Hello guys, today I wanted to talk about a project I deeply care about and I’m actively contributing to, as I believe its good for everyone, including privacy concerned users

Ladybird Browser

This browser comes from the project “SerenityOS”, and has since evolved and separated from it. The founders are Andreas Kling, and Chris Wanstrath. The main goal of this project is to create a browser from scratch, avoiding chromium, gecko, etc. The main keypoints that should be of interest for Privacy Oriented Users are the following:

  • Ladybird lead (Andreas Kling) states “We’re not monetizing users, in any way. This is uncharted territory for browsers. So we’re not going to do any default search deals. We’re not going to do cryptocurrencies or try to monetize user data, just sponsorships and donations”

  • While** Ladybird will implement current web standards including cookie handling and tracking mechanisms for compatibility**, the browser’s philosophy puts the user in control of these decisions, not the company. The browser won’t have built-in incentives to encourage data collection since it doesn’t profit from it.

  • It aims to be “free from advertising’s influence” Ladybird, representing a shift away from the current web ecosystem where users like us are the product. This allows the project to implement privacy features without worrying about harming advertising partners or revenue streams.

As of now, the project has hired several developers with money coming from donations, from partners such as FUTO, Shopify, Cloudflare, among many, and is also seeing lots of volunteer activity on github. So well, if you like the web having more diversity and us having another alternative to google, check them out https://ladybird.org/

  • shaytan@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPM
    131·
    11 days ago

    I believe the project has been parked on neutrality and common respect for a while, the biggest “controversy” I know of is that the lead developer and founder said something about hiring back when he worked at apple, based on inclusivity vs talent, being a bad way of doing things, and people went crazy over that

    • 4am@lemmy.zip
      28·
      11 days ago

      The controversy was about a pull request being submitted that changed documentation to have gender-neutral pronouns, and there was some back and forth with the lead dev about not making “political” statements. Also lead dev is German and apparently (just what I have been told) in German the male pronouns are used when making gender-neutral references; so that muddied the waters of the back and forth - he may have assumed he was doing intended grammar in English and others may have assumed he was fighting against inclusivity (which as been going around a lot lately, in case that was not obvious…)

      As far as I know it was eventually straightened out and the changes were implemented

      • groet@feddit.org
        8·
        11 days ago

        German here: in german all nouns have a gender. and virtually all nouns used to describe people in general are male (like user, human, citizen) and a majority of professions as well. As such using male pronouns in documentation is common as you refer to a user (and the word user has male gender). However there is a big debate in Germany about gender inclusive language that moves away from this “generic masculinity” of nouns. And of course the political left is pro inclusivity while the right is against it.

        So if a (german) dev is actively defending the use of male-only pronouns they probably fall into the anti-invlusive-language camp in Germany as well. Its reasonable they would make the mistake when just translating from German, but starting a fight over changing it is sus.