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Ladybird passes the Apple 90% threshold on web-platform-tests

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Re: Ladybird passes the Apple 90% threshold on web-platform-tests

#231

I think it’s just fantastic that the Ladybird browser is close to being usable. I was under the impression this was going to take many years before it became competitive.

It really goes to show what a dedicated team can accomplish. Before Ladybird it was taken for granted that building an entirely new browser engine would take decades and people would laugh at you for even bringing it up.

Before Ladybird every time someone brought up about making a new web engine, pretty much every top voted comment here on HN was about how that was impossible to do, often bringing up how even a giant like Microsoft had to abandon their engine.

At least now the cynical pessimistic takes changed from "impossible, not even MS with their giant teams can do it" to "it may take decades for this small team to do it".

Re: Ladybird passes the Apple 90% threshold on web-platform-tests

#232

As someone who's been quite heavily involved with web-platform-tests, I'd caution against any use of the test pass rate as a metric for anything. That's not to belittle the considerable achievements of Ladybird; their progress is really impressive, and if web-platform-tests are helping their engineering efforts I consider that a win. New implementations of the web platform, including Ladybird, Servo, and Flow, are ex…

As someone who's been quite heavily involved with having a brain, I'd advocate for using of the test pass rate as a metric for how many tests are passed.

Re: Ladybird passes the Apple 90% threshold on web-platform-tests

#233
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the spirit of malicious compliance, thus being a bad metric would probably be a feature in their book.

Malicious compliance? The EU DMA says they have to allow third party browser engines access to the same resources (the JIT) that Safari has. It specifically allows them to place reasonable requirements on those third party alternatives: > The gatekeeper shall not be prevented from taking, to the extent that they are strictly necessary and proportionate, measures to ensure that third-party software applications or sof…

Yes, but that doesn't require rendering performance or anything like that, but absence of security problems.

You can't justify a requirement for a minimum level of performance or some capability. You can justify a requirement of a guaranteed absence of security bugs, provided that that's a standard you impose on yourself throughout the system.

Re: Ladybird passes the Apple 90% threshold on web-platform-tests

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no quality control in AppStore, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44732995 .

Just because there are some quality control failures (even if there are many) doesn't mean there should be no quality control at all.

If even well-known offenders remain there, it just means, there's no guarantee of quality at all.

Re: Ladybird passes the Apple 90% threshold on web-platform-tests

#235

What's the security story in Ladybird? Do they use sandboxes etc? I'm a bit concerned that hundreds of thousands of lines of C++ browser code written in just three years could be a minefield, but I hope I'm wrong.

If you care about security, consider using Qubes OS, which runs everything in hardware-isolated virtual machines. My daily driver, can't recommend it enough. Ladybird can already be safely used on Qubes.

Re: Ladybird passes the Apple 90% threshold on web-platform-tests

#236

Super impressive that an independent, non-corpo project has gotten this far this quickly.

It is nuts, when you think about how much a browser does, it is a crazy feat. Just building a good html/css renderer and a JS engine is crazy, but now you are hooked into the ecosystem and at the mercy of whatever comes next. Chrome can push back against proposals but little browsers either use chromium or are basically in a riptide trying to make sure they keep up.

>It is nuts, when you think about how much a browser does, it is a crazy feat

At this point a modern browser is basically an operating system.

Re: Ladybird passes the Apple 90% threshold on web-platform-tests

#237

It's always struct me as interesting that ladybird is built with C++. I like C++, and prefer it to languages like Rust, but it's not uncommon to see new OSS projects using weird languages and the newest tools. Lots of languages offer improvements in regards to threading models, development speed, or cross-platform support which we don't get in C++. I suppose their success is likely directly related to the fact they m…

LadyBird grew out of the SerenityOS project which was originally written in C++ (they've since moved to Jakt). All software for Serenity had to be written natively for the OS, and C++ was the language originally supported there. Andreas had worked on browsers previously (notable Safari), and was already a seasoned C/C++/ObjC developer. While one can cite many valid reasons for using a C language for a browser (and OS…

The language is actually something that makes me look elsewhere. We already have enough sufficiently vulnerable browsers and other network related software. Choosing C/C++ as language may work to make something that works, and it may be in the realm of experience the people building it have. However, it does not make this browser stand out in terms of security/safety. While they may deliver tremendous work, that work is still "just" another Cee thingy. Experience tells us, that even elite C/C++ hackers will make mistakes regarding memory management. Mozilla slowly using more and more Rust in Firefox seems better from that perspective, if they are actually still trying to do so.

Re: Ladybird passes the Apple 90% threshold on web-platform-tests

#238
post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are pretty far way from that. I still think it is one of the most exciting open source projects in recent years.

As someone who has first encounter with the ladybird - why is it exciting? And how could ladybird attract so many sponsors for such a project? Why wouldn't they fund Firefox instead if they want to achieve some diversity in browser engine field? I'm curious, not skeptical.

It's hard to fund Firefox when Mozilla spends as much money as they do on other things than Firefox.

Re: Ladybird passes the Apple 90% threshold on web-platform-tests

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Browsers have been historically the biggest and most difficult projects That's just a tired thrope that keeps being repeated by people who don't know any better.

Given how few generally usable browsers (3 with different skins) there are and how huge they are with basically required company backing for many employees... How is that a trope?

Ladybird is doing it with 8 devs, and it's working!

I tried it on my m4, it's surprisedly usable.

Re: Ladybird passes the Apple 90% threshold on web-platform-tests

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The general public probably just needs basic HTML/CSS/JS support along with gzip, zstd, and common image and video formats. Stuff like beacons, accelerometers, bluetooth, device memory, webusb, battery status, etc. (so basically all of the "platform" part of the "web platform") are either extremely niche or actively harmful.

It really depends on what the big sites they use decide to use. I can see Google using more niche web features just to push people to Chrome. Do I need accelerometer support to watch a full screen video in landscape on YouTube? That’s probably a big deal for anyone who doesn’t use the app, for example.

Why does this need accelerometer support at all? The OS has that data and can instruct the app to change aspect ratio. Then all the website needs to do is to body.addEventHandler("resize", onresize).
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