ladybird/Documentation/FAQ.md

Frequently Asked Questions about Ladybird

What does 'Independent' mean, if you're including third party dependencies?

Independent means:

• We implement the web platform standards ourselves: Ladybird is not a Blink/Chromium shell, not a WebKit port, not a Firefox fork.
• We don't take money from anyone with strings attached

Windows support when?

There are very few Windows developers contributing to the project. As such, maintaining a native Windows port would be a lot of effort that distracts from building out the web platform standards in a reasonable amount of time.

After we have a solid foundation, we may consider a Windows port, but it's not a priority. In the meantime, Windows developers can use other tools such as WSL2 to work on Ladybird.

Will Ladybird support $THING?

Eventually, probably, if there's a Web Spec for it!

When will you implement $THING?

Maybe someday. Maybe never. If you want to see something happen, you can do it yourself!

Is there a release roadmap?

• 2026: alpha release (daily driver for developers and early adopters) for Linux and macOS.
• 2027: beta release; downloadable app for Linux and macOS.
• 2028: stable release for general use

Well, how do I run this thing then?

Simple, my friend! Just refer to the build instructions.

I did a git pull and now the build is broken! What do I do?

If it builds on CI, it should build for you too. You may need to rebuild the toolchain. If that doesn't help, try it with a clean repo.

If you can't figure out what to do, ask in the #build-problems channel on Discord.

Where did Ladybird come from?

For full details, see the Ladybird: A new cross-platform browser project announcement from 12 September 2022.

Here’s a short timeline:

• 2019 June: Work on what eventually became Ladybird started as LibHTML — the beginnings of an HTML viewer for SerenityOS — with a commit titled “LibHTML: Start working on a simple HTML library”, and with this commit description:

  I'd like to have rich text, and we might as well use HTML for that. :^)

  LibHTML eventually became LibWeb — which in turn eventually grew into being the core part of the browser engine and browser to which, on 4 July 2022, the name Ladybird was given.

• 2022 July: Renamed Ladybird by Andreas in “Let's make a Linux GUI for the SerenityOS browser” live-coding video.

• 2022 Sept: Spun off from SerenityOS to separate project: “A new cross-platform browser project” announcement.

• 2024 June: “I'm forking Ladybird and stepping down as SerenityOS BDFL” announcement from Andreas.

• 2024 July: Ladybird Browser Initiative launched by Andreas and GitHub co-founder defunkt (Chris Wanstrath).

What makes Ladybird/Ladybird Browser Initiative different?

• Fully independent: Written from scratch, using no code from any other browser engine.
• Singular focus: Doing only one single thing: building a new browser engine and browser.
• No monetization: Will never take funding from default search deals or any other forms of user monetization, ever.

Are there video/audio announcements and interviews about the start of the Ladybird Browser Initiative?

• Ladybird Browser Initiative announcement video from defunkt explaining the project raison dʼêtre + goals (July 2024).
• Why we need Ladybird: Changelog podcast interview with Andreas and defunkt (August 2024); transcript; chapters.
• Eron Wolf announcement grant of $200K from FUTO to the project (August 2024).
• Eron Wolf interview with Andreas (August 2024).

Can you describe some of the project goals and its culture?

• Eventually give everybody the choice of a whole new browser they can use for their daily browsing.
• Prove it is in fact possible to build a completely new browser, by implementing from the WHATWG/W3C/etc. specs.
• Have a lot of real fun together actually doing it.
• Prove that developing an engine doesn’t take hundreds of engineers — and not anything close to even just a hundred.
• Browser engineering: Further help de-mystify it and make it a standard thing to learn (hat tip: https://browser.engineering/).
• Using project Discord server for communication discord.gg/nvfjVJ4Svh.
• Using one GithHub repo for everything: issues (no bugzilla or other), patch/PR submission/review, CI/test automation.

What are some of the project coding conventions? And do you have any activity metrics?

• Implement web-platform features exactly according to the actual steps in spec algorithms.
• Abundant code comments with verbatim spec text copy/pasted in — showing exactly what’s being implemented.
• Additional “AD-HOC:” comment convention to mark code that doesn’t map to any spec requirements.
• Class/file names tend to closely match actual current spec terms; e.g., Navigable.h, Transferable.h.
• “critically reading standards and reporting what is wrong”
• Project activity relative rankings: https://git-pulse.github.io/snapshots/?project=LadybirdBrowser_ladybird

Do you have some general details about the code and basic architecture?

• C++ while selectively migrating parts to Swift and while keeping an eye on things like Sean Baxter’s Circle & Safe C++.
• Some use of third-party libraries (e.g., Harfbuzz, Skia, simdutf, libcurl).
• Performance optimizing is not yet a super-high priority (but performance-boosting changes are regularly getting made).
• Code size:
  • Roughly same size (number of lines of code) as Servo.
  • About 1/15th as many lines of C++ code as WebKit.
  • About 1/20th as many lines as C++ code Gecko.
  • About 1/50th as many lines as C++ code Chromium.
• Level of standards support: wpt.fyi/results?product=ladybird has current test results for all WPT tests.
• LadybirdBrowser/ladybird#features:
  • UI process, ImageDecoder process, RequestServer process, WebContent processes.
  • LibWeb: core web-rendering engine (HTML, CSS, Events, DOM, APIs).
  • LibJS: JavaScript engine written from scratch (currently JIT-less).
  • LibWasm: WebAssembly implementation written from scratch.
  • AK: Ladybird standard library/abstractions: asserts, smart pointers, strings, numbers (e.g., fast_float impl.), more…

What about funding?

• Funded entirely through donations and sponsorships.
• https://donorbox.org/ladybird – donations of any amount: $10, $50, $100, etc.
• https://polar.sh/LadybirdBrowser – set bounties to directly fund specific features/tasks; e.g., $300 legacy-encoders bounty.
• Sponsorship opportunities: Platinum $100,000 • Gold $50,000 • Silver $10,000 • Bronze $5,000 • Copper $1,000.
• Ladybird Browser Initiative announced/seeded with 1 million dollar donation from defunkt and his family.

Do you have some places where I can watch videos related to the project?

• Ladybird YouTube channel: monthly Ladybird project updates from Andreas.
• Andreas’ YouTube channel: 1000+ videos from 6+ years; incl. “car talk” + OS/browser “hacking” (live-coding) videos.

Is there some related background to help me understand what a browser engine is and why it’s important?

• Understanding the role of browser engines (UK Competition and Markets Authority Mobile ecosystems market study).