> What do you think is going to be the first milestone where Ladybird is going to be able to be a real alternative (even if limited to certain use cases) and in what timeframe do you think this can be accomplished?

At the moment, we are focusing primarily on our own use cases as developers, since those are the easiest to test and qualify. So websites like GitHub, web specifications, MDN, etc. are likely going to be very high fidelity before other parts of the web catch up ;)

> Also, do you already have any plans or ideas for how to improve the web browsing experience beyond what existing browsers provide or is your focus entirely on the engine catching up for now?

We are definitely focused on the engine catching up right now. There is an incredible amount of work to do, and we're doing the best we can :)

I think thats a very smart plan, get the websites that devs frequent up and running relatively reliably to help drive more dev use and therefore more willing contributors.

> Seeing someone ignore the naysayers and attempt the so-called impossible task of developing a new independent browser is awesome to see

Well the impossibility isn't so much in making a browser but making a browser that manages to get a chunk of web audience.

That means presence on mobile, feature and performance parity with Chrome, surprasing Chrome on some level (e.g. Safari having better vendor lock-in).

Safari is better than Chrome in many ways, arguably most.

A fact that appears to be lost on the majority of Apple users that have a say in what browser they use: https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worl...

The problem is that when Chrome came out it was heavily marketed/targeted towards developers. Developers took it up and then built websites in & for Chrome. The end result is many websites work better in Chrome than Firefox or Safari. It's a vicious cycle of continuing dependency.

I'm doing my part to break the cycle by supporting the underdog by using Safari as my daily driver & developing primarily for Safari & Firefox.

> It's a vicious cycle of continuing dependency.

Or a viscous cycle of continued development. There are definitely things that Chrome does that nobody else should copy, but there's also a lot of stuff like WebGPU and WebRTC that should be standard. Firefox doesn't drag their feet in the same way Apple does, and they certainly don't resist standardization by trying to limit what a user can do on their device.

I have no real love for Google. ChromeOS sucks, Android is only tolerable when you de-Google it, and YouTube is perpetually regressing to a shittier state. But Chromium the browser is great, and it's the only browser I install on my Mac or Linux box when I get set up at work. I want to love Firefox like I used to, but Mozilla as a business is just about as functionally inept as Google or Apple at this point. I'm done trying to be a browser ideologue, I'm embracing post-browser realism here.

The data doesn’t show they drag their feet though. If anything FF is behind.

I genuinely enjoy Safari as a user more than Chrome. As a developer the dev tools suck. But as a user - the UI is far more minimal and nice. Every single action feels 2-3x faster, from opening and closing, tab opening or movement, etc. Battery lasts significantly longer. And I never really run into anything that doesn’t work, ever. Plus never worry about the latest hidden checkbox I have to find to not have my data soaked up. Hide my email is also dope.

The more responsive and thoughtful UI and battery/performance alone would have sold me. But the privacy and modern features it’s gotten over the last years make it better imo.

Just want to give a perspective as I feel people should update priors from 2021 “Safari is the new IE”

You said data doesn't show they drag their feet and then proceeded to present anecdote of your personal preferences and use cases while adding that thoughtful UI and battery life are the features and not web standards or the implementation quality of it nor the lack of 3rd party browsers on iOS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31902707

Sure they have recently implemented some features like IndexedDB but the data does indeed show that they dragged their feet!

They did years ago, as of late they are in fact moving faster than others. I think my point stands, they are no longer clearly behind in features, and in fact probably are near tied if you subtract the Chrome-only stuff, and take into account there's a variety of things Safari has that others don't now.

> The data doesn’t show they drag their feet though. If anything FF is behind.

Literally no? We must not be on the same page, both of the technologies I namedropped were Chrome and Firefox exclusive for a half-decade. And they're certainly not the only features Mozilla and Google agree upon; Apple deliberately gimps features that benefit PWAs so that browsers artificially cannot compete with their native apps.

> Just want to give a perspective as I feel people should update priors from 2021 “Safari is the new IE”

I'm sorry; people will keep calling Safari "the new IE" for as long as Apple carbon-copies Microsoft's Explorer strategy from the 90s. You can run from it, insist it's not true, but Apple will clutch to their ecosystem control whether it's rational or not. This is why we have to antitrust them, to stop the market from more of their irrational self-serving harms.

I mean if you do the analysis on features supported on CanIUse, Safari is not really behind in any meaningful way. There are some missing features relative to Chrome, but they actually support a number of things other browsers don't. It's not clear-cut like it was years ago. Sorry if that's inconvenient.

> WebRTC that should be standard

What is WebRTC good for? I've never understood. It probably has some use for in-browser video chats, but other than that?

I'm asking because at some point the Chrome you are praising prevented my Mac from sleeping for like half a year or more because 'webrtc has active peer connections'. I had no conferences open in the browser, just - i thought - regular web pages.

So what can you do with WebRTC behind the user's back then, and why is it moral to do it?

Sure, it does have some benefits. Like lower energy consumption, I hear good things about JavaScriptCore (Safari's JS engine), that said, so many of the features are missing, and one part is it encroaching on the iOS apps territory.

The features missing thing was true years ago, but Apple significantly increased their investment in Safari about 3 years ago and it really gained ground. If you subtract all the Chrome-invented features, they aren't too far off.

> so many of the features are missing, and one part is it encroaching on the iOS apps territory.

Be careful when listing those features. Many of those "encroaching" are Chrome-only non-standards

And some of them, like WebGPU, are Khronos IP that Apple has no reason to object to except on an ideological and profit-maximizing basis. I wonder why Apple would deliberately avoid an API that might obsolete the requirement for games to use the App Store? Do you have any ideas?

> like WebGPU, are Khronos IP that Apple has no reason to object to except on

You do know that Apple is basically the original author of WebGPU, right (together with Mozilla)?

> I wonder why Apple would deliberately avoid an API that might obsolete the requirement for games to use the App Store

And your fantasy of Apple deliberately avoiding it is based on what exactly?

https://webkit.org/blog/9528/webgpu-and-wsl-in-safari/

https://webkit.org/blog/14879/webgpu-now-available-for-testi...

> You do know that Apple is basically the original author of WebGPU, right (together with Mozilla)?

Apple is the original author of a lot of tech they end up abandoning. Certainly a lot of Khronos IP, paging through their history.

> And your fantasy of Apple deliberately avoiding it is based on what exactly?

Based on a 4 year (!!!) porting time from MacOS Safari to iOS Safari. Basically textbook feet-dragging there.

> Apple is the original author of a lot of tech they end up abandoning.

Doubtful

> Certainly a lot of Khronos IP, paging through their history.

Everyone abandons Khronos IP, or doesn't really supports it, paging through history in general. Because Khronos IP ends up a designed-by-committee crapfest. Meanwhile WebGPU is not and has never been a Khronos IP. It's developed within a w3c working group: https://www.w3.org/2020/gpu/

> Based on a 4 year (!!!) porting time from MacOS Safari to iOS Safari.

Based on a 4-year porting of what from MacOS Safari top iOS Safari?

- WebGPU spec is literally in draft status, so things can still change. It's literally in stage 2 of 5 of spec development

- Neither Safari nor Firefox have enabled WebGPU yet. The fact that Chrome rushed and enabled it by default does not make the spec or the standard finished and ready to be enabled everywhere

- webgpu can be enabled with a toggle in advanced settings in Safari on iOS (as is the case with most new features for in all browsers)

I'm pretty sure the impossibility advertised back then was also about just making a browser.

> Seeing someone ignore the naysayers and attempt the so-called impossible task of developing a new independent browser is awesome to see

According to Hacker News readers, the ladybird shouldn't be able to compete in the browser space. It's too difficult, the spec is too large, its competitors have large pockets. The ladybird tries anyway, because ladybirds don't care about what HN readers think.

Inspired by https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/823379-according-to-all-kno...