24 ms·

Helium Browser

611 points by spacebuffer 1y ago

haolez 1y ago
What's the catch? Looks too good to be true.
- webstrand 1y ago
  It looks like a pretty normal chromium variant to me? It's nice to see the work of ungoogled-chromium given a nicer skin.
- nextworddev 1y ago
  It’s playing the Browser Company playbook
  - DauntingPear7 1y ago
    Highly doubt that, as they’re already known in the OSS community. Browser Co. expanded as fast as possible without any way to make revenue, then ditched their flagship product to make a bad agentic browser
    - nextworddev 1y ago
      One way to expand even faster is to put out a quasi OSS
FinnKuhn 1y ago
Can someone explain to me how this differentiates itself from (ungoogled) Chromium with a few tweaks? How does it compare to Firefox privacy wise being based on chromium?
- system7rocks 1y ago
  Same. I generally avoid Chrome-based browsers on all devices.
- bangaladore 1y ago
  What privacy concerns do you have with Chromium?
  - godelski 1y ago
    Google The noun, not the verb
    - bangaladore 1y ago
      Do you have any evidence that a chromium derivative browser is less "private" than a Firefox derivative?
      - godelski 1y ago
        There's a lot of comments around this in the main thread. Mostly about how Google gets to dictate standards of the internet and how these aren't always privacy friendly. I'll also add that it's easy for bad features to sneak in without users knowing. We happened to be talking about this issue in a related thread just the other day [0]. This one the Brave devs were even aware of bot users weren't... so it's kinda a good example of both points [0] just check out the linked GitHub issue https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45364533 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45364533
ghm2199 1y ago
Does it have manifest V2 like CNAM filtering? And if it's chromium based how is it going to support back port of features that are making it to chromium without investment in a robust dev team?
- mantra2 1y ago
  They say they'll support MV2 "as long as possible".
- webstrand 1y ago
  It's based on ungoogled-chromium which applies https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium/blob/master/patches/core/ungoogled-chromium/extensions-manifestv2.patch https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium/blo... to retain manifest v2 features. They're likely dependent on ungoogled-chromium for maintaining this feature.
MYEUHD 1y ago
It's based on ungoogled-chromium and about 3 people are working on it. https://github.com/imputnet/helium https://github.com/imputnet/helium
- koakuma-chan 1y ago
  And it's written in Python.
  - _--__--__ 1y ago
    From a few months of use I think qutebrowser is good enough to prove that a python web browser is not inherently a bad idea.
    - imiric 1y ago
      qutebrowser is not technically a "Python web browser". The GUI uses Python Qt bindings, and the browser engine itself is QtWebEngine. Python is simply the glue that ties it all together, and any language could be used instead, since performance is not a concern. This is why there are so many small niche "web browsers", such as Luakit, Nyxt, surf, etc.
      - _--__--__ 1y ago
        Surely performance is even less of a concern for a set of tools applying one time patches to ungoogled chromium?
  - Barrin92 1y ago
    it's a few hundred lines worth of scripts to produce an ungoogled chromium with some nicer defaults, why wouldn't it, in case pointing that out is meant to be a criticism.
    - koakuma-chan 1y ago
      oh ok, welp, :shrug:
ghm2199 1y ago
And the biggest problem with extensions is their security model of permissions. How is this solving for that?
tyre 1y ago
How will they make money? Or is this always meant to be OSS community supported? The challenge is that people have to get paid and infrastructure to build things costs money. Looks like there are only two people full-time at the company right now, though even then eventually they’ll need some revenue stream. I love this project, but to have confidence that it stays that way it would be nice to see how they’ll replace they’ll stay afloat.
- brcmthrowaway 1y ago
  Why does a browser need to be continually updated? Is Google/W3C adding more features and busy work to keep browser developers employed?
  - blackqueeriroh 1y ago
    Lol yes
  - johnisgood 1y ago
    Yes. I left a feedback about a website posted on HN, turns out it works just fine on the latest version of Vivaldi, but not a previous version from a few months ago. So yeah, gotta keep it updated. :(
  - pantulis 1y ago
    > Is Google/W3C adding more features and busy work to keep browser developers employed? Most of those changes would be supported by the underlying rendering engine, and the only ones doing that afaik are Ladybird. It's simply that building and mantaining _the rest_ of what we now expect a modern browser to be is staggeringly hard.
  - sunaookami 1y ago
    Security updates to fix zero-days? Google releases those very often and such forks take a long time to integrate them (even big forks) so I would not trust such a small team.
ghqst 1y ago
My biggest problem with Thorium was lack of updates, so I hope Helium is able to remain consistent with updates. Congrats on the launch, cobalt crew!
huflungdung 1y ago
[dead]
MountDoom 1y ago
What makes me a bit uneasy about the project is that the website doesn't explain who is building it. For most open-source, I think that would be fine. But browsers auto-update, so their vendors essentially have the continued ability to run code on your machine. You want some confidence that they won't get owned and won't sell the access to bad actors down the line, so there is an element of personal trust. All the website gives me is the name of a Wyoming LLC, Wyoming being one of the states you incorporate in if you don't want others to be able to find out who runs the company. Granted, you can find out a bit more on Github, but in general, if you're building privacy- and security-critical tech... I think you ought to own it.
- efilife 1y ago
  It really isn't hard to find. I went to the browser's github page and then the repo author. https://github.com/imputnet https://github.com/imputnet I now found who exactly manages this (and it turns out colbalt, too! awesome downloader) https://github.com/wukko https://github.com/wukko https://github.com/dumbmoron https://github.com/dumbmoron
  - jsheard 1y ago
    > and it turns out colbalt, too! And https://meow.camera https://meow.camera
  - hdjrudni 1y ago
    Oh..that's crazy. I just assumed it was the makers of Kagi search.
    - esafak 1y ago
      That's https://kagi.com/orion/ https://kagi.com/orion/
      - SoftTalker 1y ago
        I’m using and loving Orion on my iPhone.
ayaros 1y ago
Why did anyone think it was a good idea to put tabs in the title bar. How the hell am I supposed to easily drag a window if I have 100 tabs open? Who the hell thought this was a good idea? Why do I feel like the only sane human being left on Earth? Why is this project continuing to use this horrible UI convention? How are they going to make money or enshittify this in the future or sell it off to an evil billion dollar corporation who will sell my data off to god knows who? </rant> :/ ...the site design is nice at least.
- DHolzer 1y ago
  I would hate to have a 40px title bar doing nothing except wasting space on my screen. I've been using this layout for years, and I didn't even consider that anyone could have an issue with this until I read your statement. I'm not saying that you are wrong to disregard it due to your personal preferences, but please consider that this might not be such a horrible design as you make it out to be. Also, you can be certain that you are not the only sane person left - I think it's just that most of them don't show up on boards and forums.
  - bigstrat2003 1y ago
    The parent post is overly strongly worded, but I agree with the meat of it: tabs should not be in the title bar of the window. It's worse usability for a space savings that really isn't relevant because it's so small.
  - ayaros 1y ago
    Just because it is not doing anything at the moment doesn't mean it doesn't serve an important, necessary purpose. For a windowed application environment to be functional and usable, there needs to be an easy way to drag windows around the screen. When you start moving things into that space, it makes the system harder to use. A once-simple action which required minimal thought now requires you to parse an arbitrarily populated area of the screen and find a tiny gap within a litany of buttons and controls and carefully drag that part of the window. If you make a slight mistake and click on a tab or button, the unwanted activation of that control (e.g. switching to a new tab) serves to needlessly penalize the user. This is not just an issue with web browsers now, but seemingly everywhere. It's been a big issue in the macOS Finder for a while now. At the very least, Firefox still gives me the option to show the native window title bar, which I very much appreciate. It's certainly not the sexiest part of the UI, given the native element clashes a bit with FF's controls, but at least it's usable! This is an issue that could be solved by giving people a choice via a simple toggle... Most often, the option isn't there. I'm sorry people have downvoted my post here a bit, and I agree it was a bit strongly worded, but I won't apologize for venting some frustration at what I see as the perpetuation of user-hostile design choices like this.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
barbazoo 1y ago
I just can't go back to horizontal tabs anymore.
- the_real_cher 1y ago
  What are you using instead?
  - DauntingPear7 1y ago
    Probably Zen, as Arc is dead
    - FinnKuhn 1y ago
      Pretty sure both Firefox and Microsoft Edge both offer it as an option too.
      - MangoToupe 1y ago
        Orion, too.
      - daveidol 1y ago
        And Brave
      - maleldil 1y ago
        Firefox's new implementation is subpar. You're better off using an add-on like Sidebery for more features, but you need custom user chrome CSS to hide the horizontal tabs.
    - teecha 1y ago
      Zen is lovely but I actually really miss the little arc window. Didn't realize how much I used it until it was gone. Sticking with Arc for now.
    - jitl 1y ago
      Arc works fine; Orion (Kagi's browser) is like an Arc built on WebKit.
tchbnl 1y ago
Having the option to set Kagi as my search engine right away is nice. I wish more browsers included Kagi as an option.
- al_borland 1y ago
  My biggest gripe with Safari is that it only handles the few blessed search engines Apple has chosen. On my personal systems I can use the extension to hack Kagi support in there, but it’s a bit of an ugly solution. On my work laptop, we aren’t allowed to use the App Store, so I can’t get the extension. This means if I want to use Safari and Kagi, I need to go to the actual Kagi homepage, which is a very annoying behavior pattern. I used Firefox for a while at work because of this, but now that’s been blocked too. I’m trying really hard not to give in and use Chrome, but at this point, it would make my work life easier. It supports adding other search engines natively, which is quite ironic. I submitted feedback to Apple about this. They have integrated some of my feedback into past releases (silence unknown callers, most notably), but they must have some silly business reason for not allowing this, which is very disappointing.
Daedren 1y ago
>We'll keep support for MV2 extensions for as long as possible. This doesn't particularly give people any confidence in your product if even the devs don't know how long they can hold the line. Why not fork Firefox like Zen?
- indiebat 1y ago
  I know this is unfair to firefox, majority of enterprise software now (including and starting with Microsoft teams) outright say do not support firefox or have ‘limited’ support whatever that means. For anyone working remotely like me, teams is a crucial piece of software (however bad it is). So as much as I like Firefox and legends that started it and religiously developed it over the years, bottom line, I can’t use it now. Some maybe majority of blame falls on Mozilla, they let it stagnate and focus on cosmetic changes in last few years instead of focusing on improving core technology.
  - yeasku 1y ago
    I work every day with Firefox and the only problem I have is with Citrix. Citrix has always been shit, so is not surprising.
  - jitl 1y ago
    Many vendors look at the userAgent. I’d be surprised if Microsoft Teams org doesn't have some soft incentives pushing Edge and if not edge Chromium-based browsers. Then again, there are definitely some Firefox behaviors that differ from the WebKit-derived engines (webkit, blink, etc); for a few years Notion editor had very different UX in Firefox for this reason. They eventually fixed it though! Firefox's profiler is also excellent, I always analyze my Chrome profiles in https://profiler.firefox.com/ https://profiler.firefox.com/ when I'm optimizing CPU use.
  - zamadatix 1y ago
    > majority of enterprise software now (including and starting with Microsoft teams) outright say do not support firefox Teams has explicitly supported Firefox for a while now https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/teams-client-web https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/teams-clien... but the problem is "there's always another site that doesn't work right". Firefox usage share got too low, so places just check Chrom* and Safari work with the new feature and ship (sometimes not even the latter, if they don't care about mobile as much).
cranberryturkey 1y ago
Does it support PWAs?
- jitl 1y ago
  From the website > Install any web apps and use them as standalone desktop apps without duplicating Chromium.
  - cranberryturkey 1y ago
    Thanks
piskov 1y ago
> There are currently 2 of us Nope. No. Thank you. Props for featuring Kagi though.
denkmoon 1y ago
Wow another chromium skin, how exciting.
lunarcave 1y ago
In the "choose a default search engine" page, it has a slightly amusing summary for each. > Google > Your personal data fuels its monopoly. Market-dominant due to anti-competitive and anti-consumer practices. > Qwant > Based in Europe. Uses Bing results. Sends tracking data to Microsoft. > DuckDuckGo > Privacy-focused. Relies on Bing results but never tracks or profiles you. > Ecosia > May plant trees for clicking ads. Relies on Bing and Google. Sends tracking data to Microsoft and Google. > Microsoft Bing > Collects extensive personal data. Privacy controls are buried and limited. Subjectively overwhelming UI. > Kagi > Privacy-focused. Customizable results without ads or tracking. Requires a paid account.
- maineagetter 1y ago
  [dead]
- firejake308 1y ago
  Slightly amusing, perhaps, but accurate and concise? Definitely.
- hopelite 1y ago
  I wish we could just add our own default search with a search string template like when the Internet was still alive. That being said, I like using the slightly more obscure presearch.com and Swisscows.com, for what it’s worth.
  - hdjrudni 1y ago
    > I wish we could just add our own default search with a search string template like when the Internet was still alive. Can't we? The %s thing works in Vivaldi. Worked in Chrome last time I checked.
  - lpln3452 1y ago
    Firefox still lets you do this. You can add any URL as a custom search engine by providing a string template for the query. It doesn't have to be a formal "search provider". Any URL that accepts a query string will work.
xnx 1y ago
Make an Android version that supports extensions (preferably MV2) like the now abandoned Kiwi Browser did and I'll be very interested.
- superasn 1y ago
  Yes I'd be interested too. I'm still using Kiwi browser but afraid it will stop working anytime soon. I did recently see this browser is unsafe when trying to open Gmail in it, so any chromium based update to date alternative there would be amazing!
  - efreak 1y ago
    I still (unfortunately) am stuck with kiwi as well. I use it almost exclusively for a few webapps that use large amounts of indexeddb storage (>10gb) without a working export method[1]. With Firefox, I was able to export this data with devtools over ADB[2] to another Firefox install. I really wish someone would create an indexeddb shim that interfaces with another system and only uses indexeddb for (very large) cache. Something I could drop in with a userscript would be lovely, even if it required running a local server with something like rsync or rclone responsible for the actual transfers. [1]: dexie import export used to work, now it never returns. I have no way of verifying that it's doing nothing without putting it in background (thus suspending it...), but I've let it run 3 hours with no results. [2]: Firefox doesn't allow backing up app data for some reason but devtools functions allow reading and writing the profile directory through the use of terminal commands (zip profile directory, unzip and restart browser).
gosub100 1y ago
What is the primary difficulty in developing a web browser? - breadth of the http/css/js standard? - inefficient implementations - requires too many resources? Why has the market converged on two major players and most independent attempts fall short?
- zamadatix 1y ago
  They're 30+ million lines of code to cover the feature set, but monetization is tough and security/feature churn is constant. It's also nearly meaningless to start small - either you build everything or you don't. This is just Chromium with some patches though, the problem with these kinds of things is it's small groups that tend to lose interest.
jitl 1y ago
This is neat, and reminds me of Kagi's browser Orion, since their hero image features Kagi search. Orion is WebKit based, so it uses less battery and feels faster to me compared to Chromium browsers, yet it largely supports Chrome extensions via a compatibility layer; like Helium uBlock Origin is included by default. It also has vertical tabs which is essential for me, and open-url routing between profiles. However, I tried it in January 2025 and gave up on using it after a few weeks of sporadic bugs. I didn't lose data or anything but some actions in the UI didn't produce any result, or they produced a confusing unintended result. I hope they get better - I will probably give it another go in a few months, especially since Arc (my current browser) is now owned by Atlassian. https://kagi.com/orion/ https://kagi.com/orion/ Anyways, great to see a Chromium browser improving on the privacy of ungoogled-chromium.
- GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
  Might’ve worth giving it another shot. It’s still somewhat buggy but usually just with UI things. I haven’t had a lot of actual functionality issues in the last couple months of use on iOS or macOS.
  - esafak 1y ago
    If they open sourced it maybe they could get those pesky bugs fixed...
    - GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
      maybe! I hope they do.
      - esafak 1y ago
        https://orionfeedback.org/d/3882-open-source-the-browser/34 https://orionfeedback.org/d/3882-open-source-the-browser/34
- setsewerd 1y ago
  I love Kagi as a search engine but the Orion UI feels too similar to Safari to really enjoy it as much. I do enjoy vertical tabs, faster browsing, better privacy obviously. But "largely" is doing some heavy lifting in your mention of chrome extension support. I use about a dozen chrome extensions typically and about 4 of them are supported by Orion last I checked. Although of course #12 in Chrome is the Kagi search extension itself :) The bookmarks bar seems consistently wonky though, with bookmarks showing the wrong logos (like Google Sheets showing up with the Google Docs logo, or ChatGPT showing some weirdly cropped version of itself), inability to rearrange bookmarks in a folder without opening the dedicated bookmark manager page. If some basic usability things like this were fixed, along with adding tab groups (also big for me when I have 50 tabs open), I'd probably give it another go. Kagi search engine has largely replaced google search already for me so I'll definitely give it another go once these things are updated.
nice_byte 1y ago
another chromium fork?
- nextworddev 1y ago
  It’s the new vscode fork
slimebot80 1y ago
You have my attention! But in this day and age, I need to understand more about intentions, and what sustains projects like this. For the moment I've settled on Safari simply because Apple makes its billions elsewhere, even if I am increasingly disappointed with how they are playing along with politics right now.
- WorldPeas 1y ago
  I just wish there were a browser that would use their webview technology with better tabbing, video playback, etc. Apple is often minimal to a fault.
  - promiseofbeans 1y ago
    Kagi’s Orion browser tries to do this, and it works great for me on iOS (though I still use Firefox on my mac) https://kagi.com/orion/ https://kagi.com/orion/
    - al_borland 1y ago
      I have troubling using different browsers for different platforms these days. I get too much benefit from sync.
- drnick1 1y ago
  What makes you think that Apple respects your privacy any more than Google and Microsoft? The marketing brochure?
  - ed_mercer 1y ago
    Apple has released several privacy features, their slogan is “Privacy. That’s Apple.”, and they make their money from hardware. Even if not a perfect company it’s sure as hell a better bet than MS or google.
    - paulryanrogers 1y ago
lxe 1y ago
Bangs, or as I like to call them AOL Keywords.
poopsmithe 1y ago
One criticism with your website: It incorrectly assumes I'm not on desktop and hides the download button from me.
GodelNumbering 1y ago
I have felt like a perennial browser refugee for a while. For about 20 years now (since OG Firefox was at peak and Chrome was not yet launched), every new browser promises the same things, gets popular enough, then does a full or partial 180. While I like the pitch of this browser, I find it a little difficult to take it at the face value, especially given there is no info on the founders, or whether it is run as a company or a non-profit etc. Perhaps someone in this thread could answer: which company/org structure provides best guarantees against gradual, slow, multi-year rot that seems to take over everything? I would happily pay a small monthly subscription fee for a browser if it has strong legally protected privacy guarantees.
- ashikns 1y ago
  I feel the same. For now, I've made peace with having to switch to "whatever is the latest maintained fork with privacy defaults" every 6 months. Hopefully Ladybird becomes a usable browser sometime soon.
- satyapr93 1y ago
  You can look into Ulaa browser by Zoho. It fits your description.
  - hoistbypetard 1y ago
    That's wild. I've been a Zoho customer for some time, and I've never heard anything about that.
- cookiengineer 1y ago
  In my opinion that's Ladybird at the moment. It's hard to predict what future generations of developers are doing, but right now Ladybird seems to have the right values embedded into their nonprofit structure. All the other browser projects have to be enshittified eventually, and therefore have to fulfill other interests than their users' interests to get there.
- neya 1y ago
  For what it's worth, I like Orion - built by the same team that built the Kagi search engine. It's a shit browser for developers (inspect panel crashes half the time and other bugs), but I trust it way more than Chrome or even Safari. For development tasks - if I need to, I simply switch to Firefox.
nd4spdviper 1y ago
I think I'll just wait for Ladybird, in the meantime keep using Safari and Firefox as always.
h4ch1 1y ago
Is there a reason for not having Issues on their main repo? Especially since they're in a beta stage; they don't have to fix/acknowledge all issues, but as an end-user they're pretty useful for debugging, seeing actual human feedback.
devmor 1y ago
I really have no interest in using a Chromium/Blink browser at this point, that's the real kicker for me. I would prefer to use and support browsers using alternate rendering engines and without any ties back to Google, even if it means I personally get a lesser experience, because I don't trust Google and I want to ensure they don't entirely control the direction of the browsable internet.
lpln3452 1y ago
So another Chromium based browser featuring the usual 'Privacy' and a collection of miscellaneous features. Maybe 'AI' will be added. None of this appears to go beyond what some browser extension could do. Personally I'm not seeing the appeal. As a side note, the very similar Arc browser was just sold off to Atlassian for a quick exit.
ulrikrasmussen 1y ago
Can someone explain to me why most browser forks are based on Chromium? If the goal is to make a privacy focused browser which is independent of Google, isn't it then a bit counterproductive to put all your eggs in a basket which only exists due to the goodwill of your main competitor? Why not webkit or Gecko? There might be a good argument for it, but as a person concerned with privacy and the future freedom of the internet, who is supposedly the target user for a browser like this, I would expect the justification to depend on Google code to be front and center on the page.
- muglug 1y ago
  Even in 2025 you still get the most compatibility with [insert-website-here] with Chromium
  - digitalPhonix 1y ago
    Sure but I only use Firefox (no other browser installed (except Edge on Windows)) and I don’t have any issues; so some none-trivial portion of the web doesn’t require Chrom(ium) specific behaviour.
    - fahimscirex 1y ago
      Google websites intentionally degrade performance if you browse from Firefox. Facebook Messenger's E2E only works on chromium browsers. There are many websites that show popups to use chromium for the best experience. I do get it, these aren't privacy-friendly websites, but for professional purposes, lot of people are forced to use chromium browsers or user-agent strings.
      - al_borland 1y ago
        > Google websites intentionally degrade performance if you browse from Firefox. If this is true they should be in court for these anti-competitive practices.
      - EasyMark 1y ago
kogasa240p 1y ago
Another chromium fork, no thanks.
sidcool 1y ago
Call me sceptic but not falling for it again. I have been hurt too many times.
- mixtureoftakes 1y ago
  so you have ptsd from a browser?
  - imcritic 1y ago
    Aren't we all?
godelski 1y ago
> Helium is based on Chromium > Best privacy by default Sorry, pass... Even with un-googled Chromium I do not think these statements are self-consistent. We need browsers that do not allow Google to control the ecosystem. We need legitimate competition. So what, our choices are Firefox (Gecko), Safari (WebKit), and Ladybird? Personally I go with Firefox on most devices and Orion (WebKit) on my iPhone and iPad. > Helium anonymizes all internal requests to the Chrome Web Store via Helium services. This seems like something pretty easy to mess up. Maybe it is good now, but it sure is going to be a cat and mouse game. I really would be curious to have some breakdown comparison with something like the Mullvad browser (Gecko). I have a lot of trust for both the Mullvad and Tor teams. They have a much longer history working with this kind of stuff and have been consistently updating it since release. Launched in early 2023[0] and last update was last week[1]. [0] The Mullvad Browser (mullvad.net) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35421034 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35421034 [0.5] Mullvad Browser (torproject.org) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37159744 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37159744 [1] https://github.com/mullvad/mullvad-browser https://github.com/mullvad/mullvad-browser
- vasco 1y ago
  How is firefox legitimate competition when they are basically financed by Google?
  - scbzzzzz 1y ago
    You need to look at history. In early 90s why did Microsoft invest in apple when it is its competitors. Investment doesn't mean they are medling into mozilla business. For companies like google (present) or Microsoft in 90's. It is better to have a crippled competitor than no competitor. No competitor attracts government agencies for monopoly which is worse.
    - baruz 1y ago
      In the 1990s Microsoft “invested” in Apple because Steve Jobs allowed them to save face by giving them the option to settle their part of Apple v San Francisco Canyon Co by calling part of it—$150 M—a stock purchase that only lasted a few years. I do not know how much the total cash settlement from Microsoft was, but industry rumors went up to $1B.
mikae1 1y ago
It comes packaged with uBlock Origin. Is it the mv2 version or Origin Lite?
gabrielhfrn 1y ago
I learned about this project from Theo (T3 guy), and his approval of it, make of that what you will. Not 100% related but I found it funny that on that specific video, in which he spends the best part of 40 minutes talking about how the only browsers that are worth talking about are ones which "improve" your browsing experience beyond Chrome, which is the de facto "decent" browser. He mentions Zen and Vivaldi as examples. He then finishes the video gushing about how he loves helium, which is just ungoogled-chromium lol
- isege 1y ago
  a) He has a “I use the web in a very niche way that nobody cares about an your browser sucks if it doesn’t meet those exact needs” way of thinking b) He is an investor in helium
coolgoose 1y ago
I am really trying to understand how the web would work with 0 ads. I hate all the invasive pop-up crap ads with a passion, but this 0 ads just gets to a lot of gatekeeping, putting things under subscriptions etc.
- chr15m 1y ago
  Good. "Free" is a lie.
- imcritic 1y ago
  It would work just fine. People will use search to find products they seek.
NetOpWibby 1y ago
Yeesh, tough crowd in these comments. And yet everyone's excited for new Gmail skins. Anyway. I hope more people take ungoogled-chromium and create new interfaces. It's a shame that Servo's in an unusable state, I'd love to see more tooling around that. I just want someone to give me Opera 12...I suppose that's Vivaldi though.
- rkomorn 1y ago
  I tried Opera a few months ago and could not stick to it. All the features they were pitching at me felt a little off. The various panel integrations were clunky and didn't seem to offer anything over just... tabs. Maybe not surprisingly, I'm currently on Vivaldi (although it has its own issues of not infrequent slowness or hangs).
  - scottydelta 1y ago
    Opera is the worse browser any one could give a chance in 2025: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39123477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39123477 Don’t let Opera cloud your judgement since it’s a poor choice to start with.
- degosuke 1y ago
  And Vivaldi also supports MV2 extensions - so uBlock origin still works without any issues.
  - presbyterian 1y ago
    Vivaldi doesn't intend to maintain MV2, from their website: > We will keep Manifest v2 for as long as it’s still available in Chromium. We expect to drop support in June 2025, but we may maintain it longer or be forced to drop support for it sooner, depending on the precise nature of the changes to the code. https://vivaldi.com/blog/manifest-v3-update-vivaldi-is-future-proofed-with-its-built-in-functionality/ https://vivaldi.com/blog/manifest-v3-update-vivaldi-is-futur...
- ramon156 1y ago
WalterBright 1y ago
It's about time programmers stopped naming products and languages after elements and chemicals. Haven't we had enough of that? We should name languages only after letters. After all, 26 languages should be enough for anybody.
- vovavili 1y ago
  It's actually deliberately clever wordplay. Helium is light, chromium is heavy. Their browser is a set of patches to Chromium.
nayuki 1y ago
> Fast, efficient, and light > Helium is based on Chromium > [screenshot image of geckos and lizards] Is the marketing page deliberately trying to rub it in Mozilla's face?
dvh 1y ago
Get it to Ubuntu LTS repository and I will use it.
PeterStuer 1y ago
While chromium deep down, it seems they mostly ripped and repackaged from defunct projects and companies such as ungoogled-chromium and the irridium browser, right? Why would 2 cat avatars carry what others obviously failed to maintain?
- V3ritas1337 1y ago
  The only problem is it disables OOB security updates. https://qua3k.github.io/ungoogled/ https://qua3k.github.io/ungoogled/
user3939382 1y ago
> Helium also doesn't make any web requests without your explicit consent, it makes zero web requests on first launch. God (I say as a prayer!) this is what I want for every single app and the OS. Currently on LibreWolf but will look at this carefully.
yoz-y 1y ago
I was excited for a new Helium browser release and it just turns out that people these days don’t even do a single google search before using a name that is already taken. https://slashlos.github.io/Helium/ https://slashlos.github.io/Helium/
- Tepix 1y ago
  Wow, that's a real fuckup.
- sbbu 1y ago
  No commits on that project for 5 years, so what are you talking about?
  - pazimzadeh 1y ago
    Also, superseded by He3 https://slashlos.github.io/He3/ https://slashlos.github.io/He3/
- extraduder_ire 1y ago
  There are, unfortunately, only 118 different element names to choose from. Few of which end with -ium.
- timschumi 1y ago
  Couldn't try to (together with Theo / t3) bully the Homebrew developers into a forced takeover of a package [1] if it were a conflict-free name. [1] https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask/pull/229061 https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask/pull/229061
  - AlkalineDreams 1y ago
    The cask has not been majorly updated in almost 10 years years and is used to connect to a mobile app that hasn't been on the Play Store for almost 5 years, while easily underneath the minimum threshold of downloads for being removed. What's wrong with asking to expedite the removal process, considering the process is detailed in the guidelines?
miaugladiator11 1y ago
its been a daily driver for me for a pretty long time now and i can say that its amazing to work with. i dangle between Zen and Helium and both are a very solid option imo. I don't really get all the browser wars
mixtureoftakes 1y ago
WHY IS EVERYONE IN COMMENTS SO OLD AND BITTER WHAT ON EARTH ARE WE DOING
- h4ch1 1y ago
  I think it's a mixture of dislike for Google/Chrome and the constant Chromium reskins that dominate the browser market + Firefox evangelism. I'll personally say I don't hate this project as such, I mainly use a Chromium based browser because I build a product that uses the FileSystem API with a directory picker [0] and the FileSystem Observer API [1]. Both of which aren't supported anywhere except Chromium based browsers. I used to use Thorium, but last build was out in February and I simply can't use that as my main browser, so now I simply use ungoogled-chromium. I can easily avoid any Google telemetry, use uBlock Origin with MV2, Privacy Badger and the plus point is all sites work. I love Firefox as well, but I feel you can't do much about the fact all "regular" people end up using Chrome or Safari; so while developing on the web you simply can't become a Firefox main and avoid chromium entirely. [0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/showDirectoryPicker#browser_compatibility https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/show... [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/FileSystemObserver#browser_compatibility https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/FileSystemO...
- ranguna 1y ago
  Why are you writing in upper case? To me, that contributes to the overall uncomfortability
- MinusGix 1y ago
  Generally because there's not that much to comment on, as this is effectively a somewhat prettier ungoogled chromium, and so there's not much room to make positive comments. Though I agree people get caught up in negativity easily.
whatarethembits 1y ago
> We'll keep support for MV2 extensions for as long as possible I can maybe overlook it being based on chromium, but I don't want to migrate to a new browser and have to migrate again when uBlock Origin stops working eventually. Zen browser is my home currently, I think Arc has broken my ability to move back to traditional tab management.
wildredkraut 1y ago
Releasing a browser without cross OS support incl. mobile devices, makes no sense now a days. Extension support and bookmarks sync is also a must have. That's why Firefox is still my browser.
sylware 1y ago
Indeed, we need a real alternative, something really bringing new on the table: we need a modern web engine we can compile with a simple C compiler. Those "browsers" are just front-end to the web engines of the whatng cartel.
Fizzadar 1y ago
Yet another wrapper on chromium, no thank you. > We'll keep support for MV2 extensions for as long as possible. “As long as possible” being _exactly_ why chromium wrappers have zero value.
janfoeh 1y ago
While I am not interested for the same reasons many others have stated here, I would like to point out that their privacy policy is exemplary: > Helium does not make any network requests, including to the Services, unless such requests are the result of user actions (for example, visiting a website or installing an extension) or are part of features that the user has explicitly enabled or configured during setup. If Helium is making any network requests without your consent, please file a bug report. Gold standard.
defraudbah 1y ago
It's a good plan to plug-in AI into chromium and sell it to someone like atlassian. Or you know, ask MS to invest a couple mil and buy azure infrastructure from them. VC go brrr.. I'll stick with FF or brave until Mullvad or else comes up with a good alternative
lerp-io 1y ago
i think we have enough asshole logos already guys
pshirshov 1y ago
> No adware, no bloat, no noise. And, apparently, no tree style tabs, no vertical tabs at all.
- kristofferR 1y ago
  What does Tree Style Tabs offer that Sidebery doesn't? I switched to it and haven't looked back. The tab search functionality is so damn nice.
  - pshirshov 1y ago
    Nothing, Sideberry is just a more modern TST implementation. I referred Tree Style Tabs as a UI pattern, not one particular extension.
neves 1y ago
Why Helium is better than Brave, another privacy conscious browser based on Chromium?
Alifatisk 1y ago
> New browser > Based on Chromium Sigh...
gwbas1c 1y ago
There are a lot of privacy browsers floating around. I'm a big fan of Brave, and it took me some digging to see the difference. In my case, the lack of sync is a big show stopper for me. Brave syncs without "cloud." Instead, it syncs when you have the browser open on both devices.
gwbas1c 1y ago
I'm less interested in privacy browsers that just use Chromium and then slap some chrome around it. Instead, what I want is a browser that actively blocks annoying page behaviors. For example, I want a browser that makes all text on a page selectable, prevents a page from trapping right-click, prevents a page from accessing the clipboard, ect, ect.
- sonicggg 1y ago
  It's just a Brave Browser copycat
- frizlab 1y ago
  Try the StopTheMadness extension. It is a godsend.
  - gwbas1c 1y ago
    Is that Safari-only or Mac-only? I can't seem to find a way to install it into Brave on Windows from https://underpassapp.com/StopTheMadness/ https://underpassapp.com/StopTheMadness/
    - lapcat 1y ago
      It doesn't support Windows or Android.
- carlosjobim 1y ago
  That browser is Safari, configured with the option to open all pages in reader mode.
endunless 1y ago
What is the auto-update mechanism on macOS? One of the primary reasons I use ungoogled chromium is because I can update it via homebrew myself. I don’t trust browsers with running invisible background auto-updaters.
loughnane 1y ago
Like many others here, I too am turned off by it being Chromium.
davedx 1y ago
Unlike others, I like that it's Chromium because it means I get the devtools. Whenever I try to use other browsers I always get held back by how they work in other browsers, and I do a lot of front-end dev. I'm posting this comment from Helium and so far, so good! I would honestly say ignore the naysayers, everything is a trade off, including which browser engine you put under the hood.
- Jcampuzano2 1y ago
  Same, I wanted to like Zen browser for instance but I just could not keep using it because I cannot stand Firefox devtools. I'm too used to chromes. If I could have a version of zen that looked exactly like it but had their devtools it'd probably be my main driver.
bearjaws 1y ago
Still Chromium based, I will stick with Zen.
err4nt 1y ago
Back about 20 years ago there was a lightweight Gecko-based web browser called 'Camino' that was a delight compared to Firefox or other 'full' browsers. It was fast, simplified, and still rendered pages well. I didn't always use it, but it was a joy to use. I downloaded Helium and gave it a spin and my first impression was "Ah, it's like Camino all over again". I can't use this for my job where I need to use stock {Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge} because our customers do - but for personal browsing I'm currently using Arc which is very comfortable but heavy, I might try to use Helium for quick simple things when I want less overhead! Thanks for sharing!
- ValentineC 1y ago
  I miss Camino! There was a period in time (pre-Blink) where it offered the best compatibility with websites built for IE6.
antonyh 1y ago
I'm not sure why I'd bother using this when it's just another Chromium browser. As it currently stands, I'm leaning more into WebKit-based, but for daily use it's Firefox. I'm not happy with any of them, but I'd struggle to pick just one right now.
yggdrasil_ai 1y ago
I am happy using brave after disabling most of their own features. Any reason I should give this a go?
andai 1y ago
Where is the scroll bar?
smacker 1y ago
I tried it a few days ago, a privacy-focused Chrome that doesn't break browsing experience resonates with me. The team seems to care about quality and the browser felt good overall. A few things that made me go back to Brave: - No vertical tabs - Sync with mobile - I haven't found how to show bookmarks bar only on blank page - Little customization for new tab page (might be fixable using extensions) I'll definitely follow the project as Brave is far from perfect too.
- vohk 1y ago
  Regarding the bookmarks bar, Settings / Appearance / Show Bookmarks Bar. If the setting is off, the bar only appears on new tabs. I found that by accident.
  - smacker 1y ago
    thank you! Indeed, it is shown on a new tab in such case!
dheera 1y ago
> MacOS If you want to target privacy nerds, please consider supporting Linux off the bat.
NoSalt 1y ago
Woah ... the FIRST "privacy-based" browser in, at least, 29 days. That's amazing!
scdnc 1y ago
If any devs are reading: please add compact tabs like safari and an extension that summarizes pages/video transcripts and enables LLM chat with that context.
OrangeMusic 1y ago
What's the difference between this and Brave?

Helium Browser

611 points by spacebuffer 1y ago

haolez 1y ago

What's the catch? Looks too good to be true.

webstrand 1y ago
It looks like a pretty normal chromium variant to me? It's nice to see the work of ungoogled-chromium given a nicer skin.
nextworddev 1y ago
It’s playing the Browser Company playbook
- DauntingPear7 1y ago
  Highly doubt that, as they’re already known in the OSS community. Browser Co. expanded as fast as possible without any way to make revenue, then ditched their flagship product to make a bad agentic browser
  - nextworddev 1y ago
    One way to expand even faster is to put out a quasi OSS

FinnKuhn 1y ago

Can someone explain to me how this differentiates itself from (ungoogled) Chromium with a few tweaks? How does it compare to Firefox privacy wise being based on chromium?

system7rocks 1y ago
Same. I generally avoid Chrome-based browsers on all devices.
bangaladore 1y ago
What privacy concerns do you have with Chromium?
- godelski 1y ago
  Google The noun, not the verb
  - bangaladore 1y ago
    Do you have any evidence that a chromium derivative browser is less "private" than a Firefox derivative?
    - godelski 1y ago
      There's a lot of comments around this in the main thread. Mostly about how Google gets to dictate standards of the internet and how these aren't always privacy friendly. I'll also add that it's easy for bad features to sneak in without users knowing. We happened to be talking about this issue in a related thread just the other day [0]. This one the Brave devs were even aware of bot users weren't... so it's kinda a good example of both points [0] just check out the linked GitHub issue https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45364533 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45364533

ghm2199 1y ago

Does it have manifest V2 like CNAM filtering? And if it's chromium based how is it going to support back port of features that are making it to chromium without investment in a robust dev team?

mantra2 1y ago
They say they'll support MV2 "as long as possible".
webstrand 1y ago
It's based on ungoogled-chromium which applies https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium/blob/master/patches/core/ungoogled-chromium/extensions-manifestv2.patch https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium/blo... to retain manifest v2 features. They're likely dependent on ungoogled-chromium for maintaining this feature.

MYEUHD 1y ago

It's based on ungoogled-chromium and about 3 people are working on it. https://github.com/imputnet/helium https://github.com/imputnet/helium

koakuma-chan 1y ago
And it's written in Python.
- _--__--__ 1y ago
  From a few months of use I think qutebrowser is good enough to prove that a python web browser is not inherently a bad idea.
  - imiric 1y ago
    qutebrowser is not technically a "Python web browser". The GUI uses Python Qt bindings, and the browser engine itself is QtWebEngine. Python is simply the glue that ties it all together, and any language could be used instead, since performance is not a concern. This is why there are so many small niche "web browsers", such as Luakit, Nyxt, surf, etc.
    - _--__--__ 1y ago
      Surely performance is even less of a concern for a set of tools applying one time patches to ungoogled chromium?
- Barrin92 1y ago
  it's a few hundred lines worth of scripts to produce an ungoogled chromium with some nicer defaults, why wouldn't it, in case pointing that out is meant to be a criticism.
  - koakuma-chan 1y ago
    oh ok, welp, :shrug:

ghm2199 1y ago

And the biggest problem with extensions is their security model of permissions. How is this solving for that?

tyre 1y ago

How will they make money? Or is this always meant to be OSS community supported? The challenge is that people have to get paid and infrastructure to build things costs money. Looks like there are only two people full-time at the company right now, though even then eventually they’ll need some revenue stream. I love this project, but to have confidence that it stays that way it would be nice to see how they’ll replace they’ll stay afloat.

brcmthrowaway 1y ago
Why does a browser need to be continually updated? Is Google/W3C adding more features and busy work to keep browser developers employed?
- blackqueeriroh 1y ago
  Lol yes
- johnisgood 1y ago
  Yes. I left a feedback about a website posted on HN, turns out it works just fine on the latest version of Vivaldi, but not a previous version from a few months ago. So yeah, gotta keep it updated. :(
- pantulis 1y ago
  > Is Google/W3C adding more features and busy work to keep browser developers employed? Most of those changes would be supported by the underlying rendering engine, and the only ones doing that afaik are Ladybird. It's simply that building and mantaining _the rest_ of what we now expect a modern browser to be is staggeringly hard.
- sunaookami 1y ago
  Security updates to fix zero-days? Google releases those very often and such forks take a long time to integrate them (even big forks) so I would not trust such a small team.

ghqst 1y ago

My biggest problem with Thorium was lack of updates, so I hope Helium is able to remain consistent with updates. Congrats on the launch, cobalt crew!

huflungdung 1y ago

[dead]

MountDoom 1y ago

What makes me a bit uneasy about the project is that the website doesn't explain who is building it. For most open-source, I think that would be fine. But browsers auto-update, so their vendors essentially have the continued ability to run code on your machine. You want some confidence that they won't get owned and won't sell the access to bad actors down the line, so there is an element of personal trust. All the website gives me is the name of a Wyoming LLC, Wyoming being one of the states you incorporate in if you don't want others to be able to find out who runs the company. Granted, you can find out a bit more on Github, but in general, if you're building privacy- and security-critical tech... I think you ought to own it.

efilife 1y ago
It really isn't hard to find. I went to the browser's github page and then the repo author. https://github.com/imputnet https://github.com/imputnet I now found who exactly manages this (and it turns out colbalt, too! awesome downloader) https://github.com/wukko https://github.com/wukko https://github.com/dumbmoron https://github.com/dumbmoron
- jsheard 1y ago
  > and it turns out colbalt, too! And https://meow.camera https://meow.camera
- hdjrudni 1y ago
  Oh..that's crazy. I just assumed it was the makers of Kagi search.
  - esafak 1y ago
    That's https://kagi.com/orion/ https://kagi.com/orion/
    - SoftTalker 1y ago
      I’m using and loving Orion on my iPhone.

ayaros 1y ago

Why did anyone think it was a good idea to put tabs in the title bar. How the hell am I supposed to easily drag a window if I have 100 tabs open? Who the hell thought this was a good idea? Why do I feel like the only sane human being left on Earth? Why is this project continuing to use this horrible UI convention? How are they going to make money or enshittify this in the future or sell it off to an evil billion dollar corporation who will sell my data off to god knows who? </rant> :/ ...the site design is nice at least.

DHolzer 1y ago
I would hate to have a 40px title bar doing nothing except wasting space on my screen. I've been using this layout for years, and I didn't even consider that anyone could have an issue with this until I read your statement. I'm not saying that you are wrong to disregard it due to your personal preferences, but please consider that this might not be such a horrible design as you make it out to be. Also, you can be certain that you are not the only sane person left - I think it's just that most of them don't show up on boards and forums.
- bigstrat2003 1y ago
  The parent post is overly strongly worded, but I agree with the meat of it: tabs should not be in the title bar of the window. It's worse usability for a space savings that really isn't relevant because it's so small.
- ayaros 1y ago
  Just because it is not doing anything at the moment doesn't mean it doesn't serve an important, necessary purpose. For a windowed application environment to be functional and usable, there needs to be an easy way to drag windows around the screen. When you start moving things into that space, it makes the system harder to use. A once-simple action which required minimal thought now requires you to parse an arbitrarily populated area of the screen and find a tiny gap within a litany of buttons and controls and carefully drag that part of the window. If you make a slight mistake and click on a tab or button, the unwanted activation of that control (e.g. switching to a new tab) serves to needlessly penalize the user. This is not just an issue with web browsers now, but seemingly everywhere. It's been a big issue in the macOS Finder for a while now. At the very least, Firefox still gives me the option to show the native window title bar, which I very much appreciate. It's certainly not the sexiest part of the UI, given the native element clashes a bit with FF's controls, but at least it's usable! This is an issue that could be solved by giving people a choice via a simple toggle... Most often, the option isn't there. I'm sorry people have downvoted my post here a bit, and I agree it was a bit strongly worded, but I won't apologize for venting some frustration at what I see as the perpetuation of user-hostile design choices like this.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

barbazoo 1y ago

I just can't go back to horizontal tabs anymore.

the_real_cher 1y ago
What are you using instead?
- DauntingPear7 1y ago
  Probably Zen, as Arc is dead
  - FinnKuhn 1y ago
    Pretty sure both Firefox and Microsoft Edge both offer it as an option too.
    - MangoToupe 1y ago
      Orion, too.
    - daveidol 1y ago
      And Brave
    - maleldil 1y ago
      Firefox's new implementation is subpar. You're better off using an add-on like Sidebery for more features, but you need custom user chrome CSS to hide the horizontal tabs.
  - teecha 1y ago
    Zen is lovely but I actually really miss the little arc window. Didn't realize how much I used it until it was gone. Sticking with Arc for now.
  - jitl 1y ago
    Arc works fine; Orion (Kagi's browser) is like an Arc built on WebKit.

tchbnl 1y ago

Having the option to set Kagi as my search engine right away is nice. I wish more browsers included Kagi as an option.

al_borland 1y ago
My biggest gripe with Safari is that it only handles the few blessed search engines Apple has chosen. On my personal systems I can use the extension to hack Kagi support in there, but it’s a bit of an ugly solution. On my work laptop, we aren’t allowed to use the App Store, so I can’t get the extension. This means if I want to use Safari and Kagi, I need to go to the actual Kagi homepage, which is a very annoying behavior pattern. I used Firefox for a while at work because of this, but now that’s been blocked too. I’m trying really hard not to give in and use Chrome, but at this point, it would make my work life easier. It supports adding other search engines natively, which is quite ironic. I submitted feedback to Apple about this. They have integrated some of my feedback into past releases (silence unknown callers, most notably), but they must have some silly business reason for not allowing this, which is very disappointing.

Daedren 1y ago

>We'll keep support for MV2 extensions for as long as possible. This doesn't particularly give people any confidence in your product if even the devs don't know how long they can hold the line. Why not fork Firefox like Zen?

indiebat 1y ago
I know this is unfair to firefox, majority of enterprise software now (including and starting with Microsoft teams) outright say do not support firefox or have ‘limited’ support whatever that means. For anyone working remotely like me, teams is a crucial piece of software (however bad it is). So as much as I like Firefox and legends that started it and religiously developed it over the years, bottom line, I can’t use it now. Some maybe majority of blame falls on Mozilla, they let it stagnate and focus on cosmetic changes in last few years instead of focusing on improving core technology.
- yeasku 1y ago
  I work every day with Firefox and the only problem I have is with Citrix. Citrix has always been shit, so is not surprising.
- jitl 1y ago
  Many vendors look at the userAgent. I’d be surprised if Microsoft Teams org doesn't have some soft incentives pushing Edge and if not edge Chromium-based browsers. Then again, there are definitely some Firefox behaviors that differ from the WebKit-derived engines (webkit, blink, etc); for a few years Notion editor had very different UX in Firefox for this reason. They eventually fixed it though! Firefox's profiler is also excellent, I always analyze my Chrome profiles in https://profiler.firefox.com/ https://profiler.firefox.com/ when I'm optimizing CPU use.
- zamadatix 1y ago
  > majority of enterprise software now (including and starting with Microsoft teams) outright say do not support firefox Teams has explicitly supported Firefox for a while now https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/teams-client-web https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/teams-clien... but the problem is "there's always another site that doesn't work right". Firefox usage share got too low, so places just check Chrom* and Safari work with the new feature and ship (sometimes not even the latter, if they don't care about mobile as much).

cranberryturkey 1y ago

Does it support PWAs?

jitl 1y ago
From the website > Install any web apps and use them as standalone desktop apps without duplicating Chromium.
- cranberryturkey 1y ago
  Thanks

piskov 1y ago

> There are currently 2 of us Nope. No. Thank you. Props for featuring Kagi though.

denkmoon 1y ago

Wow another chromium skin, how exciting.

lunarcave 1y ago

In the "choose a default search engine" page, it has a slightly amusing summary for each. > Google > Your personal data fuels its monopoly. Market-dominant due to anti-competitive and anti-consumer practices. > Qwant > Based in Europe. Uses Bing results. Sends tracking data to Microsoft. > DuckDuckGo > Privacy-focused. Relies on Bing results but never tracks or profiles you. > Ecosia > May plant trees for clicking ads. Relies on Bing and Google. Sends tracking data to Microsoft and Google. > Microsoft Bing > Collects extensive personal data. Privacy controls are buried and limited. Subjectively overwhelming UI. > Kagi > Privacy-focused. Customizable results without ads or tracking. Requires a paid account.

maineagetter 1y ago
[dead]
firejake308 1y ago
Slightly amusing, perhaps, but accurate and concise? Definitely.
hopelite 1y ago
I wish we could just add our own default search with a search string template like when the Internet was still alive. That being said, I like using the slightly more obscure presearch.com and Swisscows.com, for what it’s worth.
- hdjrudni 1y ago
  > I wish we could just add our own default search with a search string template like when the Internet was still alive. Can't we? The %s thing works in Vivaldi. Worked in Chrome last time I checked.
- lpln3452 1y ago
  Firefox still lets you do this. You can add any URL as a custom search engine by providing a string template for the query. It doesn't have to be a formal "search provider". Any URL that accepts a query string will work.

xnx 1y ago

Make an Android version that supports extensions (preferably MV2) like the now abandoned Kiwi Browser did and I'll be very interested.

superasn 1y ago
Yes I'd be interested too. I'm still using Kiwi browser but afraid it will stop working anytime soon. I did recently see this browser is unsafe when trying to open Gmail in it, so any chromium based update to date alternative there would be amazing!
- efreak 1y ago
  I still (unfortunately) am stuck with kiwi as well. I use it almost exclusively for a few webapps that use large amounts of indexeddb storage (>10gb) without a working export method[1]. With Firefox, I was able to export this data with devtools over ADB[2] to another Firefox install. I really wish someone would create an indexeddb shim that interfaces with another system and only uses indexeddb for (very large) cache. Something I could drop in with a userscript would be lovely, even if it required running a local server with something like rsync or rclone responsible for the actual transfers. [1]: dexie import export used to work, now it never returns. I have no way of verifying that it's doing nothing without putting it in background (thus suspending it...), but I've let it run 3 hours with no results. [2]: Firefox doesn't allow backing up app data for some reason but devtools functions allow reading and writing the profile directory through the use of terminal commands (zip profile directory, unzip and restart browser).

gosub100 1y ago

What is the primary difficulty in developing a web browser? - breadth of the http/css/js standard? - inefficient implementations - requires too many resources? Why has the market converged on two major players and most independent attempts fall short?

zamadatix 1y ago
They're 30+ million lines of code to cover the feature set, but monetization is tough and security/feature churn is constant. It's also nearly meaningless to start small - either you build everything or you don't. This is just Chromium with some patches though, the problem with these kinds of things is it's small groups that tend to lose interest.

jitl 1y ago

This is neat, and reminds me of Kagi's browser Orion, since their hero image features Kagi search. Orion is WebKit based, so it uses less battery and feels faster to me compared to Chromium browsers, yet it largely supports Chrome extensions via a compatibility layer; like Helium uBlock Origin is included by default. It also has vertical tabs which is essential for me, and open-url routing between profiles. However, I tried it in January 2025 and gave up on using it after a few weeks of sporadic bugs. I didn't lose data or anything but some actions in the UI didn't produce any result, or they produced a confusing unintended result. I hope they get better - I will probably give it another go in a few months, especially since Arc (my current browser) is now owned by Atlassian. https://kagi.com/orion/ https://kagi.com/orion/ Anyways, great to see a Chromium browser improving on the privacy of ungoogled-chromium.

GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
Might’ve worth giving it another shot. It’s still somewhat buggy but usually just with UI things. I haven’t had a lot of actual functionality issues in the last couple months of use on iOS or macOS.
- esafak 1y ago
  If they open sourced it maybe they could get those pesky bugs fixed...
  - GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
    maybe! I hope they do.
    - esafak 1y ago
      https://orionfeedback.org/d/3882-open-source-the-browser/34 https://orionfeedback.org/d/3882-open-source-the-browser/34
setsewerd 1y ago
I love Kagi as a search engine but the Orion UI feels too similar to Safari to really enjoy it as much. I do enjoy vertical tabs, faster browsing, better privacy obviously. But "largely" is doing some heavy lifting in your mention of chrome extension support. I use about a dozen chrome extensions typically and about 4 of them are supported by Orion last I checked. Although of course #12 in Chrome is the Kagi search extension itself :) The bookmarks bar seems consistently wonky though, with bookmarks showing the wrong logos (like Google Sheets showing up with the Google Docs logo, or ChatGPT showing some weirdly cropped version of itself), inability to rearrange bookmarks in a folder without opening the dedicated bookmark manager page. If some basic usability things like this were fixed, along with adding tab groups (also big for me when I have 50 tabs open), I'd probably give it another go. Kagi search engine has largely replaced google search already for me so I'll definitely give it another go once these things are updated.

nice_byte 1y ago

another chromium fork?

nextworddev 1y ago
It’s the new vscode fork

slimebot80 1y ago

You have my attention! But in this day and age, I need to understand more about intentions, and what sustains projects like this. For the moment I've settled on Safari simply because Apple makes its billions elsewhere, even if I am increasingly disappointed with how they are playing along with politics right now.

WorldPeas 1y ago
I just wish there were a browser that would use their webview technology with better tabbing, video playback, etc. Apple is often minimal to a fault.
- promiseofbeans 1y ago
  Kagi’s Orion browser tries to do this, and it works great for me on iOS (though I still use Firefox on my mac) https://kagi.com/orion/ https://kagi.com/orion/
  - al_borland 1y ago
    I have troubling using different browsers for different platforms these days. I get too much benefit from sync.
drnick1 1y ago
What makes you think that Apple respects your privacy any more than Google and Microsoft? The marketing brochure?
- ed_mercer 1y ago
  Apple has released several privacy features, their slogan is “Privacy. That’s Apple.”, and they make their money from hardware. Even if not a perfect company it’s sure as hell a better bet than MS or google.
  - paulryanrogers 1y ago

lxe 1y ago

Bangs, or as I like to call them AOL Keywords.

poopsmithe 1y ago

One criticism with your website: It incorrectly assumes I'm not on desktop and hides the download button from me.

GodelNumbering 1y ago

I have felt like a perennial browser refugee for a while. For about 20 years now (since OG Firefox was at peak and Chrome was not yet launched), every new browser promises the same things, gets popular enough, then does a full or partial 180. While I like the pitch of this browser, I find it a little difficult to take it at the face value, especially given there is no info on the founders, or whether it is run as a company or a non-profit etc. Perhaps someone in this thread could answer: which company/org structure provides best guarantees against gradual, slow, multi-year rot that seems to take over everything? I would happily pay a small monthly subscription fee for a browser if it has strong legally protected privacy guarantees.

ashikns 1y ago
I feel the same. For now, I've made peace with having to switch to "whatever is the latest maintained fork with privacy defaults" every 6 months. Hopefully Ladybird becomes a usable browser sometime soon.
satyapr93 1y ago
You can look into Ulaa browser by Zoho. It fits your description.
- hoistbypetard 1y ago
  That's wild. I've been a Zoho customer for some time, and I've never heard anything about that.
cookiengineer 1y ago
In my opinion that's Ladybird at the moment. It's hard to predict what future generations of developers are doing, but right now Ladybird seems to have the right values embedded into their nonprofit structure. All the other browser projects have to be enshittified eventually, and therefore have to fulfill other interests than their users' interests to get there.
neya 1y ago
For what it's worth, I like Orion - built by the same team that built the Kagi search engine. It's a shit browser for developers (inspect panel crashes half the time and other bugs), but I trust it way more than Chrome or even Safari. For development tasks - if I need to, I simply switch to Firefox.

nd4spdviper 1y ago

I think I'll just wait for Ladybird, in the meantime keep using Safari and Firefox as always.

h4ch1 1y ago

Is there a reason for not having Issues on their main repo? Especially since they're in a beta stage; they don't have to fix/acknowledge all issues, but as an end-user they're pretty useful for debugging, seeing actual human feedback.

devmor 1y ago

I really have no interest in using a Chromium/Blink browser at this point, that's the real kicker for me. I would prefer to use and support browsers using alternate rendering engines and without any ties back to Google, even if it means I personally get a lesser experience, because I don't trust Google and I want to ensure they don't entirely control the direction of the browsable internet.

lpln3452 1y ago

So another Chromium based browser featuring the usual 'Privacy' and a collection of miscellaneous features. Maybe 'AI' will be added. None of this appears to go beyond what some browser extension could do. Personally I'm not seeing the appeal. As a side note, the very similar Arc browser was just sold off to Atlassian for a quick exit.

ulrikrasmussen 1y ago

Can someone explain to me why most browser forks are based on Chromium? If the goal is to make a privacy focused browser which is independent of Google, isn't it then a bit counterproductive to put all your eggs in a basket which only exists due to the goodwill of your main competitor? Why not webkit or Gecko? There might be a good argument for it, but as a person concerned with privacy and the future freedom of the internet, who is supposedly the target user for a browser like this, I would expect the justification to depend on Google code to be front and center on the page.

muglug 1y ago
Even in 2025 you still get the most compatibility with [insert-website-here] with Chromium
- digitalPhonix 1y ago
  Sure but I only use Firefox (no other browser installed (except Edge on Windows)) and I don’t have any issues; so some none-trivial portion of the web doesn’t require Chrom(ium) specific behaviour.
  - fahimscirex 1y ago
    Google websites intentionally degrade performance if you browse from Firefox. Facebook Messenger's E2E only works on chromium browsers. There are many websites that show popups to use chromium for the best experience. I do get it, these aren't privacy-friendly websites, but for professional purposes, lot of people are forced to use chromium browsers or user-agent strings.
    - al_borland 1y ago
      > Google websites intentionally degrade performance if you browse from Firefox. If this is true they should be in court for these anti-competitive practices.
    - EasyMark 1y ago

kogasa240p 1y ago

Another chromium fork, no thanks.

sidcool 1y ago

Call me sceptic but not falling for it again. I have been hurt too many times.

mixtureoftakes 1y ago
so you have ptsd from a browser?
- imcritic 1y ago
  Aren't we all?

godelski 1y ago

> Helium is based on Chromium > Best privacy by default Sorry, pass... Even with un-googled Chromium I do not think these statements are self-consistent. We need browsers that do not allow Google to control the ecosystem. We need legitimate competition. So what, our choices are Firefox (Gecko), Safari (WebKit), and Ladybird? Personally I go with Firefox on most devices and Orion (WebKit) on my iPhone and iPad. > Helium anonymizes all internal requests to the Chrome Web Store via Helium services. This seems like something pretty easy to mess up. Maybe it is good now, but it sure is going to be a cat and mouse game. I really would be curious to have some breakdown comparison with something like the Mullvad browser (Gecko). I have a lot of trust for both the Mullvad and Tor teams. They have a much longer history working with this kind of stuff and have been consistently updating it since release. Launched in early 2023[0] and last update was last week[1]. [0] The Mullvad Browser (mullvad.net) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35421034 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35421034 [0.5] Mullvad Browser (torproject.org) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37159744 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37159744 [1] https://github.com/mullvad/mullvad-browser https://github.com/mullvad/mullvad-browser

vasco 1y ago
How is firefox legitimate competition when they are basically financed by Google?
- scbzzzzz 1y ago
  You need to look at history. In early 90s why did Microsoft invest in apple when it is its competitors. Investment doesn't mean they are medling into mozilla business. For companies like google (present) or Microsoft in 90's. It is better to have a crippled competitor than no competitor. No competitor attracts government agencies for monopoly which is worse.
  - baruz 1y ago
    In the 1990s Microsoft “invested” in Apple because Steve Jobs allowed them to save face by giving them the option to settle their part of Apple v San Francisco Canyon Co by calling part of it—$150 M—a stock purchase that only lasted a few years. I do not know how much the total cash settlement from Microsoft was, but industry rumors went up to $1B.

mikae1 1y ago

It comes packaged with uBlock Origin. Is it the mv2 version or Origin Lite?

gabrielhfrn 1y ago

I learned about this project from Theo (T3 guy), and his approval of it, make of that what you will. Not 100% related but I found it funny that on that specific video, in which he spends the best part of 40 minutes talking about how the only browsers that are worth talking about are ones which "improve" your browsing experience beyond Chrome, which is the de facto "decent" browser. He mentions Zen and Vivaldi as examples. He then finishes the video gushing about how he loves helium, which is just ungoogled-chromium lol

isege 1y ago
a) He has a “I use the web in a very niche way that nobody cares about an your browser sucks if it doesn’t meet those exact needs” way of thinking b) He is an investor in helium

coolgoose 1y ago

I am really trying to understand how the web would work with 0 ads. I hate all the invasive pop-up crap ads with a passion, but this 0 ads just gets to a lot of gatekeeping, putting things under subscriptions etc.

chr15m 1y ago
Good. "Free" is a lie.
imcritic 1y ago
It would work just fine. People will use search to find products they seek.

NetOpWibby 1y ago

Yeesh, tough crowd in these comments. And yet everyone's excited for new Gmail skins. Anyway. I hope more people take ungoogled-chromium and create new interfaces. It's a shame that Servo's in an unusable state, I'd love to see more tooling around that. I just want someone to give me Opera 12...I suppose that's Vivaldi though.

rkomorn 1y ago
I tried Opera a few months ago and could not stick to it. All the features they were pitching at me felt a little off. The various panel integrations were clunky and didn't seem to offer anything over just... tabs. Maybe not surprisingly, I'm currently on Vivaldi (although it has its own issues of not infrequent slowness or hangs).
- scottydelta 1y ago
  Opera is the worse browser any one could give a chance in 2025: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39123477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39123477 Don’t let Opera cloud your judgement since it’s a poor choice to start with.
degosuke 1y ago
And Vivaldi also supports MV2 extensions - so uBlock origin still works without any issues.
- presbyterian 1y ago
  Vivaldi doesn't intend to maintain MV2, from their website: > We will keep Manifest v2 for as long as it’s still available in Chromium. We expect to drop support in June 2025, but we may maintain it longer or be forced to drop support for it sooner, depending on the precise nature of the changes to the code. https://vivaldi.com/blog/manifest-v3-update-vivaldi-is-future-proofed-with-its-built-in-functionality/ https://vivaldi.com/blog/manifest-v3-update-vivaldi-is-futur...
ramon156 1y ago

WalterBright 1y ago

It's about time programmers stopped naming products and languages after elements and chemicals. Haven't we had enough of that? We should name languages only after letters. After all, 26 languages should be enough for anybody.

vovavili 1y ago
It's actually deliberately clever wordplay. Helium is light, chromium is heavy. Their browser is a set of patches to Chromium.

nayuki 1y ago

> Fast, efficient, and light > Helium is based on Chromium > [screenshot image of geckos and lizards] Is the marketing page deliberately trying to rub it in Mozilla's face?

dvh 1y ago

Get it to Ubuntu LTS repository and I will use it.

PeterStuer 1y ago

While chromium deep down, it seems they mostly ripped and repackaged from defunct projects and companies such as ungoogled-chromium and the irridium browser, right? Why would 2 cat avatars carry what others obviously failed to maintain?

V3ritas1337 1y ago
The only problem is it disables OOB security updates. https://qua3k.github.io/ungoogled/ https://qua3k.github.io/ungoogled/

user3939382 1y ago

> Helium also doesn't make any web requests without your explicit consent, it makes zero web requests on first launch. God (I say as a prayer!) this is what I want for every single app and the OS. Currently on LibreWolf but will look at this carefully.

yoz-y 1y ago

I was excited for a new Helium browser release and it just turns out that people these days don’t even do a single google search before using a name that is already taken. https://slashlos.github.io/Helium/ https://slashlos.github.io/Helium/

Tepix 1y ago
Wow, that's a real fuckup.
sbbu 1y ago
No commits on that project for 5 years, so what are you talking about?
- pazimzadeh 1y ago
  Also, superseded by He3 https://slashlos.github.io/He3/ https://slashlos.github.io/He3/
extraduder_ire 1y ago
There are, unfortunately, only 118 different element names to choose from. Few of which end with -ium.
timschumi 1y ago
Couldn't try to (together with Theo / t3) bully the Homebrew developers into a forced takeover of a package [1] if it were a conflict-free name. [1] https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask/pull/229061 https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask/pull/229061
- AlkalineDreams 1y ago
  The cask has not been majorly updated in almost 10 years years and is used to connect to a mobile app that hasn't been on the Play Store for almost 5 years, while easily underneath the minimum threshold of downloads for being removed. What's wrong with asking to expedite the removal process, considering the process is detailed in the guidelines?

miaugladiator11 1y ago

its been a daily driver for me for a pretty long time now and i can say that its amazing to work with. i dangle between Zen and Helium and both are a very solid option imo. I don't really get all the browser wars

mixtureoftakes 1y ago

WHY IS EVERYONE IN COMMENTS SO OLD AND BITTER WHAT ON EARTH ARE WE DOING

h4ch1 1y ago
I think it's a mixture of dislike for Google/Chrome and the constant Chromium reskins that dominate the browser market + Firefox evangelism. I'll personally say I don't hate this project as such, I mainly use a Chromium based browser because I build a product that uses the FileSystem API with a directory picker [0] and the FileSystem Observer API [1]. Both of which aren't supported anywhere except Chromium based browsers. I used to use Thorium, but last build was out in February and I simply can't use that as my main browser, so now I simply use ungoogled-chromium. I can easily avoid any Google telemetry, use uBlock Origin with MV2, Privacy Badger and the plus point is all sites work. I love Firefox as well, but I feel you can't do much about the fact all "regular" people end up using Chrome or Safari; so while developing on the web you simply can't become a Firefox main and avoid chromium entirely. [0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/showDirectoryPicker#browser_compatibility https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/show... [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/FileSystemObserver#browser_compatibility https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/FileSystemO...
ranguna 1y ago
Why are you writing in upper case? To me, that contributes to the overall uncomfortability
MinusGix 1y ago
Generally because there's not that much to comment on, as this is effectively a somewhat prettier ungoogled chromium, and so there's not much room to make positive comments. Though I agree people get caught up in negativity easily.

whatarethembits 1y ago

> We'll keep support for MV2 extensions for as long as possible I can maybe overlook it being based on chromium, but I don't want to migrate to a new browser and have to migrate again when uBlock Origin stops working eventually. Zen browser is my home currently, I think Arc has broken my ability to move back to traditional tab management.

wildredkraut 1y ago

Releasing a browser without cross OS support incl. mobile devices, makes no sense now a days. Extension support and bookmarks sync is also a must have. That's why Firefox is still my browser.

sylware 1y ago

Indeed, we need a real alternative, something really bringing new on the table: we need a modern web engine we can compile with a simple C compiler. Those "browsers" are just front-end to the web engines of the whatng cartel.

Fizzadar 1y ago

Yet another wrapper on chromium, no thank you. > We'll keep support for MV2 extensions for as long as possible. “As long as possible” being _exactly_ why chromium wrappers have zero value.

janfoeh 1y ago

While I am not interested for the same reasons many others have stated here, I would like to point out that their privacy policy is exemplary: > Helium does not make any network requests, including to the Services, unless such requests are the result of user actions (for example, visiting a website or installing an extension) or are part of features that the user has explicitly enabled or configured during setup. If Helium is making any network requests without your consent, please file a bug report. Gold standard.

defraudbah 1y ago

It's a good plan to plug-in AI into chromium and sell it to someone like atlassian. Or you know, ask MS to invest a couple mil and buy azure infrastructure from them. VC go brrr.. I'll stick with FF or brave until Mullvad or else comes up with a good alternative

lerp-io 1y ago

i think we have enough asshole logos already guys

pshirshov 1y ago

> No adware, no bloat, no noise. And, apparently, no tree style tabs, no vertical tabs at all.

kristofferR 1y ago
What does Tree Style Tabs offer that Sidebery doesn't? I switched to it and haven't looked back. The tab search functionality is so damn nice.
- pshirshov 1y ago
  Nothing, Sideberry is just a more modern TST implementation. I referred Tree Style Tabs as a UI pattern, not one particular extension.

neves 1y ago

Why Helium is better than Brave, another privacy conscious browser based on Chromium?

Alifatisk 1y ago

> New browser > Based on Chromium Sigh...

gwbas1c 1y ago

There are a lot of privacy browsers floating around. I'm a big fan of Brave, and it took me some digging to see the difference. In my case, the lack of sync is a big show stopper for me. Brave syncs without "cloud." Instead, it syncs when you have the browser open on both devices.

gwbas1c 1y ago

I'm less interested in privacy browsers that just use Chromium and then slap some chrome around it. Instead, what I want is a browser that actively blocks annoying page behaviors. For example, I want a browser that makes all text on a page selectable, prevents a page from trapping right-click, prevents a page from accessing the clipboard, ect, ect.

sonicggg 1y ago
It's just a Brave Browser copycat
frizlab 1y ago
Try the StopTheMadness extension. It is a godsend.
- gwbas1c 1y ago
  Is that Safari-only or Mac-only? I can't seem to find a way to install it into Brave on Windows from https://underpassapp.com/StopTheMadness/ https://underpassapp.com/StopTheMadness/
  - lapcat 1y ago
    It doesn't support Windows or Android.
carlosjobim 1y ago
That browser is Safari, configured with the option to open all pages in reader mode.

endunless 1y ago

What is the auto-update mechanism on macOS? One of the primary reasons I use ungoogled chromium is because I can update it via homebrew myself. I don’t trust browsers with running invisible background auto-updaters.

loughnane 1y ago

Like many others here, I too am turned off by it being Chromium.

davedx 1y ago

Unlike others, I like that it's Chromium because it means I get the devtools. Whenever I try to use other browsers I always get held back by how they work in other browsers, and I do a lot of front-end dev. I'm posting this comment from Helium and so far, so good! I would honestly say ignore the naysayers, everything is a trade off, including which browser engine you put under the hood.

Jcampuzano2 1y ago
Same, I wanted to like Zen browser for instance but I just could not keep using it because I cannot stand Firefox devtools. I'm too used to chromes. If I could have a version of zen that looked exactly like it but had their devtools it'd probably be my main driver.

bearjaws 1y ago

Still Chromium based, I will stick with Zen.

err4nt 1y ago

Back about 20 years ago there was a lightweight Gecko-based web browser called 'Camino' that was a delight compared to Firefox or other 'full' browsers. It was fast, simplified, and still rendered pages well. I didn't always use it, but it was a joy to use. I downloaded Helium and gave it a spin and my first impression was "Ah, it's like Camino all over again". I can't use this for my job where I need to use stock {Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge} because our customers do - but for personal browsing I'm currently using Arc which is very comfortable but heavy, I might try to use Helium for quick simple things when I want less overhead! Thanks for sharing!

ValentineC 1y ago
I miss Camino! There was a period in time (pre-Blink) where it offered the best compatibility with websites built for IE6.

antonyh 1y ago

I'm not sure why I'd bother using this when it's just another Chromium browser. As it currently stands, I'm leaning more into WebKit-based, but for daily use it's Firefox. I'm not happy with any of them, but I'd struggle to pick just one right now.

yggdrasil_ai 1y ago

I am happy using brave after disabling most of their own features. Any reason I should give this a go?

andai 1y ago

Where is the scroll bar?

smacker 1y ago

I tried it a few days ago, a privacy-focused Chrome that doesn't break browsing experience resonates with me. The team seems to care about quality and the browser felt good overall. A few things that made me go back to Brave: - No vertical tabs - Sync with mobile - I haven't found how to show bookmarks bar only on blank page - Little customization for new tab page (might be fixable using extensions) I'll definitely follow the project as Brave is far from perfect too.

vohk 1y ago
Regarding the bookmarks bar, Settings / Appearance / Show Bookmarks Bar. If the setting is off, the bar only appears on new tabs. I found that by accident.
- smacker 1y ago
  thank you! Indeed, it is shown on a new tab in such case!

dheera 1y ago

> MacOS If you want to target privacy nerds, please consider supporting Linux off the bat.

NoSalt 1y ago

Woah ... the FIRST "privacy-based" browser in, at least, 29 days. That's amazing!

scdnc 1y ago

If any devs are reading: please add compact tabs like safari and an extension that summarizes pages/video transcripts and enables LLM chat with that context.

OrangeMusic 1y ago

What's the difference between this and Brave?