This Month in Ladybird – April 2026

https://ladybird.org/newsletter/2026-04-30/

by richardboegli • 3 months ago

507 149 3 months ago

bityard• 3 months ago

It looks like this is getting pretty usable!

This post reminded me of gaming emulator updates that I also love to read. "Fixed X bug to make Y behave correctly, which means game Z works now." (One of the things they fixed was CSS Doom, so I guess there is some legitimate overlap to gaming at any rate.)

adamrt• 3 months ago

Good call! I’ve heard Andreas say multiple times building a browser is like building an emulator. Each website uses different features in different ways, and he likens websites to roms.

aucisson_masque• 3 months ago

There is a difference tho between being'pretty usable' and actually being usable with your passwords, data and just being reliable enough for everyday.

I think the gap between having nothing to having a prototype is way smaller than between having something 'pretty usable' and something that is usable.

imagetic• 3 months ago

Can’t ship it soon enough.

Imustaskforhelp2• 3 months ago

https://ladybird.org/assets/img/newsletter-apr-2026-reddit-g...

To whoever had the evangelion r/unixporn as a way to test out ladybird reddit. I respect you so much as I really liked reading about evangelion (I haven't watched it as much BUT I have watched countless documentaries explaining it and had evangelion as my wallpaper for sometime)

Now coming to the point, the fact that reddit is working in ladybird sounds crazy good, I am not sure if youtube is working or not but I hope that youtube works too and Ladybird sounds to really work.

Also, thanks to https://jakubsteplow.ski/ for donating the money to ladybird. I mean I would like to actively promote people who donate to open source projects as a better way than what google ads or others too and jakub I wish you nothing but the best and I hope other people donate to projects like ladybird too (Independent donors/donations), also thanks to human rights foundation https://hrf.org/program/ai-for-individual-rights/

It's amazing how browsers had an almost mono/(duo or trio?)-poly yet it took a single guy to do all of this. Its really inspiring.

smallerize• 3 months ago

https://ladybird.org/#about

How many people are working on the browser today?
We currently have 8 paid full-time engineers working on Ladybird. There is also a large community of volunteer contributors.

JLO642• 3 months ago

I love EVA, but I’ll cautiously recommend it. I feel like there are two sides to it: the mecha/alien/monster sci-fi side which has an amazing aesthetic, and the personal drama focusing on self loathing and loneliness. I think the first side is the most attractive to most people, but what really sticks with me to this day is the latter.

If you do end up watching I have to warn about the watch order. There are two timelines, the original TV series plus the movie “End of Evangelion”, and then the “Rebuild of Eva” movie series which started as a complete reboot but somehow ended as the ultimate Reboot/Remake/Sequel to the original stuff.

Imustaskforhelp2• 3 months ago

I understand, I had started watching these evangelion summaries thinking oh cool robots but then, I have been aware of the loneliness and other things within the series which were thought-provoking but also not really at the same time. I

I don't watch much anime (shocking within my generation which seems to be anime-driven?) but ironically I have also watched berserk's golden age arc also because of an edit that I had watched before all the horrificness is revealed but that's the reason why I haven't really read more about berserk other than the golden age.

Yu-Yu-Hakusho, death note, AOT and bersek/(evangelion? Only watched documentaries explaining it) are the only series that I have watched/listened about a lot in this sense I suppose.

With berserk and evangelion, perhaps there is something about the style of both of these, both lure you in with a particular sense of art but both have some aspects of darkness hidden beneath the pages.

I have listened to and slept listening to this song more times than I can count: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSEkh4mgYqc

There is something about first discovering it even knowing through comments that things would turn south but I still decided to watch berserk because it so captured my attention. I wished for it to be a bland piece where things turn happy ever happily but I think that berserk's decision to not do is somewhat fascinating too. maybe the lure to watch these increases knowing the fact that these aren't just single dimensional things but rather multi dimensional with deeper topics.

Evangelion with concepts like loneliness and I would associate berserk with pain and hope (hope to still fight even after so much pain)

Edit: should probably mention Its late night and I should probably sleep and I didn't really intend to send this message, I sometimes write somethings and don't send them (but save them for myself to read in documents)* because I find that I think deeper about something during this and I accidentally pressed enter, thanks for reading this but I am sure that I might not be able to give my viewpoint away but I am grateful that you read till the end. Looks like the world wanted me to send the message so I did :-D

JuniperMesos• 3 months ago

Skip Eva watch Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagan.

LeFantome7• 3 months ago

YouTube works in Ladybird. Most things do. Biggest problem other than speed is that a lot of the “verify you are a human” checks do not work with it.

satvikpendem2• 3 months ago

If you want to use no-Javascript browser as well, this browser prototype [0] is getting pretty good too. It's developed by Dioxus, a GUI framework in Rust, as part of its native renderer which seeks to create their own alternative to Skia, similar to Flutter, but it'll work on the web as well with HTML and CSS standards unlike Flutter web which is just a canvas.

It's also a from scratch implementation, sort of, using existing Rust crates like stylo (which servo also uses) and taffy, but it doesn't rely on any code from existing browsers such as Chromium, Gecko or WebKit.

[0] https://github.com/DioxusLabs/blitz (in /apps/browser)

pgwalsh• 3 months ago

This is great. I'm building a site that has JavaScript but is fully functional without it, this would be fun to see how it renders it. I use htmx, AlpineJS and Vanilla JS just for additional help for users with forms and search but works fine without it. Thanks for sharing this.

I will recompile ladybird too. Last time it had made great progress but was no where near read for regular use.

satvikpendem2• 3 months ago

There are now binaries available for Blitz: https://blitz.is/downloads

I used to disable Javascript by default but found that it was hard to actually get anything done on the Internet but maybe now we can use this sort of browser for pure informational websites and also save RAM. That is in fact what Dioxus Native is all about which wraps Blitz for a UI framework.

geophph• 3 months ago

strava.com : Login works now that Navigator.getBattery throws the spec-mandated error type instead of one of our own (#8770).

what’s Strava want with my battery level?

yurishimo• 3 months ago

Maybe it uses some that battery API as a heuristic for a lower-power version of the site? Or maybe they have a web-only version in developing markets? Low battery means it should query for your location less often to save battery?

Totally spitballing here. Strava being a website that requests battery does not seem wildly outlandish to me, albeit it is a bit suspicious in general.

einpoklum2• 3 months ago

it uses some that battery API as a heuristic for a lower-power version of the site?

As a naive user I would expect websites to not be able to receive information about my battery state. With that information they can track my mobile phone usage pattern, and with some cross-referencing gain even more specific private information.

charcircuit2• 3 months ago

Bots trying to brute force accounts may not have the API implemented like a real device may.

fooqux• 3 months ago

Sure, and my desktop computer just reports 100% battery level? Which can't be easily replicated by a static header in the bot?

This would be a silly thing to use to identify bots.

NBPEL2• 3 months ago

Most likely for generating unique fingerprint for tracking

nonameiguess2• 3 months ago

Strava's a route tracker. Assuming you can use it through the website, it probably controls how often it polls location, trading off accuracy for power consumption.

einpoklum2• 3 months ago

Human Rights Foundation ... “AI for Individual Rights” program

That sounds quite dodgy. Ladybird doesn't have AI, why would such a program support its development?

But even before that: "Human Rights Foundation" sounds like "The Human League" which George makes up in Seinfeld as a fake charity. And promoting AI as a "human right" is quite suspicious. If I had to, I might be that this is something backed by one of the corporations burning through Billions of dollars and Gigawatt-hours on LLMs.

Looking at their annual report summaries and their huge staff, my guess slants a bit towards either bodies like the CIA or some ideologically-motivated billionaires (e.g. talk about the "dictator Maduro", focus on Iran etc.)

technothrasher• 3 months ago

"The Human League" which George makes up in Seinfeld as a fake charity

It was actually The Human Fund. The Human League is an English pop band, most successful in the 1980s with their hit single "Don't You Want Me".

NicuCalcea• 3 months ago

There's quite a big difference between "AI for individual rights" and "AI as a human right".

vondur• 3 months ago

Ha I immediately thought of the Human Fund from Seinfeld. Their fake slogan “money for humans”

radlad• 3 months ago

If you're interested in the program, you can find more details here: https://hrf.org/program/ai-for-individual-rights/ai-for-indi...

They offer grants for "Using AI tools and platforms to more efficiently build movements and resist oppression" in addition to many other things.

jordand2• 3 months ago

Ladybird has a close relationship with FUTO which is a pretty oddly behaved private for-profit company ran by a bored multi-millionaire.

https://drewdevault.com/blog/Whats-up-with-FUTO/

notenlish2• 3 months ago

Didn't realize FUTO was connected to Eron Wolf, which connects to Curtis Yarvin, which connects to Palantir.

Great...

kelvinjps102• 3 months ago

I thought it was more related to Louis Rossmann that's where I learnend from

LeFantome7• 3 months ago

By “close relationship”, I assume you mean that FUTO is a financial sponsor.

Ladybird has been pretty clear that they will accept money from pretty much anybody but that funding will not provide influence.

I mean, they mostly make sure sponsors websites look good in Ladybird but even that seems like a low priority if you watch them.

snvzz• 3 months ago

From the FAQ in the ladybird front page.

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

i.e. donations explicitly do not buy any say in the project.

mold_aid• 3 months ago

It is. Ex-FIRE guy's idea. Avoiding Ladybird like the plague, personally.

Barbing2• 3 months ago

But even before that: "Human Rights Foundation" sounds like

a household name (the HRF), to me

Here’s the CIA billionaire running it (I kid!) but ya HRF’s president: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor_Halvorssen_(human_rights_...

Unlikely to be USA govt if they’ve defocused soft power activities eh?

cynicalsecurity• 3 months ago

Interesting, I've checked the LinkedIn link of Jakub Stęplowski, a software developer proudly presenting himself as "from Poland" - 10 years of working outside of Poland in Italy and Switzerland. Yep, that checks out. I was wondering where he could have gotten $1,000 to generously burn on this project as a sponsor, with Polish salaries.

Nothing bad about it, of course. It's just it's long time overdue to move to Switzerland as well, I see.

qingcharles• 3 months ago

There was a developer who I worked with at a mortgage company who had moved to the UK from Czech Republic. He would sit at his desk playing games on his phone all day and had outsourced his entire job to his friend back home for 25% of his UK salary.

NBPEL2• 3 months ago

The hardest part for browser development has always been "artificial" web compatibility, as you know a lot of websites are forcefully blocking specific browser from loading, only allow Chromium to load their websites, that is the reality check for Ladybird, and seriously what stopping new web browsers from being able to compete, same with DRM Widevine, it's REALLY hard to acquire (unobtainiumware) for new browser, even big browser like Zen Browser with 10M users failed to acquire it

Onavo• 3 months ago

They can mock the User Agent for the purposes of compatibility testing. When you control the browser itself, nothing's impossible. (aside from DRM specific issues)

JoRyGu• 3 months ago

How common is this that they would even care about it anyways? I've run Firefox exclusively for the last 2 decades and have never once run into a site that told me I needed to switch to Chromium for compatibility.

MarsIronPI• 3 months ago

And honestly, I've only ever once encountered a website that required Widevine. And that site was a media site. So if you don't watch DRMed movies in your browser then you don't need Widevine in my experience.

progval• 3 months ago

Common enough that Mozilla has full-time engineers working on triaging compatibility issues, so they can either be fixed in Firefox or reported to webmasters. Here are the reports they get: https://webcompat.com/issues

dlcarrier4• 3 months ago

I've never had one tell me; they just don't work, or they get stuck in a loop until they consume all my RAM and the gecko engine crashes. That is, assuming they even show me the page, instead of telling me to go away because they they think I'm a bot.

shevy-java2• 3 months ago

I actually ran into such issues, in particular with commercial websits. Some browsers I use do not work for my online transactions for instance - annoyingly the local bank I use for logging into my account as well. It is basically the bank hijacking my money and forcing me into using a specific browser (or, at the least, very few; they improved compatibility a bit in the last years, but there were more issues in the past here). It is just a reality of the situation that some websites don't work well on certain browsers.

tame3902• 3 months ago

In the past Vivaldi used their own user agent string and they ran into a bunch of issues. And they are a chrome derivative! They had to default to the chrome user agent. Here are the examples they cite in their announcement of the decision:

"On Google.com if you present a Vivaldi user agent and arrive via a redirect, the search text box will be misaligned

On Google Docs if you present a Vivaldi user agent you will receive a warning

On Facebook’s WhatsApp web interface if you present a Vivaldi user agent, you cannot enter the site and are advised to switch to one of our competitors

On Microsoft Teams (chat and collaboration website), presenting a Vivaldi user agent will stop you from being able to use the website

On Netflix, presenting a Vivaldi user agent results in a suggestion to install Silverlight to play videos… yes… really… Silverlight!"

(https://vivaldi.com/blog/user-agent-changes/)

nonameiguess2• 3 months ago

Your experience may be different, but every time I hit the Cloudflare "checking if your connection is secure" turnstyle, it goes into an infinite loop on Firefox. It's the only reason I still have Chrome on any personal device. It may be tracker and privacy settings rather than just Firefox on its own, but I'm not going to run combinatorial experiments to figure out exactly what Cloudflare is looking for, especially since it's probably a moving target.

ricardobeat2• 3 months ago

YouTube is crippled in Firefox, has been for years. It doesn’t force you to use Chrome, just a little nudge

pbhjpbhj• 3 months ago

A lot of systems seem to silently fail on Firefox - my broadband supplier's website failed at the last step of the onboarding process. I managed to get charged for installation (connection by the network operator, UK) twice, have onboarding emails sent, but not have the appointment in my account.

Used Edge, went through completely.

Can't guarantee it was Firefox/browser issues. But this is not that uncommon an occurrence.

I suspect it is the bank who are at fault.

TheCoreh• 3 months ago

To get to the point where these artificial gates substantially matter for interop, you've already cleared 99% of the hurdles, and you can get away with just spoofing the User Agent string most of the time.

Widevine is legitimately a “gate”, but realistically it only stops 4K playback on Netflix, Disney and a few other streaming sites. And it's not super relevant considering that Zen has gathered 10M users without it.

ekianjo3• 3 months ago

DRM Widevine,

we have to thank tim berners lee for allowing this kind of bs in the first place

cpach• 3 months ago

bitwize• 3 months ago

It was either permit DRM, or cut off the web for all sorts of media.

LeFantome7• 3 months ago

Quite recently, Ladybird started reporting itself as Chrome for exactly this reason.

pjmlp• 3 months ago

Unfortunately a whole new generation failed to learn the IE lesson, and are the first to complain when others don't follow the Chrome OS Platform wishes.

port11• 3 months ago

Hmm, I haven’t used a single website in a long time that forces a Chromium-based browser to operate. The only exception I know of is DocuSign requiring a Chrome extension. And, of course, plenty of websites are laggy on Safari.

everdrive• 3 months ago

Ladybird, at least initially, will be niche enough that I think this won't be a problem. It'll be tech enthusiasts who use multiple browsers. If it can get a foothold, then I think there will be many more bars to clear.

sikozu• 3 months ago

Ladybird is coming along so well. I am a long-term Firefox user and I'll definitely be an early adopter of Ladybird when it enters very early alpha and precompiled builds start being released.

DANmode• 3 months ago

Mozilla needs a kick in the pants to say the least.

dlcarrier4• 3 months ago

They're a lost cause. It's been at least a decade since they've made a decision that wasn't the worst possible.

allusernamesare• 3 months ago

It's pretty easy to compile yourself, especially if you ask Claude code to do it for you.

lionkor• 3 months ago

Are you illiterate? There are step by step instructions, it's accessible too.

glitchcrab• 3 months ago

I deposit for those who would rather ask a robot than do something simple themselves.

cuu508• 3 months ago

BTW if you want to kick the tires at the current stage, building it locally is easy, just a couple of commands to install dependencies and run the build script:

https://github.com/LadybirdBrowser/ladybird/blob/master/Docu...

jiehong• 3 months ago

Congratulations!

However, the screenshots for "List markers in RTL text" are the same it seems. The list markers are on the left in both cases.

dlcarrier4• 3 months ago

In this after picture: https://ladybird.org/assets/img/newsletter-apr-2026-rtl-afte..., the bullet points in the lower left panel are to the right of the text, whereas in this before picture: https://ladybird.org/assets/img/newsletter-apr-2026-rtl-befo... they are not only to the left of the text, but they are so far to the left of the text they are nearly exiting the panel itself.

Narishma• 3 months ago

It's subtle but they aren't the same. The list makers are now to the right of the text entries as they should. But it's hard to see because it's somewhat hidden by the glaring issues the rest of the page still has.

shevy-java2• 3 months ago

It’s inspired by GNOME Web (Epiphany)

So basically, it will be useless. How many use epiphany please? That thing has been so extremely ineffective. It's like 1999 (not that everything was bad in 1999).

follows GNOME’s design guidelines: no menubar, a hamburger menu

Oh. my. god.

So Ladybird worships uselessness now. Also, GTK progressively gets worse and with GTK5 they will (try to) kill of xorg-server too. Some people disagree with that - https://github.com/X11Libre/xserver and https://git.devuan.org/Daemonratte/gtk2-ng; I get it that there are not that many folks using that, but the point is that the GNOME corporate mindset has a tiny bit of competition. Perhaps that seed of competition grows over time until the corporate gnomeys have to change course (won't happen, as they are paid to abolish what is "old", but more competition is good, if only to try to "reason" with mr. ebassi and other hardcore gnomeys; sadly KDE also goes that way with wayland-only, thanks to anti Robin Hood Nate and his donation-pester daemon. Oldschool KDE devs didn't waylay people for money, now it is "pay or get nagged", thanks to Natey Nate).

We kind of need competition in the browser landscape, so in some ways having Ladybird is good. I don't really have much hope that ladybird will be able to challenge the evil Google empire though. But perhaps more people realise that Google controlling so much of the www-ecosystem (again, just look at how they nerfed google search in the last years) is a huge problem.

monax• 3 months ago

I like the approach of ladybird to provides as many native chrome as possible it gives peoples choice and let the browser feel native in whatever DE they choose to use :)

preisschild3• 3 months ago

I'm pretty happy with GNOME. Feel free to use software from conspiracy lunatics (XLibre) though

exploraz• 3 months ago

Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47985497

dlcarrier4• 3 months ago

I really like what SerenityOS is going for, and hope they can maintain that focus in the Ladybird browser.

bennett_dev• 3 months ago

AFAIK Ladybird is separated from SerenityOS completely now (https://hackaday.com/2024/07/02/fork-ladybird-browser-and-se...) so the Ladybird contributors can fully focus on it

LeFantome7• 3 months ago

I love SerenityOS too but it has totally lost momentum since Andreas left.

And ladybird does not even support SerenityOS anymore.

jurschreuder• 3 months ago

Too bad LadyBird is being translated to LLM generated Rust.

It's nice that Rust is so beginner friendly but it would be nicer to have a pure C++ browser for the more experienced developers, to use as a basis for their projects like Chromium is used.

teruakohatu• 3 months ago

If LLMs allow them to speedrun to an alternative mainstream browser, then full speed ahead.

A third runner in this space would make the browser market a lot healthier than the current chrome/webkit and Firefox duopoly.

latexr4• 3 months ago

I’d rather have a good browser which took its time to get things right than a speed run one.

Too much software is written like that, and the result is that most things are shit. What are we in such a hurry for? To get more time to work more? Fucking chill. Do things slowly and right.

As a side thought, speed running seems like the wrong analogy for software. Speed runners in games are people who spend a ton of time doing the exact same steps over and over to find tiny optimisations and develop muscle memory to do something repeatable. They take the time to do it well. Being a good speed runner means embracing slow progress. It’s the antithesis of software, where rushing to get it out also means you barely look at it. You do it fast but seldom right.

isametry• 3 months ago

chrome/webkit and Firefox duopoly

Blink (Chrome) is not WebKit. If anything, the duopoly is Blink and WebKit at places 1 and 2 respectively.

Firefox is at around 3% market share. There’s no “-poly” to Gecko at all.

porridgeraisin2• 3 months ago

I don't really care for the language. But why is it following the GTK UI language ffs. Every gtk only gets worse.

SkiFire132• 3 months ago

Ladybird has a new Linux frontend built on GTK4 and libadwaita, sitting alongside the existing Qt frontend

This is in addition to the already existing Qt frontend.

SkiFire132• 3 months ago

Why would yet another C++ browser be better than one written in a different language (this time Rust, but Zig would be cool too)?

nasso_dev• 3 months ago

are you saying c++ can be used as a basis for other projects whereas rust cannot? ...why?

LeFantome7• 3 months ago

There are lots of C++ browsers, including Chromium.

Happy to see Ladybird using the best tools.

The RegEx and JavaScript interpreters are great places to use Rust for security reasons.

bbkane2• 3 months ago

In my opinion, Chromium has already filled that market.

I actually think Ladybird should lean into Rust more so it can compete on speed but still stay safe and friendly to contributors (as hopefully the compiler will prevent most bugs).

My hope is this will help them compete with tenets of "safe, fast, contributor-friendly and NOT owned by a corporation"

revengerwizard• 3 months ago

I don't know, it's the third language they mention to introduce, first there was Swift, for whatever reason.

I think they should be first focusing on getting to a first stable version before re-writing parts of the browser.

aorth• 3 months ago

GTK4 / libadwaita frontend

Nice! Looks good. I prefer GTK UI/UX over Qt. Looking forward to seeing the development progress on that.

samtheDamned• 3 months ago

Same here. I also think having multiple front-ends is a good way to demonstrate the flexibility of the engine.

tomaskafka2• 3 months ago

I thinkk it's about time Ladybird got some official prebuilt binaries - I'd love to try it, but I'm not going to install its whole dev environment and build it from source.

ramon156• 3 months ago

They planned an alpha build in june :) so, just a bit longer!

tomaskafka2• 2 months ago

Thanks! Looking forward!

fabrice_d2• 3 months ago

If you are interested in new browsers / web runtimes, Servo publishes binaries monthly: https://servo.org/download/

jojomodding• 3 months ago

Is pdf.js the renderer that VSCode uses? You know, the one where everything becomes extremely blurry when you zoom in for absolutely no reason at all except (I would imagine) developer incompetence?

preisschild3• 3 months ago

Its the one firefox uses and it works well.

tejohnso• 3 months ago

Independence is great, but I'm curious about features. Will Ladybird have any built-in ad blocking like Brave? Useful tab management? Dark mode?

worksonmine• 3 months ago

I think plugins is the better solution, then you can't pay the browser to get your ads through.

LeFantome7• 3 months ago

They block all ads in current builds. Probably mostly more performance and to create more consistency when testing a website (not having to worry about errors from lots of low quality JavaScript in the ads).

I think they have dark mode already.

polycaster2• 3 months ago

I don't want to dampen the positive vibes around this project in any way, in fact I'm very glad such projects exists. But it just struck me that my immediate associations with the "non-profit" label - which in this project's context is clearly being positioned against Mozilla's for-profit subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation - don't quite match reality. Even though it is indeed a non-profit, the website features a not exactly short listing of sponsors, including platinum-tier sponsor Cloudflare.

Platinum, per Ladybird's own sponsorship page, means $100,000+ per year. Money that, per the site, comes from "just people and companies who believe in an open web." Cloudflare, then.

greggh• 3 months ago

Uhh, yes? Non-profits take donations to keep doing their work.

polycaster2• 3 months ago

Sure and Mozilla is arguably the cautionary tale here. They also started as a non-profit taking donations. AOL seeded them with $2M, Red Hat and Sun pitched in too. Within a year they had the Google search deal. By 2006, ~92% of revenue came from Google.

Retr0id• 3 months ago

"non-profit" does not mean it has to run off unicorn farts

mtlynch• 3 months ago

Worth noting that at this point, it's still somewhat trivial to find exploitable remote code execution bugs in Ladybird using AI tools.[0]

The userbase of Ladybug users is so small that it's probably not worth the attackers' time, but keep in mind that it's an enormous step down in security from the mainstream browsers who are actively searching for bugs using the latest tools and paying bug bounties on external reports.

[0] https://blog.calif.io/p/mad-bugs-rce-in-ladybird

benchwright• 3 months ago

I managed to build this the other day. Looking good!

As noted by other authors, there does seem to be a wide surface area for attacks so, security remediation does seem to be a top-of-queue thing to be handled.

All in all, keep up the good work!

This Month in Ladybird – April 2026

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