This post describes the Ladybird browser, based on the LibWeb and LibJS engines from SerenityOS.

I found that the SerenityOS project also has a web browser with a completely new set of engines. It looks reasonably capable too.

Both LibWeb and LibJS are novel engines. I have a personal history with the Qt and WebKit projects, so there’s some inspiration from them throughout, but all the code is new. Not to mention, hundreds of people have worked on the codebase since I started it, all adding their own personal influences, so it’s definitely its own thing.

Edit: Here’s a recent interview with the creator Andreas Kling talking to Eric Meyer and Brian Kardell about the browser https://www.igalia.com/chats/ladybird

Edit 2: Here’s their August 2023 update video of the browser https://youtu.be/OEsRW3UFjA0

Edit 3: Looks like the project was recently sponsored $100k USD from Shopify https://awesomekling.substack.com/p/welcoming-shopify-as-a-ladybird-sponsor

It’s quite impressive!

Note: I don’t know anything about the politics of the SerenityOS project or the people behind it.

  • 200fifty@awful.systemsEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Dang, I remember seeing this many years ago when it was still at like 1998-browser levels of functionality, really cool to see how much progress they’ve made! It’d be awesome to have more non-commercial browser engines out there.

    I really love the serenity os project as well honestly, glad it’s not just me who likes that old style of UI (though I’m sad they seem to have dropped the classic Mac style universal menubar…)