Both are true almost in my case. Browsers based on older Firefox versions such as Palemoon and Seamonkey don't work with GitLab and Github - which are not my "favorite" websites but rather, are hard to avoid.
> I don't think many users would even notice if their browser stopped supporting things that browser developers consider edge cases that eat up dev time
That's not the issue. The issue is that some websites use the shiny new features - probably through some new shiny framework - that older browsers don't support.
And this is a loser's game for browsers done from scratch, because by the time they implement one missing features, two others have been standardized. That will probably kill Firefox too.
I wonder then why developers test on multiple browsers... Is it because website developers code not to standards per se, but rather how their top two browsers behave?
That being said, I think this is a cool project and since the goal is personal satisfaction and usability, there isn't the pull to satisfy hundreds of thousands of users.
Do they still? I find myself using only Firefox and I haven't had a Chrome-related bug for a loooong time. I do however avoid using latest features and wait until the support is good enough.
I agree with GP, seeing a new hobbyist browser enter the arena is awesome, I need to check it out. I for one don't care if some pages don't display, I can still open them in FF. I just hope that corporation doesn't "happen to it" too soon...
There are also the "Mom's cooking blog" that is running an ancient copy of Wordpress and mom still doesn't understand that <b><i>This is important</b></i> is not formatted correctly. Some browsers are able to handle this, but if you browse it with a "this browser only follows standard compliant html" you may get the entire page in italics or bold.
The article even acknowledges this - https://awesomekling.github.io/Ladybird-a-new-cross-platform...
> Fidelity of modern websites in Ladybird is steadily improving, but you’ll often see lots of layout and compatibility issues. For example, here’s Reddit right now:
> (mangled layout)
We could put Reddit in that list of favorite sites that need to work. And so, is it the fault of reddit or the browser that the page isn't rendering right? As reddit works on other browsers, surely its the browser's fault and not something janky that reddit is doing that the other browsers happen to work with.
And thus my post - if a page works correctly in a different browser but incorrectly on Ladybird, to a user it is always the browser's fault.
Define which subset of standards would qualify for "standards compliant". Don't forget that quite a few of standards (for example, HN's darlings like bluetooth) are barely drafts.
There are a couple of implicit assumptions here that I think should be unpacked;
First, you're assuming that users have favorite websites, and that those sites wouldn't work. As I said in my post, so long as the browser worked with standards compliant modern websites I think that would be fine ... and that would cover 99.9% of user's favorite websites. People don't carry on using old, unmaintained (or even maintained) sites for a particularly long time. I don't believe people return to old websites that haven't been maintained very much. I don't think many users would even notice if their browser stopped supporting things that browser developers consider edge cases that eat up dev time.
Secondly, you're assuming that users who choose a browser like Ladybird wouldn't understand the choice they're making. Of course they would. They could still make that choice though. The idea of trading out-of-standards compatibility for increased privacy is actually really appealing to a lot of people. Hell, a lot of people see out-of-standards compatibility as a bug rather than a feature.