Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET
I didn’t think the world needed yet another web browser. However, when I considered the potential, a few issues bubbled to the surface.
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Some web browsers were created by companies with the hope of monetizing anything and everything. From search deals with Google and crypto-mining ads to sponsored content and just about every other way they can make a buck off your browsing. After mulling over those thoughts, I realized that, yes, the world could use another web browser, one that doesn’t place so much importance on monetization.
That’s where Ladybird comes into play. Ladybird is an independent project to create a web browser with a new engine that is strictly based on web standards and will never include any monetization. In other words, this project is about the web browser and nothing else. That approach sounds promising, especially with many browsers created as a means to a profitable end.
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Ladybird was first announced on July 1, 2024, when Chris Wanstrath wrote in this blog post: “Today, every major browser engine is open source, which is wonderful, but there’s still one issue: they’re all funded by Google’s advertising empire. Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc, and Opera all use Google’s Chromium. Apple receives billions to make Google the default search engine in Safari, and Firefox has a similar deal where they receive hundreds of millions each year.”
I like the cut of that jib. However, before you get too excited, Ladybird is still in early development. Although the developers intend to support Linux, MacOS, and Windows, there are no binary installers. In fact, the only way to install Ladybird is by building the source, and that process is no walk in the park, taking up to two hours to complete (I’ll demonstrate the steps I had to take to get the browser running on Ubuntu Linux).
When you do get Ladybird built, what you’ll see is a bare-bones browser, and you might think, “I spent two hours for that?”
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Regardless of its current state, the Ladybird project sounds very promising. From my perspective, it will be nice to have an independent web browser that doesn’t focus on monetization and actually adheres to standards.
If that approach has piqued your interest, let me walk you through the steps for installing Ladybird.
Installing Ladybird
What you’ll need: I’ll be demonstrating this installation on Fedora Linux, so you’ll need a running instance of that OS. I attempted to install Ladybird on Ubuntu, but found that path to be unsuccessful. You’ll also need a user with sudo privileges. That’s it. Let’s build a better browser.
The first thing is to install the necessary dependencies. Open a terminal window and issue the following command:
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sudo dnf install autoconf-archive automake ccache cmake curl git liberation-sans-fonts libglvnd-devel nasm ninja-build patchelf perl-FindBin perl-IPC-Cmd perl-lib qt6-qtbase-devel qt6-qtmultimedia-devel qt6-qttools-devel qt6-qtwayland-devel tar unzip zip zlib-ng-compat-static -y
You’ll now need to clone the Ladybird project (which downloads the necessary directory/files) with the command:
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git clone https://github.com/LadybirdBrowser/ladybird.git
Change into the newly downloaded directory with this command:
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cd ladybird
To build Ladybird, issue the following command:
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./Meta/ladybird.py run
This process will take a very long time, so either sit back and watch or focus on something else. When the command completes, it will automatically open the Ladybird browser, so you can give it a test run. You won’t be able to do too much with the browser, but you can at least see it in action:
Ladybird does have trouble rendering many sites, but you can at least see what the developers are creating.
Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET
Obviously, Ladybird has a long way to go before it’s ready for general use (the predicted first release is sometime in 2026), so don’t expect to spend the time compiling the browser and then using it as your default. Ladybird is bare bones and not stable.
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Even so, the Ladybird browser shows serious promise. I look forward to what the browser brings to the table when it’s finally released.
