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
    1025·
    12 days ago

    I’m excited to see Ladybird developing, but the project accepting money from Cloudflare makes me wary. Between Cloudflare’s man-in-the-middle position in a great deal of web traffic, and their similarly invasive position as a major DNS-over-HTTPS provider, they are not remotely privacy-friendly.

    • shaytan@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPM
      981·
      12 days ago

      Ladybird is a nom profit, and its system consist in limiting sponsor max donation to 100k per year, so no company can sponsor more than that and make ladybird dependent on them. On top of that, they try to balance budget to keep money for 18months of salaries at all times, so they dont feel the need to rush decisions and can have stable development

    • khannie@lemmy.worldEnglish
      36·
      12 days ago

      Their website says:

      All sponsorships are in the form of unrestricted donations. Board seats and other forms of influence are not for sale.

      So Cloudflare and other sponsors don’t get a say which is comforting.

    • Jännät@sopuli.xyz
      311·
      12 days ago

      Well, it’s definitely not optimal, but I doubt they have any say in the project’s direction, so I’m OK with this as long as there’s no proof of shady shit going on.

      I’d rather they take the money (as long as Cloudflare isn’t using the threat of pulling funding as leverage to affect development) than refuse it on the grounds of Cloudflare being a shit company; having alternative browser & JS engines is more important than ideological purity, imo.

      Like I said, not optimal, but not a lot is nowadays…

      • Cethin@lemmy.zipEnglish
        17·
        12 days ago

        Yeah, this fits with the “don’t correct your enemy when they’re making a mistake” category. Take their money and use it for good. As long as they don’t have a say in how it’s spent, it’s better to take it from them than it go to effect something in a bad way.

    • Kushan@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10·
      12 days ago

      I’m not sure I follow, are you saying cloudflare isn’t privacy friendly due to their unique position and general success as a CDN, or are you alluding to them doing something actively privacy invading?

      I’m just trying to understand the argument here, I don’t quite follow what it is that CF has done wrong.

      • The Stoned Hacker@lemmy.world
        13·
        12 days ago

        They have nearly monopolized a lot of web traffic with their CDN, proxies, and other services. Yes they can provide a good product, but this much influence over the internet is not a good thing. it’s not healthy for maintaining an open web, but that’s long since been killed.

      • 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.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
      37·
      12 days ago

      I don’t see an issue here. Whether you use a VPN is usually completely separate from the web browser, outside of some special examples like Tor Browser, Mullvad browser, and Firefox VPN. The browser renders pages and the VPN manages traffic delivery, and ideally neither know anything about the other.

      I’d be much more concerned about Google donating.

      • who@feddit.orgEnglish
        9·
        12 days ago

        Did you mean to reply to someone else? My comment has nothing to do with VPN.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
          2·
          11 days ago

          You mentioned privacy and Cloudflare as a middleman, and Cloudflare blocking VPNs is a common complaint, so I assumed that’s what you were talking about.

          Cloudflare “intercepting” traffic is a core feature for things like DDOS protection, and it does so at the explicit request of websites. They have a very strict privacy policy where they claim to not sell any of that data and any data collected is anonymized. Their whole business model is to operate at the edge, and their business model is getting website owners onto a monthly plan, so they offer free tiers to get you hooked and later become a paying customer. They’re not an advertising company, nor are they a top hosting company, and they’re pretty easy to replace since most hosting companies offer similar services. I think that keeps Cloudflare honest, so I’m more likely to believe their privacy policy than someone like Google with a large marketing business.

  • scytale@piefed.zipEnglish
    471·
    12 days ago

    I hope they come out with extension support immediately and uBO follows up with compatibility after.

    • d-RLY?@lemmy.ml
      20·
      12 days ago

      Extension support is basically a minimum requirement for me (especially uBO, but also some others like Bypass Paywalls Clean, FastStream, and SponsorBlock). They can add overhead to the browser, but if the browser itself is solid and as efficient as they are pushing for. Then I can handle knowing that any extra RAM or processes are my fault. I imagine that if they truly keep all the data collection and telemetry we see in other browsers. Then the overhead of extensions might just make resources only about as bad as a clean install of the others without extensions. Which would still be a win in my book. Even if they don’t have extensions, it will still be fun to have around and see how it evolves over time. Might even inspire folks to try doing the hardest part of making new browsers instead of endless forks that are at the whim of the base they came from.

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

      I’m sure they’ll get extension support at some point. They also said they intend to add a built in adblocker

      • Pup Biru@aussie.zoneEnglish
        27·
        12 days ago

        i wish they wouldn’t add a built in adblocker… i just want it to be the most minimal browser engine, and i want to be able to choose the adblocker

        • shaytan@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPM
          7·
          12 days ago

          I believe they are building it to have it as long as they don’t have extension support and market

          I doubt they’ll force it on release

      • 18107@aussie.zoneEnglish
        18·
        12 days ago

        I don’t mind an adblocker extension installed by default (for non tech-minded users), but a built in adblocker is just irritating. I want to have control over which extensions I use. Building an adblocker into the browser just takes more development time, and reduces freedom for everyone.

  • null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    311·
    12 days ago

    When I first became aware of this project I was pretty dismissive.

    I’m very happy to admit in this case that the project has come further than I thought it would.

    Their FAQ says they have 8, paid, full time devs and resources for something like 18 months. IDK how much it really takes to get a browser off the ground but they’ve got something, at least.

    I’m looking forward to their Alpha release in 2026, and really hope they can achieve that.

    • pipes@sh.itjust.works
      34·
      12 days ago

      My guess would be to have their business less dependant on Google’s whims and more reliant on actual web standards

    • shaytan@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPM
      24·
      12 days ago

      They give a good Image to this kind of developer and enthusiasts group

      Also, a possible chance of not having to depend on google, for 100k bucks, thats a really cheap ticket for them

  • Ging@anarchist.nexusEnglish
    131·
    11 days ago

    Lady/Thunder/Betterbird seem excellent.
    What other fowl software is worth a try?

    • shaytan@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPM
      13·
      11 days ago

      Alpha is expected sometime 2026 (but far from perfect) A more polished now beta, in 2027 And if all goes well, the first 1.0 release in 2028

      Still, probably for most people it won’t be worth using until the beta releases, or even until 1.0

  • N4kt0@lemmy.zip
    113·
    12 days ago

    Are they going to cram a bunch of AI bullshit into it like Mozilla is doing with Firefox?

    • shaytan@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPM
      171·
      12 days ago

      Companies and organizations earn money by selling user data from these intrusive AIs, and ladybird is the complete opposite, so I doubt it, probably the closest thing to that will be allowing users to have their preferred AI linked on the sidebar, which is normal and non-intrusive by itself

      Edit: Some companies earn even more money just by keeping investors happy with this AI bubble

  • Lumisal@lemmy.world
    135·
    11 days ago

    I’ve donated to them before, but I remember some anti-LGBTQ+ issues from one of the lead developers I think a few years ago. Has that been addressed?

    • 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.

  • fdnomad@programming.dev
    7·
    11 days ago

    Looking forward to try it in Summer 2026. I hope long term theres going to be support for uBO, separating sessions, and maybe jxl :')

  • pfr@lemmy.sdf.org
    6·
    11 days ago

    It’s so far from being ready. I built it on void recently and well, it ran, but it was very bare bones. At this stage I still prefer netsurf.

    Looking forward to the finished product.