Frequently Asked Questions about Ladybird

What does 'Independent' mean, if you're including third party dependencies?

Independent means:

• We implement the web platform standards ourselves: Ladybird is not a Blink/Chromium shell, not a WebKit port, not a Firefox fork.
• We don't take money from anyone with strings attached

Is [some particular site] usable in Ladybird?

Ladybird is pre-alpha software you have to build from the sources yourself in order to even try. That said, it’s getting better day-by-day at handling some of the most widely-used sites on the web. So, you may find that a given site among the sites you visit daily is already usable in Ladybird. Or you may not. The only way you can really know at this point is to follow the build instructions to build Ladybird and try it yourself.

Windows support when?

There are very few Windows developers contributing to the project. As such, maintaining a native Windows port would be a lot of effort that distracts from building out the web platform standards in a reasonable amount of time.

After we have a solid foundation, we may consider a Windows port, but it's not a priority. In the meantime, Windows developers can use other tools such as WSL2 to work on Ladybird.

Will Ladybird support $THING?

Eventually, probably, if there's a Web Spec for it!

When will you implement $THING?

Maybe someday. Maybe never. If you want to see something happen, you can do it yourself!

Will you have a built in ad blocker?

We have a rudimentary built-in ad blocker, and we already have open issues about supporting uBlock via extensions.

Is there a release roadmap?

• 2026: alpha release (daily driver for developers and early adopters) for Linux and macOS.
• 2027: beta release; downloadable app for Linux and macOS.
• 2028: stable release for general use

Well, how do I run this thing then?

Simple, my friend! Just refer to the build instructions.

I did a git pull and now the build is broken! What do I do?

If it builds on CI, it should build for you too. You may need to rebuild the toolchain. If that doesn't help, try it with a clean repo.

If you can't figure out what to do, ask in the #build-problems channel on Discord.

Where did Ladybird come from?

For full details, see the Ladybird: A new cross-platform browser project announcement from 12 September 2022.

Here’s a short timeline:

• 2019 June: Work on what eventually became Ladybird started as LibHTML — the beginnings of an HTML viewer for SerenityOS — with a commit titled “LibHTML: Start working on a simple HTML library”, and with this commit description:

  I'd like to have rich text, and we might as well use HTML for that. :^)

  LibHTML eventually became LibWeb — which in turn eventually grew into being the core part of the browser engine and browser to which, on 4 July 2022, the name Ladybird was given.

• 2022 July: Renamed Ladybird by Andreas in “Let's make a Linux GUI for the SerenityOS browser” live-coding video.

• 2022 Sept: Spun off from SerenityOS to separate project: “A new cross-platform browser project” announcement.

• 2024 June: “I'm forking Ladybird and stepping down as SerenityOS BDFL” announcement from Andreas.

• 2024 July: Ladybird Browser Initiative launched by Andreas and GitHub co-founder defunkt (Chris Wanstrath).

What makes Ladybird/Ladybird Browser Initiative different?

• Fully independent: Written from scratch, using no code from any other browser engine.
• Singular focus: Doing only one single thing: building a new browser engine and browser.
• No monetization: Will never take funding from default search deals or any other forms of user monetization, ever.

Are there video/audio announcements and interviews about the start of the Ladybird Browser Initiative?

• Ladybird Browser Initiative announcement video from defunkt explaining the project raison dʼêtre + goals (July 2024).
• Why we need Ladybird: Changelog podcast interview with Andreas and defunkt (August 2024); transcript; chapters.
• Eron Wolf announcement grant of $200K from FUTO to the project (August 2024).
• Eron Wolf interview with Andreas (August 2024).

Can you describe some of the project goals and its culture?

• Eventually give everybody the choice of a whole new browser they can use for their daily browsing.
• Prove it is in fact possible to build a completely new browser, by implementing from the WHATWG/W3C/etc. specs.
• Have a lot of real fun together actually doing it.
• Prove that developing an engine doesn’t take hundreds of engineers — and not anything close to even just a hundred.
• Browser engineering: Further help de-mystify it and make it a standard thing to learn (hat tip: https://browser.engineering/).
• Using project Discord server for communication discord.gg/nvfjVJ4Svh.
• Using one GithHub repo for everything: issues (no bugzilla or other), patch/PR submission/review, CI/test automation.

What are some of the project coding conventions? And do you have any activity metrics?

• Implement web-platform features exactly according to the actual steps in spec algorithms.
• Abundant code comments with verbatim spec text copy/pasted in — showing exactly what’s being implemented.
• Additional “AD-HOC:” comment convention to mark code that doesn’t map to any spec requirements.
• Class/file names tend to closely match actual current spec terms; e.g., Navigable.h, Transferable.h.
• “critically reading standards and reporting what is wrong”
• Project activity relative rankings: https://git-pulse.github.io/snapshots/?project=LadybirdBrowser_ladybird

Do you have some general details about the code and basic architecture?

• Some use of third-party libraries (e.g., Harfbuzz, Skia, simdutf, libcurl).
• Performance optimizing is not yet a super-high priority (but performance-boosting changes are regularly getting made).
• Code size:
  • Roughly same size (number of lines of code) as Servo.
  • About 1/15th as many lines of C++ code as WebKit.
  • About 1/20th as many lines as C++ code Gecko.
  • About 1/50th as many lines as C++ code Chromium.
• Level of standards support: wpt.fyi/results?product=ladybird has current test results for all WPT tests.
• LadybirdBrowser/ladybird#features:
  • UI process, ImageDecoder process, RequestServer process, WebContent processes.
  • LibWeb: core web-rendering engine (HTML, CSS, Events, DOM, APIs).
  • LibJS: JavaScript engine written from scratch (currently JIT-less).
  • LibWasm: WebAssembly implementation written from scratch.
  • AK: Ladybird standard library/abstractions: asserts, smart pointers, strings, numbers (e.g., fast_float impl.), more…

What about funding?

• Funded entirely through donations and sponsorships.
• https://donorbox.org/ladybird – donations of any amount: $10, $50, $100, etc.
• Sponsorship opportunities: Platinum $100,000 • Gold $50,000 • Silver $10,000 • Bronze $5,000 • Copper $1,000.
• Ladybird Browser Initiative announced/seeded with 1 million dollar donation from defunkt and his family.

Do you have some places where I can watch videos related to the project?

• Ladybird YouTube channel: monthly Ladybird project updates from Andreas.
• Andreas’ YouTube channel: 1000+ videos from 6+ years; incl. “car talk” + OS/browser “hacking” (live-coding) videos.

Is there some related background to help me understand what a browser engine is and why it’s important?

• Understanding the role of browser engines (UK Competition and Markets Authority Mobile ecosystems market study).