Where Caspian is going.

First release

The browser as it left the dock: everything most people install extensions for, built in.

• Chromium engine with Google services removed
• Ad & tracker blocking: EasyList/EasyPrivacy, cosmetic filtering, YouTube ad pruning
• Split view
• Tab groups, pinned tabs, tab search, live hover previews
• Media player (HLS/DASH, subtitles, PiP) and torrent downloads that stream while they arrive
• Family controls with a PIN
• Private windows
• Three themes and accent colours
• DevTools
• Screenshots
• Background updates

Verified sites

A signed list of the real sites, and the plumbing to keep every channel current.

• Verified-site badges from a signed list (Ed25519)
• Updater channels: stable, beta, alpha, dev
• Importer for bookmarks and history from other browsers

Vault and polish

Passwords, printing, the pages nobody wants to see, and the macOS build.

• Password vault: encrypted, DPAPI/Keychain-protected, imports from Chromium browsers, CSV export
• Spellcheck with bundled dictionaries
• Print dialog and save as PDF
• Custom error and certificate pages
• HTTP and proxy sign-in
• Crash reporter
• macOS builds (Apple silicon & Intel)
• Liquid UI popovers and the light/dark polish

Search and bookmarks

Stable on Windows.

• Search suggestions dropdown: engine suggest plus history and bookmarks
• Site-info views
• Political badge for verified campaigns and parties
• Bookmarks manager page
• Performance pass: tab sleeping and freezing, faster startup

Reader view and tools

Reading, developer tools and the small things that add up.

• Reader view: F9, an address-bar icon on articles, type, theme and width controls
• Markdown files render as pages, with syntax-highlighted code
• JSON viewer: tree, filter, raw, copy paths
• Colour picker: magnifier, hex/rgb/hsl, a 50–900 shade scale, harmonies, WCAG contrast, CSS export
• Tab-to-search: type a site, press Tab, type the query; OpenSearch learned from sites
• Mouse gestures
• Tab snooze: a tab goes away and comes back at the time you pick
• Lazy session restore: only the current tab loads
• Media keys
• Address-bar quick actions: settings, history, downloads and more
• New-tab background picture
• Reading list
• Capture an element: hover, click, cropped screenshot
• Keyboard shortcuts you can change
• Find in page: match case
• The + button as part of the tab row
• macOS build, signed and notarized, with Liquid Glass popups on macOS 26

Keel

Caspian's own engine build, and the fixes that came out of running it on real keyboards and real accounts.

• Keel: Qt WebEngine built from source with Caspian's patches — pages paced to the display's refresh rate (120 fps on ProMotion and 144 Hz monitors, was 60), H.264 / AAC / HEVC on every platform, Hunspell spelling everywhere
• Arrow, Home/End, Page and Delete keys reach pages with Chrome's event.code on a physical keyboard, so game controls and easter eggs work
• Google Search signed in no longer crashes the page (the engine choked on the variant Google serves unknown browsers; Caspian now presents exactly as Chrome)
• A page whose process dies shows a crash page with Try again, not a blank tab
• Bookmark card: the star saves the page and opens name, folder (or a new one), Remove and Done — and edits an existing bookmark instead of removing it
• One-time question on the new-tab page about anonymous usage counts
• macOS: thumbnails from the framebuffer, no stall after loads; native glass behind popups

Extensions, vertical tabs, compact mode

The extension runtime and store, and a second way to lay out the browser.

• Chrome-format extensions (MV2 and MV3) in Caspian's own runtime: content scripts, background workers, popups, badges, options, storage, messaging, commands, context menus, notifications
• declarativeNetRequest rules inside Caspian's request pipeline; a Keel hook so extension pages fetch their APIs without CORS, as in Chrome
• Install from the Chrome Web Store (Add to Caspian on the listing, or paste a link), a .crx / .zip, or unpacked; a redesigned caspian:extensions
• Caspian Extension Store at store.getcaspian.app: reviewed, signed, Verified by Caspian on install
• Vertical tabs: a sidebar with pinned icons, headed groups and a New tab row, folding to an icon rail; the classic strip stays the default
• Compact mode: the toolbar and sidebar float in from the window's edge when you need them and stay out of the way otherwise
• Tab groups: a card on the chip for name and colour, pill chips with a count when collapsed, one stroke under the group's tabs
• A new onboarding: theme, accent, tab layout, search, privacy choices, import, default browser
• Gradient app icons on every channel; tabs read better on dark themes; new tabs open without a stall; a slept tab shows its last image while it reloads
• Two crashes from the crash reporter fixed; Google sign-in no longer refuses the browser

One material, two fixes

Caspian's own pages got the look the phone apps launched with, and two things 0.1.6 got wrong were put right.

• Start page, settings, history, bookmarks, downloads and about share one material: an accent-tinted backdrop with glass cards and pills; the start page keeps its dot grid
• Sites that leave their background unpainted (App Store Connect is one) no longer turn black on a dark system theme — the canvas under the web is white, as in Chrome
• Popovers switch in one click and close in one, on macOS too; macOS extension popups open where they belong
• A square glass sheet no longer shows behind the start page's search field

Luna, themes and mods, and the store

Caspian on its own engine build, ways to make it your own with a store to get them from, and the browser basics filled in.

• Luna: Caspian's own engine build — proprietary codecs, the display's refresh rate, and premium streaming (persistent-licence Widevine, so Netflix and other L3 services play where stock builds can't)
• Secure DNS (DNS-over-HTTPS): look up sites over an encrypted connection, with a provider of your choice, so your network can't see or tamper with where you go
• Passkeys and security keys: the sign-in card for choosing a passkey, a key's PIN and touching the key; platform passkeys use the system dialog
• Spaces: named sets of tabs with their own icon and colour, one pill on the tab strip that drops the list, Ctrl+Alt+1–9 to switch; each with a default container
• Containers: separate cookie jars in one profile, so two accounts on one site can stay signed in at once; a tab wears its container's colour; rules that always open a site in one
• Themes: colour packages laid over Dark, Midnight or Light, next to the built-in presets on caspian:themes with the accent colour — ten in the store to start
• Mods: change or add to how Caspian works — a stylesheet over the window, scripts and styles on Caspian's own pages, with settings — several at once on caspian:mods; never on websites, never near your logins
• Extensions in the store, reviewed and signed: Return YouTube Dislike, SponsorBlock and Dark Reader to start; a fix for content scripts on sites that require Trusted Types (YouTube)
• Glance: Alt+click a link to read it as a sheet over the page; Open as tab keeps it
• Customise the toolbar: tick and drag the buttons you want; the rest fold into an overflow menu
• A redesigned sidebar for vertical tabs, and dedicated managers for passwords and sites (caspian:passwords, caspian:sites) built for thousands of entries
• A stronger blocker: uBlock-style scriptlets, procedural cosmetic rules, redirect resources, the uBO filter lists, a daily refresh — without breaking sites
• Widevine on every desktop platform, found on the computer or fetched on request, with a notice only when a site needs it; the weather on the new tab; a link clicked inside a frame no longer counts as a pop-under
• Renderer crashes leave a minidump, so a page that dies can be diagnosed

Queued

Roughly in order. Things move as they get clearer.

Caspian for iOS and Android

The same browser in your pocket, sharing the list, the blocker and the family settings with the desktop.

• Verified-site badges
• Ad & tracker blocking
• Family controls with the same PIN
• Hand-off of tabs between phone and desktop once sync lands

On the table

Under discussion. None of it is promised; all of it is being designed.

• Sync across devices
• Built-in toggleable VPN
• iOS and Android, see above