On Tuesday April 21st, 2026, Linden Lab announced it is ending support for Project Zero, the viewer-in-a-browser application launched just 14 months ago, and which I was able to co-announce through this blog following a Zoom meeting between myself and Brad Oberwager and Philip Rosedale.
The project, which saw the viewer streamed to a person’s web browser from Amazon AWS servers remained in something of a beta state throughout its lifespan, initially overseen by Philip Rosedale and then (the now Lab-departed) Sntax Linden, with a dedicated User Group meeting being formed around it (although meetings ceased in the latter half of 2025). It also gained much interest among existing users, despite it being largely aimed at incoming new users, leaving access to it limited for established SL users.
The project did see some interesting development – such as the updated Avatar Picker mechanism, which was also ported to the SL Mobile App, and at the time of its launch at the start of 2025 and through the initial six or so months of its development, there were plans to undertake a gradual rebuilding of the viewer UI as presented through a browser, using modern tools such as HTML5 and React. To further interest in streaming the viewer through a web browser, Linden Lab also worked with the Firestorm team to take a version of the latter’s viewer and present that as a streaming service as well – although this experiment was ultimately short-lived.
By September 2025, the Lab was indicating that between them, Project Zero (using the official viewer) and the SL Mobile App had lead to a “10x” increase in the numbers of people trying out Second Life when compared to the more traditional requirement to sign-up and then download the viewer (the latter having long been a break-point for sign-ups, with many would-be users turning away from the platform rather than downloading and installing the viewer on their computers). However, not long after this update, things began to go quiet on the Project Zero front.
With the curtailment of the Project Zero User Group meetings and, later, the departure of Sntax Linden from Linden Lab, the Project as a whole seemed to go dark, with little in the way of direct news being given through any User Group meetings. As such, the announcement that the project is now being ended comes as both a surprise (given the enthusiasm for it evidenced by Linden Lab in 2025) and a non-surprise (lack of news / updates on the project through late 2025 and the start of 2026 suggesting it was perhaps withering on the vine).
The announcement blog post offers little in the way as to why Project Zero is being halted, other than the decision being based on both “feedback” and what the Lab has “learned” in running the project, and “insights gained from Project Zero will directly inform improvements” to both the Desktop viewer and the SL Mobile App. However, the beneficial nature of the project in circumventing the need to download and install the viewer is acknowledged.
As it stands, support for Project Zero will end on Friday, April 24th at 17:00 SLT.
Further:
- If you have remaining paid time associated with Project Zero, you are encouraged to use it before the [project is shuttered – access allowing, given the potentially limited number of slots at any given time.
- If you have any unused time on Project Zero after April 24th, please file a support ticket for a refund (which will be processed up to 30 days after the ticket is received).
- Exactly “what’s next” isn’t actually indicated in the official blog post (despite the post’s title), other than
Note that the ending of Project Zero does not affect either the desktop viewer or the ongoing development on the SL Mobile App, which will “continue to operate as usual”.
Related Links
- Ending Support for Project Zero – and What’s Next – Linden Lab
- Project Zero development updates and news – this blog
- Project Zero User Group meeting summaries – this blog
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