Plain BrowserA browser.Nothing else.
Plain Browser is Chromium with the Google parts removed, an ad and tracker blocker built into the network stack, and Manifest V2 extensions left switched on. No account, no sync, no telemetry, no server of ours that could receive your data.
Unsigned alpha build. Expect rough edges. · v0.1.2-alpha.1 · Chromium 156
What you get
Blocking that lives in the browser
The blocker is adblock-rust, the engine Brave uses, compiled into the network layer. It does not depend on extension APIs, runs on your device and reports nothing. EasyList, EasyPrivacy and EasyList Polish are bundled in.
No Google services
Everything the ungoogled-chromium project strips stays stripped: sign-in, sync, translation, the Web Store, usage reporting. The one service we keep, Safe Browsing, goes through our own proxy that hides you from Google, and a switch in the settings turns it off.
Manifest V2 stays alive
Chrome dropped MV2 and the Web Store removed those extensions. Plain Browser keeps MV2 and blocking webRequest working, so tools like uBlock Origin keep their full power. Tested with uBlock Origin 1.75.0.
Still Chromium
Same engine, same speed, same tabs, bookmarks, downloads, PDF viewer and developer tools you already know. Sites work the way they do everywhere else.
Tracking cleanup and a per-site switch
Tracking parameters (utm_, fbclid, gclid and others) are stripped from links, and canvas, audio and WebGL fingerprinting is blunted, with a built-in exception list for banks. One toolbar button turns all of it, and the blocker, off for a site that breaks.
Open source, small patch set
Our code sits in one directory on top of ungoogled-chromium, with a short list of patches, so each Chromium release can be followed within days. MPL-2.0 and BSD-3-Clause.
What it does not do
The privacy policy fits in a sentence: we collect nothing, because there is nothing that could.
- ×No telemetry, usage statistics or crash reports
- ×No account, sign-in or sync
- ×No analytics or advertising identifier in the browser
- ×No filter list downloads: the lists ship inside the binary
- ×No contact with Google services
- ×Safe Browsing only through our no-log proxy, with the option to turn it off
Checked on first start: a fresh profile with no page open made no network requests of its own for 100 seconds. The only traffic was Windows proxy auto-detection, which every application using system proxy settings performs.
How it is built
Plain Browser is a thin layer. Each release of Chromium flows through the stack below, which is why security fixes can arrive within days of an upstream stable tag.
Our code is MPL-2.0, our patches BSD-3-Clause. Chromium and ungoogled-chromium keep their BSD-3-Clause licenses, adblock-rust its MPL-2.0, and the bundled filter lists GPLv3 or CC BY-SA 3.0.
Where the project stands
This is a pre-release and the page says so. What has been verified, and what has not:
- ✓Built from Chromium 156 on our own Windows builder
- ✓Blocker compiles, links and blocks: headless test stops four ad hosts and passes controls
- ✓Kill switch verified: with blocking disabled all requests go through
- ✓Branding, product icon, Polish and English interface
- ✓First-start network silence verified
- ✓Tracking-parameter stripping and fingerprint protection built in and verified
- ✓Toolbar button and bubble with a per-site toggle for all protections
- ✓Safe Browsing through our proxy, with a settings switch; the list update goes only to our proxy
- ✓Manifest V2: uBlock Origin 1.75.0 installed, blocking webRequest works
- ✓MSIX package built for the Microsoft Store
- ·Microsoft Store listing and first public release through it
- ·Blocked counter and a settings page for the exception list
- ·Generic cosmetic filtering and filter-list updates between releases
- ·Curated Manifest V2 extension repository
- ·Installation tested on a clean machine
Questions
Why not just use ungoogled-chromium?
You can, and Plain Browser is built on it. We add a content blocker inside the browser, a per-site switch, tracking cleanup and fingerprint protection, keep MV2 working, ship through the Microsoft Store with automatic updates and plan a curated extension repository, so the result is something a non-technical person can install and forget.
Why not Brave?
Brave is a good browser, and we use its blocking engine. Plain Browser has no crypto wallet, rewards, news feed, AI assistant or VPN upsell. It is the engine, the blocker and nothing else.
Can I install uBlock Origin?
Manifest V2 is enabled, so it should work, and that is the point. We tested uBlock Origin 1.75.0 end to end and its blocking webRequest rules work, but not every extension has been tried, so treat it as experimental. Extensions are installed manually from a .crx or unpacked folder; a curated repository is planned.
Does it update itself?
The browser has no updater of its own. Plain Browser is distributed through the Microsoft Store as an MSIX package, and the Store signs it and delivers updates, so we need no updater and no code-signing certificate. The Store listing is being prepared; until it is live, test builds are published on GitHub.
Is it safe to run an unsigned build?
The test builds on GitHub are unsigned: SmartScreen will warn and Windows with Smart App Control on will refuse to run them. Every release carries SHA-256 sums and a keyless cosign signature that ties it to this repository's build workflow. The Microsoft Store version is signed by the Store. See the Download page for how to verify.
Does Safe Browsing work, and what does Google see?
Yes, in standard protection with a local hash-prefix database. List updates and the rare full-hash lookups go to our Cloudflare proxy at sb.plain-browser.app instead of Google. The proxy strips your IP address, cookies and identifying headers, keeps no logs, and Google sees only Cloudflare's address and hash prefixes. Enhanced Protection and URL reporting are removed for good, and a switch under Settings > You and Google turns Safe Browsing off. Details are in the privacy policy.
Which platforms?
Windows 11 x64 only for now. The build scripts come from ungoogled-chromium-windows; other platforms are not planned until the Windows version is solid.
Try the alpha
If you are comfortable testing early software, download it, break it, and tell us what happened.