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This Month in Ladybird – October 2025

ladybird.org

11–20 of 52 posts

Re: This Month in Ladybird – October 2025

#11

Good progress this month! Good to see it running on Windows now, even if I don't use Windows myself anymore. That'll help boost adoption once it releases.

True open source web browsers on Windows, and MacOS, are dead in the water.

This is because of the lack of Widevine CDM, and the majority of people wanting to stream stuff using services like Tidal, Netflix and Spotify.

They will also want to use a single browser for everything, which in practice means Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari.

Ladybird will very likely not have access to Widevine, because of the cost, requirements, and Google as gatekeeper. Some developers of small opensource Chromium/Electron based browsers also earlier tried and Google simply said no.

And even if they have reverse engineered the CDM extension (which will make Widevine work, not unlike a small hack/workaround with regard to Chromium and Chromium forks) it will not work because all browsers using Widevine on those two platforms require something called VMP (Verified Media Path) which is, as far as I understand, a certificate and verification library supplied by Widevine embedded within the browser.

Without VMP embedded in the browser streaming from popular commercial providers such as Netflix will not work on Windows and MacOS, even when the Widevine extension is in fact active.

Believe me, I checked.

IMO all of this is not only set in motion to (try to) protect from piracy, but also to kill any serious competition from small parties like LadyBird, and to keep the browser market firmly in the hands of the likes of Microsoft, Apple and Google. Because who will use a browser in 2025 unable to stream content, or without hacks at 720p maximum? (looking at you, Brave and Netflix)

This also means that browsers like Brave, Vivaldi and Firefox are in fact not true opensource browsers because their respective public repositories do not contain the assets needed for VMP signing.

On another note, at this moment the majority of people should be glad that browsers with corporate backing and enough income like Brave (whatever you might think of Brendan Eich's ideas), Vivaldi and Firefox exist because without them you would have no serious choice on Windows or MacOS at all.

Re: This Month in Ladybird – October 2025

#12

Good progress this month! Good to see it running on Windows now, even if I don't use Windows myself anymore. That'll help boost adoption once it releases.

True open source web browsers on Windows, and MacOS, are dead in the water. This is because of the lack of Widevine CDM, and the majority of people wanting to stream stuff using services like Tidal, Netflix and Spotify. They will also want to use a single browser for everything, which in practice means Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari. Ladybird will very likely not have access to Widevine, because of the cost, require…

I don’t know about you but I am perfectly content to use a free browser and open either a nonfree browser or an app if I want to use a feature that is not available in my preferred software.

Re: This Month in Ladybird – October 2025

#13
post #6

I’m impressed how well Google maps works already. Seems though as if the WPT score is not super meaningful in measuring actual usability. The growth of passed tests seems suspiciously uniform across browsers, so I guess it has more to do with new passing tests being added and less with failing tests that got fixed.

>We’ve continued to make solid progress on WPT this month. There has been a significant increase in passing subtests, with 111,431 new passing subtests bringing our total to 1,964,649. The majority of this increase comes from a large update to the test suite itself, with 100,751 subtests being added - mainly due to the Wasm core tests being updated to Wasm 3.0. They fixed ~10k tests, but indeed this month is a bit of…

[deleted]

Re: This Month in Ladybird – October 2025

#14

Good progress this month! Good to see it running on Windows now, even if I don't use Windows myself anymore. That'll help boost adoption once it releases.

If they'd just have used an Electron stack from the get-go, it would have been cross platform already

Re: This Month in Ladybird – October 2025

#15

Good progress this month! Good to see it running on Windows now, even if I don't use Windows myself anymore. That'll help boost adoption once it releases.

True open source web browsers on Windows, and MacOS, are dead in the water. This is because of the lack of Widevine CDM, and the majority of people wanting to stream stuff using services like Tidal, Netflix and Spotify. They will also want to use a single browser for everything, which in practice means Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari. Ladybird will very likely not have access to Widevine, because of the cost, require…

Well, they want me to view free movies if I use free browser, then

Re: This Month in Ladybird – October 2025

#16

Good progress this month! Good to see it running on Windows now, even if I don't use Windows myself anymore. That'll help boost adoption once it releases.

True open source web browsers on Windows, and MacOS, are dead in the water. This is because of the lack of Widevine CDM, and the majority of people wanting to stream stuff using services like Tidal, Netflix and Spotify. They will also want to use a single browser for everything, which in practice means Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari. Ladybird will very likely not have access to Widevine, because of the cost, require…

yeah, that's a problem for me like losing access to E! and TLC when getting rid of tv service box, legacy media platforms bye bye, hello copyright violation in sweet sweet high bitrate 4k

Re: This Month in Ladybird – October 2025

#17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True open source web browsers on Windows, and MacOS, are dead in the water. This is because of the lack of Widevine CDM, and the majority of people wanting to stream stuff using services like Tidal, Netflix and Spotify. They will also want to use a single browser for everything, which in practice means Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari. Ladybird will very likely not have access to Widevine, because of the cost, require…

I don’t know about you but I am perfectly content to use a free browser and open either a nonfree browser or an app if I want to use a feature that is not available in my preferred software.

I don't know about you but I am very sad that I can't really recommend a browser not made by evil-mega-corp (or their associates) to friends and family because for some stupid reason that I can't explain to them, they aren't allowed to view high quality streaming video with it.

Re: This Month in Ladybird – October 2025

#18

Good progress this month! Good to see it running on Windows now, even if I don't use Windows myself anymore. That'll help boost adoption once it releases.

True open source web browsers on Windows, and MacOS, are dead in the water. This is because of the lack of Widevine CDM, and the majority of people wanting to stream stuff using services like Tidal, Netflix and Spotify. They will also want to use a single browser for everything, which in practice means Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari. Ladybird will very likely not have access to Widevine, because of the cost, require…

[deleted]

Re: This Month in Ladybird – October 2025

#19

Good progress this month! Good to see it running on Windows now, even if I don't use Windows myself anymore. That'll help boost adoption once it releases.

If they'd just have used an Electron stack from the get-go, it would have been cross platform already

If they were happy with using an existing browser engine, they wouldn't be writing one from scratch

Re: This Month in Ladybird – October 2025

#20

Good progress this month! Good to see it running on Windows now, even if I don't use Windows myself anymore. That'll help boost adoption once it releases.

True open source web browsers on Windows, and MacOS, are dead in the water. This is because of the lack of Widevine CDM, and the majority of people wanting to stream stuff using services like Tidal, Netflix and Spotify. They will also want to use a single browser for everything, which in practice means Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari. Ladybird will very likely not have access to Widevine, because of the cost, require…

Does Widevine CDM work on Firefox on Linux?

If so, why would Google allow this but not for other OSS browsers?

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