I'm funding Ladybird because I can't fund Firefox

Mozilla wants web users to be targeted with online advertising and/or pay for online advertising not Firefox development.

Mozilla is an online advertising advocacy project. Just try suggesting to anyone from Mozilla the idea of web without ads. They will be 100% opposed, unwilling to even consider alternatives, as if they are being paid to defend this pro-advertising position. They are indeed being paid indirectly from the coffers of an advertising company.

"Free and open web" apparently means web open for advertising. The presence/absence of advertising on the web is a non-negotiable. Mozilla insists advertising is a must-have.

Why was the original internet free of ads before it went public. Are there more important uses for a computer network. ISPs privatised the financing for the network. We pay for internet. It is not free. Funding from advertising has never been a necessity.

But Mozilla argues advertising is 100% essential.

Hey, ex-Mozillian here. For the old alt OS people, also an ex-NetPositive dev.

With that context, I'm on board with not giving money to Mozilla Corp. Late last year I cancelled my subscriptions to Pocket, the VPN, and recurring donations.

That said, I recommend that you support Servo instead of Ladybird.

Reason #1) C++ is just dumb in 2024 and choosing it is a big red blinking sign that the devs make bad decisions. Now they're considering a rewrite in a better language? So, starting again from scratch... No thanks!

Reason #2) Given the track record of the main author of being an ass to people who aren't willing to be marginalized, I don't have high hopes that he can lead anything as complex as a competitive browser. No, Serenity OS is nowhere near the same level of complexity thanks to el GOOGs insistence that the modern web includes every API found in OSes. Serial port access, really?

Anyway, please don't just jump on a hype train. Fund Servo.

It feels like websites are not testing their sites on Firefox anymore.

Apple’s App Store Connect yesterday just won’t login anymore, tried Chrome and it works.

So many broken headers, weird fonts, overlapping elements, etc.

The inability to fund Firefox development is completely baffling to me. The finances seem pretty obvious: Open up a fund for Firefox donations. Hire contractors under the non-profit to work on Firefox. When you have enough to pay a full time developer, hire one under the non-profit. Rinse and repeat.

If, as some claim, there isn't ever enough money to really fund development, fine, they've now proven that. But not even allowing it as a possibility is completely insane!

I'm left in a position where I'm assured repeatedly that the best way to fund Firefox development is to pay for a side project I have no use for like Pocket or their VPN and then hope that that payment doesn't get consumed paying for said side project or future side projects.

OP's thoughts were mine the day that the LBI was announced: finally there's a non-profit that is actually committed to maintaining browser diversity. It's just a pity that it's one that's starting from behind and not the existing non-profit whose browser at one point enjoyed a majority market share.

Why is Ladybird getting so much attention. Has anyone herd of servo? They're trying to offload css rendering to the gpu. That could be a big deal in the long run.

https://servo.org/

Although I am stocked about the new browser getting all the attention it deserves, isn't chromium still the most secure browser to use? How long will Ladybird take to be as secure as chromium?

A bit funny, I donated and got redirected to https://ladybird.org/thanks.html which is a 404.

Feeling the same about emacs. Id like to donate to emacs, but the only option is to fund fsf instead. Last I checked.

Funding Servo is another good option: https://servo.org/sponsorship/

I know they didn't do this on purpose and it was because it started as part of SerenityOS, but I'm unexcited by this project because it's written in C/C++.

Rust was literally invented to solve the security and concurrency issues inherent in using C/C++ for a browser engine. You could argue that's the one use-case where it is objectively the best language to use. It's so valuable for that purpose that every large company has rewritten at least some crucial components in Rust.

I also think Rust will be one of the only languages strict enough to enable the use of AI-generated code without compromising security. I certainly don't want AI-generated code for high-security applications, but there's nothing we can do to stop it at this point.

My concern with Ladybird is the long timeline to deliver the alpha version. I think the development strategy should be discussed in the community because there could be good ideas to speed up the process.

If you subscribe to Firefox services isn't that also funding Firefox?

Glad to see this challenge to the powers that be and the status quo.

chromium is open source - have chromium standards set by a foundation instead of google. then funded by grants / taxes. etc

and let the market work.

browsers are a common utility, like water, internet etc - n should be treated the same.

Another comment brough up memory safety. I'm surprised myself that the project is moving forward without using a memory safe language at its core. A browser is a huge attack surface and all the example I know point to a necessarily enormous code base.

I understand the project started as a hobby, and anyone who wishes to be involved has their own prerogative, but I'd have a hard time getting behind it myself.

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/donate/ ???

All hackers should understand this and use at least Firefox. Otherwise you are failing your duty of keeping hacking alive.

I doubt this will work. Web browsers have an insanely large scope. Building a general purpose competitive web browser takes hundreds of full time engineers. I can't imagine you can fund such a thing with donations.

You can tell they are a fly by night meme enterprise for not starting from a Mozilla fork.

Be realistic. For all bad mozilla foundation/corporation/toppahs did, the code is still open source and relatively free. If even something called IceWeasel almost had a shot at forking, the bar is pretty low.