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Ladybird Web Browser becomes a non-profit with $1M from GitHub Founder

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Re: Ladybird Web Browser becomes a non-profit with $1M from GitHub Founder

#441

Post by zzo38computer »

szastamasta wrote: post #419
postalrat wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That all sounds great until you start considering what needs to be done for accessibility. For blind readers as well as many different screen resolutions.

I agree. That's actually one of few problems with having just canvas - accessibility. Most libraries would not have it, and it would be a disaster for disabled users, but... That's one of few things current state AI could solve. Why not make a neural net that would read or summarize page for blind people? Instead we use it to generate bulsh*t junk content and fake comments...

It might, but I think that isn't the best way. Accessibility is for everyone, not only for the blind people.

Better is if the document specifies the text (and any appropriate annotations, e.g. how to pronounce), and the blocks/sections/etc, and then the client software can display it according to the user's settings. Whether that means you want to display it on the screen, with your own formatting, or use a braille display, or text to speech, or whatever else it might be, you can use it.

Re: Ladybird Web Browser becomes a non-profit with $1M from GitHub Founder

#442

Post by freehorse »

zarzavat wrote: post #403
cabalamat wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine Ladybird is developed and is successful. Lots of people use it to read websites. But then Badcorp takes the code and builds their own varient with extensions. Badcorp is big and has lots of market share. Lots of people use Badcorps's browser, and because lots of people are using it, lots of web developers code for it, including coding for its extensions. Soon, lots of websites -- including Badcorp's own websi…

What if BadApple takes BSD and forks it. Then they make their own BSD with extensions that only works on their own shiny fruit hardware. What have the original BSD users lost? Absolutely nothing. BSD still exists, it’s still maintained, and people can still use it. They can also use fruit BSD if they want.

BSD and BadApple have a very small intersection of targeted markets.

Re: Ladybird Web Browser becomes a non-profit with $1M from GitHub Founder

#443

Post by nicebyte »

tombert wrote: post #345
alkonaut wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is. They realized that writing a modern browser (i.e. one that for example uses multiple cores efficiently by doing layout/rendering/etc in parallel) is almost impossible in C++. To the point where creating a whole new language just to solve the problem would be a smaller undertaking. Which says something about the scope of this problem. And I really do think they are right.

Why is it almost impossible? I'm a little out of practice with C++ but I thought the modern C++ features were considered pretty solid in regards to memory safety and the like?

c++ isn't memory safe and will probably never be. that being said, it's not more or less possible to create an efficient browser engine for multicore systems with c++ than any other language. programming language is not the thing that makes the task difficult.

Re: Ladybird Web Browser becomes a non-profit with $1M from GitHub Founder

#444

Post by lukan »

awesomekling wrote: post #165
networked wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have two questions, if you don't mind. 1. Legacy hardware support. Is it a goal for Ladybird to build for 32-bit and big-endian CPUs out of the repository? 2. Electron. Do you have any plans to work on an Electron alternative based on Ladybird further down the line? No free Electron alternative other than Sciter seems to use the same browser engine on all platforms. There may be value in one that implements the lat…

1. We are not focusing on legacy hardware support. Given our release date is far in the future, we are mainly targeting the kind of devices most people will have a few years from now. 2. No concrete plans, but it's not outside the realm of possibilities.

"2. No concrete plans, but it's not outside the realm of possibilities."

Sounds good. If it also makes it into Serenty OS eventually, it would suddenly make Serenety OS a lot more accessible and useful for way more people. But I think you are aware of this and also of the challenges.

Building a working browser is hard enough on its own.

Re: Ladybird Web Browser becomes a non-profit with $1M from GitHub Founder

#445

Post by mikebenfield »

tombert wrote: post #345
alkonaut wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is. They realized that writing a modern browser (i.e. one that for example uses multiple cores efficiently by doing layout/rendering/etc in parallel) is almost impossible in C++. To the point where creating a whole new language just to solve the problem would be a smaller undertaking. Which says something about the scope of this problem. And I really do think they are right.

Why is it almost impossible? I'm a little out of practice with C++ but I thought the modern C++ features were considered pretty solid in regards to memory safety and the like?

C++ has indeed added many features that help with memory safety, at the cost of getting increasingly more complicated and harder to work with.

Re: Ladybird Web Browser becomes a non-profit with $1M from GitHub Founder

#446

Post by zzo38computer »

vrinsd wrote: post #357
awesomekling wrote: post #5

Hello friends, Ladybird founder here! Here's a short video from Chris Wanstrath announcing our non-profit yesterday, and kicking things off with a $1M donation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9edTqPMX_k Happy to answer questions :)

Hi Andreas, First, thanks for this project and making your self accessible! Will "plug-in" or "add-on" support be a first-party concept in Ladybird? I ask that because in years past a few other browsers (Konqueror, Falkon, Dillo, etc) made it pretty far but lacking add-ons, useful capability such as 'NoScript' or 'uBlock' or even a tab manager made them non-starters.

I would hope that plug-ins and add-ons can be written in C (although any extensions written in C should be only allowed if installed manually by the end user (e.g. by adding it to some configuration file); it should never install them automatically from a "app store" or similar). That is a feature I would use.

Re: Ladybird Web Browser becomes a non-profit with $1M from GitHub Founder

#447

Post by drsnow »

mirsadm wrote: post #358
alkonaut wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is. They realized that writing a modern browser (i.e. one that for example uses multiple cores efficiently by doing layout/rendering/etc in parallel) is almost impossible in C++. To the point where creating a whole new language just to solve the problem would be a smaller undertaking. Which says something about the scope of this problem. And I really do think they are right.

Eh that is a huge stretch. Besides Firefox is still significantly less performant than Chromium.

In what ways? I'm curious as I have been under the impression it's no longer much of a difference in the way it used to be.

Re: Ladybird Web Browser becomes a non-profit with $1M from GitHub Founder

#448

Post by gigatexal »

awesomekling wrote: post #5

Hello friends, Ladybird founder here! Here's a short video from Chris Wanstrath announcing our non-profit yesterday, and kicking things off with a $1M donation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9edTqPMX_k Happy to answer questions :)

Andreas you and your story and your passion for the open web and open tech and your merry band of hackers are going to save the web. Bravo to you and the community that is helping to pull this off. I’ll be donating to help.

Here’s hoping one day I can move to LadyBird and leave the others behind.

Bravo again.

Re: Ladybird Web Browser becomes a non-profit with $1M from GitHub Founder

#449

Post by zzo38computer »

pmlnr wrote: post #398
vrinsd wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Andreas, First, thanks for this project and making your self accessible! Will "plug-in" or "add-on" support be a first-party concept in Ladybird? I ask that because in years past a few other browsers (Konqueror, Falkon, Dillo, etc) made it pretty far but lacking add-ons, useful capability such as 'NoScript' or 'uBlock' or even a tab manager made them non-starters.

NoScript for Dillo makes no sense as it doesn't support JS anyway. uBlock... yeah, a little, but most annoyances will be blocked by the lack of JS support anyway. Plus there are plugins for dillo... https://dillo-browser.github.io/#plugins

The plugins for Dillo are only protocol plugins; there are no file format plugins and no other kinds of plugins. However, I mentioned they should implement file format plugins too; other people also wanted this, and it does seem to be wanted enough that they might do it. (Other plugins will be more complicated to consider how to support it)

Re: Ladybird Web Browser becomes a non-profit with $1M from GitHub Founder

#450

Post by gigatexal »

pmlnr wrote: post #398
vrinsd wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Andreas, First, thanks for this project and making your self accessible! Will "plug-in" or "add-on" support be a first-party concept in Ladybird? I ask that because in years past a few other browsers (Konqueror, Falkon, Dillo, etc) made it pretty far but lacking add-ons, useful capability such as 'NoScript' or 'uBlock' or even a tab manager made them non-starters.

NoScript for Dillo makes no sense as it doesn't support JS anyway. uBlock... yeah, a little, but most annoyances will be blocked by the lack of JS support anyway. Plus there are plugins for dillo... https://dillo-browser.github.io/#plugins

Exactly. I need 1Password and a vim mode plugin for me to be productive on the web.
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