The feature map,
in plain English.
This is the current technical/user-facing inventory for Dawn Browser Alpha v1. It describes implemented features and existing infrastructure without implying that every setting or subsystem is fully polished.
Navigation is the foundation.
One address bar.
The address bar accepts URLs or search queries. Search is also used for Home/new-tab searches, with support for Nucleon, Google, DuckDuckGo, Bing, Brave Search and Startpage.
Back, forward, reload.
Back, Forward, Reload, Stop Loading and Home are exposed through the custom browser toolbar, alongside current URL copying.
Know what the page is doing.
Page titles, favicons, loading state and audible/media state are detected. URLs are normalized before navigation where appropriate.
Not just http.
Support includes view-source:, data:image/, blob: navigation and local filesystem URL handling.
A proper tab system, including the odd edges.
- Multiple tabs, new/close/switch and tab reordering.
- Middle-click tab closing and duplicate-tab actions.
- Duplicate active tab and reopen recently closed tab.
- Up to 20 recently closed tabs are retained during the current run.
- Tab titles, favicons and muted/audible state.
- Tab switcher with search and Ctrl+Shift+A.
- Tab context menu and opening links in new tabs.
- Session restoration infrastructure.
- Undercover/private tabs are excluded from normal session saving.
Privacy logic is built into the browser layer.
The current default settings define:
Ads + trackers.
Built-in ad and tracker blocking uses a blocklist containing advertising/tracking domains.
Privacy headers.
Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control headers are supported, alongside user-agent customization.
Fewer prompts.
Site permission requests are disabled by the current browser logic, with background throttling also enabled.
A separate session.
Undercover uses a separate Chromium session/partition, enables the privacy layer and clears its tab storage when closed.
Everyday browser mechanics are custom too.
Local development sites without a server ceremony.
Create sites beneath the browser's SPUD directory:
Then demo.spud resolves to Dawn Browser/spud/demo/index.html. Relative HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images and other assets can be used. Settings includes a dedicated SPUD section with directory, structure, safety notes and an example.
The browser has its own little web.
dawn://settings
Browser-internal settings rather than ordinary web navigation.
dawn://favorites
The dedicated persistent bookmark/favourites page.
Engine selector.
Settings currently exposes Nucleon, Google, DuckDuckGo, Bing, Brave Search and Startpage.
Four defined themes.
Midnight, Graphite, Dusk and Snow are defined, although the theme feature is currently bugged/broken in Alpha v1.
Electron underneath, custom browser chrome above.
Technology
- Electron
- Chromium
- Node.js
- V8
- WebContentsView
- IPC between browser chrome and main process
- Sandboxed web contents
- Context isolation
- Preload bridge
- Custom browser chrome and internal pages
Stored application data
Separate JSON files are used for:
They live in the Dawn Browser application-data directory. Migration logic also exists for the older dawn-browser profile directory.
Keyboard-first where it makes sense.
| Shortcut | Function |
|---|---|
| Ctrl+L / Ctrl+K | Address bar |
| Ctrl+T | New tab |
| Ctrl+W | Close tab |
| Ctrl+Shift+T | Reopen tab |
| Ctrl+D | Bookmark |
| Ctrl+B | Bookmarks |
| Ctrl+F | Find |
| Ctrl+Shift+N | Undercover tab |
| Ctrl+Shift+A | Tab switcher |
| Ctrl+Shift+I | Inspector |
| Ctrl++ / Ctrl+- | Zoom in / out |
| Ctrl+0 | Reset zoom |
| F5 | Reload |
| Alt+Left / Alt+Right | Back / Forward |
| F6 | Address bar |