One of my favorite things is seeing a small team (or even just a solo developer) come along and put the big teams — the entrenched powers — to shame. I get a real kick out of it.

I love it when there is a deafening chorus of “It can’t be done!” and someone comes along and says “Hold my beer”.

Case in point: The world of Web Browsers has been dominated by two primary rendering engines — one driven by Google and the other driven by Mozilla (but funded almost entirely by Google). And there is an almost endless supply of Google / Mozilla stooges who try to discourage anyone from making a new competitor.

“But you can’t just build a new web browser engine,” they exclaim!

“It’s too complex to pull off,” says the stooge. “You need hundreds of developers working on it for years to make a real web browser engine! Better just leave that work to Google and Mozilla!”

We’ve all heard statements like that. Poo-poo-ing any attempt at building a truly new web browser engine as “too difficult” or even “impossible”. The purpose is to shut down the dreams of solo developers and small teams. To stop them from competing with the “big dogs”.

In fact, right on cue, when the Ladybird web browser project was announced — a truly “from scratch” browser engine — they trotted out those same lines. By the droves.

Heck, many even began smear campaigns against Ladybird in an effort to stop the project entirely.

But Ladybird didn’t stop. Development has continued.

And, oh-lawdy, the progress has been amazing.

Allow me to share with you a selection of screenshots — showing off the state of Ladybird, posted by the developer who started the project — which prove that a web browser engine can absolutely be built by a small team.

It may be challenging. But it can be done.

Take a look, and tell me if you’re not deeply impressed.

 

Yeah, that’s the Cut the Rope game. Fully playable in Ladybird.

We’re not talking about HTML table layouts and HREF tags here. This represents a huge collection of different “Web technologies” developed “from scratch”. All working to an amazing degree.

 

Web IDEs? Yeah. Those are working in Ladybird, too.

 

Freaking Discord? Working. It may not be 100% here — the developer calls it “usable but a little glitchy” — but that’s a lot of modern web browser-y-ness working to make that happen.

 

To showcase the rapid speed of development… In the span of two weeks, Ladybird added over 12,000 new (passing) web-platform-tests. You’ll note on this bar chart that Ladybird is quickly catching up to Firefox.

It’s not there yet… but, at the current rate? We may have a usable Ladybird — for most daily browser uses — before you know it.

Just to put that all in perspective, here is the first iteration of Ladybird a few years back:

 

Now go take a look at those other screenshots again.

Come a long way, eh?

There’s a lesson here.

When an army of people shout, in unison, that something cannot be done… ignore them and hand somebody your beer.

While Mozilla may be on the brink of losing 80%+ of their revenue — depending on the final remedies of the DOJ v. Google case to be announced in a few weeks — that’s not stopping the Firefox maker from charging forward, full steam ahead, on their new business strategy: Political Activism.

Case in point: In November, Mozilla will be hosting their annual “Mozilla Festival” event.

And they have just announced their headline speaker: Dr. Ruha Benjamin.

 

Dr. Ruha Benjamin, in her own words, writes, teaches and speaks “widely about the relationship between innovation and inequity, knowledge and power, race and citizenship, health and justice.”

Inequity. Race. Justice.

In fact, Dr. Benjamin has written multiple books and articles around those topics.

 

Including writing the foreword to a book about “Resisting Borders”. Specifically regarding countries, like the USA, who are “imperialist states” who “brutally oppressed migrants” and “enforce their borders” (which is described as an evil act).

 

BLM. Abolish police. Resist borders. Dr. Benjamin’s work is stereotypical of Leftist Extremist activism.

Which appears to be in line with the “Themes” of Mozilla Festival 2025 — which includes a focus on “climate justice and shared responsibility”.

 

All of which meshes perfectly with Mozilla’s stated strategy and goals. Late last year, Mozilla announced a “brand refresh” to move away from being a “tech company”. They were now a “global crew of activists”.

 

And, to underline their new “activism” strategy, they held an event in November of 2024 — “MozFest House Zambia” — at a luxury resort in Africa.

This event included multiple sessions on promoting Marxism, fighting Capitalism, and — this is not a joke — “Using feminist, decolonial approaches [to support] AI technology, centring marginalized communities, particularly women, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and Indigenous groups disproportionately affected by climate change.”

 

You’ll notice that none of this has anything to do with Mozilla’s flagship product, Firefox. Nor HTML or Javascript (or anything else that makes up “the web”).

You know… the things that made Mozilla profitable.

One has to wonder what the Mozilla Board of Directors is planning by approving such a dramatic change in strategy at a time when they face a near total loss of revenue. It certainly looks like a last, desperate act in an attempt to keep a ship afloat.

Instead of the regular shows (audio podcasts & videos), The Lunduke Journal will be publishing only articles for the next week.

I’m traveling this week, and recording shows is a little tricky. But there are some great stories that deserve to be told — so articles it is!

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-Lunduke