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Original: Simon Willison · 19/02/2026

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Summary

Everywhere: Abandon Swift adoption Back in August 2024 the Ladybird browser project announced an intention to adopt Swift as their memory-safe language of choice.

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Key Insights

“Everywhere: Abandon Swift adoption” — Announcement of halting Swift adoption in the Ladybird browser project.
“After making no progress on this for a very long time, let’s acknowledge it’s not going anywhere and remove it from the codebase.” — Rationale for discontinuing the use of Swift in the project.

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Topics

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Full Article

# LadybirdBrowser/ladybird: Abandon Swift adoption
Author: Simon Willison
Published: 2026-02-19
Source: https://simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/19/ladybird/#atom-everything
LadybirdBrowser/ladybird: Abandon Swift adoption Back in August 2024 the Ladybird browser project announced an intention to adopt Swift as their memory-safe language of choice. As of this commit it looks like they’ve changed their mind:
Everywhere: Abandon Swift adoption After making no progress on this for a very long time, let’s acknowledge it’s not going anywhere and remove it from the codebase.

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Key Takeaways

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Notable Quotes

Everywhere: Abandon Swift adoption
Context: Announcement of halting Swift adoption in the Ladybird browser project.
After making no progress on this for a very long time, let’s acknowledge it’s not going anywhere and remove it from the codebase.
Context: Rationale for discontinuing the use of Swift in the project.
  • [[topics/software-development]]
  • [[topics/programming-languages]]
  • [[topics/project-management]]

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Originally published at https://simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/19/ladybird/#atom-everything.