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/

  • who@feddit.orgEnglish
    4·
    11 days ago

    Cloudflare’s HTTPS service operates by being a man-in-the-middle: a third party that can snoop and even alter communications between a website and its visitors.

    Cloudflare’s DNS-over-HTTPS service operates by sending a user’s domain name lookups to Cloudflare, where they can be collected, correlated, and tracked. This allows Cloudflare to monitor every website that people visit, regardless of whether those sites have any relationship with Cloudflare.

    Since the first service has become popular among website owners and the second one a default in some web browsers, Cloudflare now has unprecedented reach into the online lives of a great deal of the world’s population.

    There is nothing privacy-friendly about this.

    You could decide that you trust Cloudflare, its employees, its partners, the governments and agencies that have influence over it, and any other parties who gain access to it, never to abuse its position. But that would be faith, not privacy.

    Edit: Now, to tie this in to my original comment: Cloudflare is in a unique position to profit from its reach into people’s web traffic, at a large scale. Influence over a web browser, even in small ways, would allow them to expand that power. They might not be abusing their surveillance power… yet, but history shows that money is a very effective incentive for abuse. I am therefore wary of their involvement in a web browser’s development. I hope Ladybird’s administrative measures to protect against this turn out to be effective, and stay that way.