The new Ladybird browser was developed with a non-profit foundation. The foundation received a $1 million donation and wants to continue working on the open source browser, which should use its own independent engine.

The developers behind Ladybird to write The browser will now be part of the Ladybird Browser Initiative. This is the foundation that should ensure that the browser continues to be developed in a stable manner. The foundation currently has two board members. The chairman is Andreas Klinge, who is also the founder and lead developer, and who worked on WebKit for Apple and Nokia in the past. The secretary is Chris Wanstrath, co-founder and former CEO of GitHub.

And I will be And donated $1 million. To the foundation. The developers say that “board seats are not for sale” and that the foundation should continue to exist primarily on donations. Ladybird has received donations from a few companies in the past, including $100,000 from Shopify.

Ladybird is an initiative to create a browser that is independent of other browsers. This means that it’s not just about an alternative browser, but also about the underlying engine. Many alternative browsers, like Brave, use Google’s Chromium engine. As a result, there are actually only three engines: Chromium, Apple’s WebKit, and Mozilla’s Gecko. Ladybird wants to build its own engine and make it free and open source. The browser makers don’t want to use code from other browsers, but they say they will use external libraries for image rendering or encryption support.

The makers want to use the donation and the foundation to continue working on the browser in the coming years. There are currently four full-time programmers working on the browser, but three more will be added. The browser makers want to release an alpha version of the browser for Linux and macOS in the summer of 2026. They say they want to make a Windows version, but that’s “not a priority” at the moment.