There’s a truly new browser coming in 2026, and everyone …

It might just be the fresh start the web has been waiting for

If you are anything like me, then my friend, you have a pretty complicated relationship with your web browser. Like most of us, I used to use Google Chrome as my web browser for a long time before I switched over to Mozilla Firefox. Though I use Samsung Internet on my Android phone and Safari on my iPhone, Mozilla Firefox was the best I could have on my PC. But now, I have stopped using Firefox as well and tried my hand at LibreWolf for its security features.

But LibreWolf is not for everyone. Most users switch from Chrome to Edge, or maybe Brave or Opera. But deep down, we all know they are the same (based on Chromium), wearing different costumes. Thankfully, there is light at the end of the tunnel. It’s called Ladybird, and it could arguably be the most exciting thing in the web browser space this year. Ladybird is a brand-new browser that is under development and is expected to launch this year.

It is built from scratch, and there are a good number of reasons to believe it. The developers aren’t just taking Google’s code and making the browser wear a different costume. Instead, the devs are writing a completely new engine, which is the core that converts code into websites that you see. According to Ladybird, they aren’t using code from Blink, WebKit, Gecko, or any other browser engine.

This is quite rare in the sea of Chromium-based browsers and is also quite difficult because of the complexities involved. But the team behind Ladybird, led by Andreas Kling and backed by GitHub co-founder Chris Wanstrath, is committed to doing that. While that sounds great, what are the benefits if a browser uses a completely new engine? To understand this, consider the example of a car and its engine.

Imagine if all cars in the world used the same engine made by a single company. If that engine comes up with a flaw, then every single car with that engine would have the same flaw. The same is true for most web browsers today. Because most use Chromium (Google’s engine), the steering is in Google’s hands, be it any browser. Ladybird tries to break this monopoly by creating a new engine altogether, giving an alternative engine for browsers to build upon.

You will read a lot of technical jargon about the standout features of the Ladybird browser and all the other complicated stuff. But speaking from an end user's point of view, they most probably don’t care about what’s going on underneath as long as things are going on according to them. Regarding my personal experience (and I think most of you would also resonate with me), starting late 2024 and throughout 2025, Google Chrome began disabling the full version of the uBlock Origin privacy and ad-blocking extension.

It was based on Manifest V2, allowing uBlock Origin to block unwanted content by intercepting network requests. However, Google replaced Manifest V2 with Manifest V3, a new system that restricts how extensions interact with web pages. The result of this was that it broke the full capabilities of the popular uBlock Origin extension on Chrome and all Chromium-based browsers. With Ladybird, there are no strings attached.

It is a non-profit project that doesn’t try to sell your data to advertisers (at least that’s what they claim). It is totally funded by donations, meaning that the browser works entirely for you and not for the company. They have a sponsorship tier in place with Futo, Shopify, and Cloudflare being the platinum sponsors: Since there is no intention of selling users’ data to advertisers, they won’t be making any money from ads.

So, there is no intention of tracking you. Ladybird is open source, meaning anyone can scrutinize or download the code and build it themselves. But it isn’t just any other open-source browser that you might’ve heard of. The success of this project is of high importance not only because we will get a new browser to get our hands on, but also because of the way it promises to change the web standards.

Currently, we are limited to a few organizations that dictate how we utilize web services. Ladybird aims to give control back to the user. It is being built not just to inflate shareholder value but also give a useful alternative to already bloated and privacy-invading web browsers. Also, being independent doesn’t mean the project will be tied to a particular ecosystem. Haiku OS, SerenityOS, and RISC-V-based devices come to mind that can take advantage of the Ladybird browser and end the monopoly of Google and others.

Ladybird, sadly, isn’t planned for Windows. On top of this, the company has said that they aren’t actively working on an Android and iOS port. So, based on this, the developers of Ladybird aren’t focusing on Windows, Android, and iOS at the moment. But its first Alpha release for Linux and macOS is coming in 2026. The Beta is expected to launch in 2027, and a stable public release will come sometime in 2028.

While the first Alpha release will be meant for early adopters and developers, it would be interesting to get my hands on something free from Google. Finally, the debate won’t be about Google Chrome vs Microsoft Edge, etc. For now, I will be sticking with my power-hungry and slow web browser, but I'm optimistic Ladybird will be a different breed.

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