintainer. The project only wants to refocus on versions for mobile devices when the browser for desktop is advanced enough.
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