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Ladybird browser spreads its wings

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Re: Ladybird browser spreads its wings

#161

Post by safety1st »

nutrie wrote: post #29
manuelmoreale wrote: post #10

I’m irrationally excited for this project. The idea of a community built browser is incredibly appealing considering the current landscape where all browsers are either Chrome, Chrome in a trench coat, or Firefox

I don't understand what is wrong with Firefox. It is open-source, highly configurable and reasonably secure (if you have the time to configure). Yes, it has shortcomings, but what doesn't.

Well to put it bluntly, Firefox is Google's bitch.

If we want the web to be a multi-vendor platform based on open, multi-vendor standards, as it has been for parts of its history, how much does Firefox really buy us? Do we really think that Firefox will take a hard stand against Google if their survival depends on not doing so?

I use Firefox, but I think it's no longer true to its original mission in a lot of ways, Safari's global 18% share goes a lot farther toward making the web a duopolized rather than monopolized platform than Firefox's tiny sliver does. The less -opolized it is the better for society, or need I remind you that Google is presently mired in court for its conduct in its other web-adjacent monopolies such as web search and web advertising?

Re: Ladybird browser spreads its wings

#162

Post by einpoklum »

nutrie wrote: post #29
manuelmoreale wrote: post #10

I’m irrationally excited for this project. The idea of a community built browser is incredibly appealing considering the current landscape where all browsers are either Chrome, Chrome in a trench coat, or Firefox

I don't understand what is wrong with Firefox. It is open-source, highly configurable and reasonably secure (if you have the time to configure). Yes, it has shortcomings, but what doesn't.

From my limited experience of Firefox-as-a-project, coming from the side of Thunderbird:

* Firefox is effectively not a community project. It seems to be ruled with an iron fist by the commercial side of the operation.

* Firefox broke its extensibility - which was the whole rationale of the Mozilla project to begin with.

* Lots of telemetry and call-home mechanisms, so much so that it is difficult to opt out even if you want to - in Thunderbird, and I believe also in Firefox; see : https://superuser.com/q/1672309/122798 (but correct me if I'm wrong and it's an app-specific thing).

Re: Ladybird browser spreads its wings

#163

Post by mkl »

PrayagS wrote: post #150
antihero wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also they stopped developing Servo :(

As in Mozilla stopped developing officially? Because I have seen active development on GitHub and monthly updates on their blog.

Mozilla stopped in 2020: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24128865

The project limped along for a bit, then recently Igalia started putting resources into it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39269949

Re: Ladybird browser spreads its wings

#164

Post by voytec »

nutrie wrote: post #29
manuelmoreale wrote: post #10

I’m irrationally excited for this project. The idea of a community built browser is incredibly appealing considering the current landscape where all browsers are either Chrome, Chrome in a trench coat, or Firefox

I don't understand what is wrong with Firefox. It is open-source, highly configurable and reasonably secure (if you have the time to configure). Yes, it has shortcomings, but what doesn't.

> I don't understand what is wrong with Firefox.

It's developed by Mozilla, Google's controlled opposition. I submitted a link[0] on ads coming to Firefox but HN shadowed it almost immediately (present on /newest when logged in, nowhere to be found when logged out).

[0] https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/06/mozilla-is-an-advertising-c...

Re: Ladybird browser spreads its wings

#165

Post by 8organicbits »

getcrunk wrote: post #119
oskarkk wrote: post #32

One commenter who worked on Firefox made a nice blog post in response, about what it takes to make a web browser: https://robert.ocallahan.org/2024/06/browser-engine.html

For a new project I wonder how much simpler (or secure) a browser could be made if you only allowed a subset of js and browser apis. I’d wildly guesstimate for 70% of use cases you wouldn’t even need 50% of stuff with some slight modifications. The web is just so bloated. Edit: might as well prune down the css a little too and maybe dump wasm, webgl and canvas

I think this is a great point. The majority of my browsing uses text oriented sites (some think they are more, but I read them in reader mode). As I user, I rarely want more. I'd use a slim, secure browser if I could.

Sometimes I play games, or use "web apps" and using a different tool in those instances would be fine. Back in the early 2000s I remember using Firefox with an "open in IE" extension that allowed me to primarily use FF and fall back to IE when sites were broken. As websites modernized I used the extension less and less.

Also consider desktop apps that use election. Bundling a simpler browser and building the app to the capabilities of that browser could greatly reduce install size and memory usage.

Re: Ladybird browser spreads its wings

#166

Post by durandal1 »

voidwtf wrote: post #35

I don't want to discourage the developers working on this project, but I'm curious why we're still writing applications that will almost certainly execute or process hostile content in languages that don't maintain strict memory safe contract? Have we not learned our lesson yet, or am I misunderstanding the situation? I believe it was a Microsoft study that linked unsafe memory access to ~70% of exploit chains.

Where is the proof that Rust can achieve the productivity and design flexibility needed at browser scale?

Re: Ladybird browser spreads its wings

#168

Post by gjm11 »

voytec wrote: post #164
nutrie wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what is wrong with Firefox. It is open-source, highly configurable and reasonably secure (if you have the time to configure). Yes, it has shortcomings, but what doesn't.

> I don't understand what is wrong with Firefox. It's developed by Mozilla, Google's controlled opposition. I submitted a link[0] on ads coming to Firefox but HN shadowed it almost immediately (present on /newest when logged in, nowhere to be found when logged out). [0] https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/06/mozilla-is-an-advertising-c...

That might be because Jamie Zawinski's website, which that link links to, does something ... special ... when it sees HN in the "Referer" field, so anyone actually following that link from here would (unless they take special measures) get IIRC a famous obscene image rather than the actual post you were hoping to link to.

(JWZ is not a fan of Hacker News and its community.)

Re: Ladybird browser spreads its wings

#169

Post by viraptor »

hippich wrote: post #117
nutrie wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what is wrong with Firefox. It is open-source, highly configurable and reasonably secure (if you have the time to configure). Yes, it has shortcomings, but what doesn't.

I think the problem is that chrome and firefox are developed for general usage, and as a result, have to deal with general usage constraints. For example, spectre and process isolation mentioned in another blog post here in the comments. I had a project in the past where I needed a browser with good JS support, but that does not make any http requests to any resources not in address bar or in the page rendered at tha…

There's a difference between privacy and stealth. Modern browsers need to do things like captive portal sensing, ocsp checks, etc. If you want to disable all requests, you'll need to spend time cutting legitimate features. Or run it in an external sandbox which removes all networking access?

Re: Ladybird browser spreads its wings

#170

Post by t00ny »

the_other wrote: post #153
manuelmoreale wrote: post #10

I’m irrationally excited for this project. The idea of a community built browser is incredibly appealing considering the current landscape where all browsers are either Chrome, Chrome in a trench coat, or Firefox

Safari is 18% of global web traffic, 7x that of Firefox. (from a hasty scan of caniuse.com)

How much of this is attributable to the iOS lock-in though?
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