dumber

Dumber, fully unfeatured unbloated browser for tiling WMs

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/394f5f7e-a475-42da-b483-5a58b2ea2f51

A dumb browser that works like your favorite terminal multiplexer.

Features

• Wayland native: No X11/XWayland dependency, works with Sway, Hyprland, River, Niri, etc.
• Tabs and workspaces: Each tab holds a workspace with split or stacked panes.
• Keyboard-driven: Complete keyboard workflow inspired by Zellij.
• Smart popup handling: OAuth flows, window.open(), and popup deduplication for tiling WMs.
• GPU rendering: Hardware video acceleration with automatic VA-API/VDPAU detection.
• Built-in ad blocking: UBlock-based network filtering (cosmetic filtering in progress).
• Launcher integration: dmenu-style with rofi/fuzzel support, shows favicons and history.
• Search shortcuts: Quick search via aliases (e.g., g:golang for Google).
• Customizable themes: Light and dark palettes with semantic color tokens.
• Persistent storage: SQLite for history, zoom levels, and settings.
• Live configuration: Single config file with hot reload when possible.

Status

Early development with regular releases. Core features work well for daily use but expect some rough edges.

Controls & Shortcuts

Keyboard Shortcuts

Browser Controls

Tab Management

Pane Management

Mouse Controls

Omnibox/Find Mode (when active)

All zoom changes are automatically persisted per-domain and restored on next visit.

Quick Start

Option 1: Use Pre-built Binaries (Recommended)

Download the latest release from the releases page:

wget https://github.com/bnema/dumber/releases/latest/download/dumber_<version>_linux_x86_64.tar.gz
tar -xzf dumber_<version>_linux_x86_64.tar.gz
sudo install -m 755 dumber /usr/local/bin/

Then install runtime dependencies (see Install section for details).

Option 2: Build From Source

Prerequisites:

• Go 1.25+
• Node.js 20+ and npm (for building the embedded TypeScript frontend)
• For GUI build: WebKitGTK 6 and GTK4 dev packages (examples)
  • Debian/Ubuntu: libwebkitgtk-6.0-dev libgtk-4-dev build-essential
  • Arch: webkitgtk-6.0 gtk4 base-devel

Build options:

• GUI (default, recommended):
  • make build # builds frontend + Go with -tags=webkit_cgo
  • Run: ./dist/dumber # to see all available commands.
• CLI‑only (no GUI, CGO disabled):
  • make build-no-gui
  • Run: ./dist/dumber-no-gui version

Development:

• make dev runs go run . (non‑CGO; GUI stubs log to console)
• make test runs tests; make lint runs golangci‑lint

Install

Pre-built Binaries (Recommended)

Pre-built binaries are available for Linux (x86_64/amd64) in the releases page. These include all frontend assets and are ready to use:

# Download and install latest release
wget https://github.com/bnema/dumber/releases/latest/download/dumber_<version>_linux_x86_64.tar.gz
tar -xzf dumber_<version>_linux_x86_64.tar.gz
sudo install -m 755 dumber /usr/local/bin/

Replace <version> with the desired version (e.g., 0.14.1), or use the direct link from the releases page.

Dependencies (required for both pre-built binaries and source builds):

Arch Linux:

# Core WebKitGTK 6.0 and GTK4
sudo pacman -S webkitgtk-6.0 gtk4

# GStreamer for media playback
sudo pacman -S gst-plugins-base gst-plugins-good gst-plugins-bad gst-plugins-ugly gst-libav gst-plugin-pipewire pipewire pipewire-pulse

# Hardware acceleration (choose based on your GPU)
# AMD: sudo pacman -S gstreamer-vaapi mesa
# NVIDIA: sudo pacman -S gstreamer-vaapi libva-nvidia-driver
# Intel: sudo pacman -S gstreamer-vaapi libva-intel-driver intel-media-driver

Debian/Ubuntu:

# Core WebKitGTK and GTK4
sudo apt install libwebkitgtk-6.0-4 libgtk-4-1

# GStreamer for media playback
sudo apt install gstreamer1.0-tools gstreamer1.0-plugins-base gstreamer1.0-plugins-good gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly gstreamer1.0-libav gstreamer1.0-pipewire

# Hardware acceleration
sudo apt install gstreamer1.0-vaapi va-driver-all

Build From Source

Note: go install will not work for this project because the frontend assets must be built first and embedded into the binary.

Prerequisites:

• Go 1.25+
• Node.js 20+ and npm (for building the embedded TypeScript frontend)
• WebKitGTK 6 and GTK4 dev packages:
  • Debian/Ubuntu: libwebkitgtk-6.0-dev libgtk-4-dev build-essential
  • Arch: webkitgtk-6.0 gtk4 base-devel

Build options:

• GUI build (default, recommended):
  • Clone the repo and run make build (builds frontend first, then Go with GUI support)
  • The resulting ./dist/dumber binary includes the native GUI window
• CLI‑only (no native window):
  • Clone the repo and run make build-no-gui
  • The resulting ./dist/dumber-no-gui binary runs CLI flows with GUI code stubbed

Usage

• Open a URL or search:
  • dumber browse https://example.com
  • dumber browse example.com # scheme auto‑added
  • dumber browse dumb://home # built-in homepage with stats
  • dumber browse g:golang # Google search via shortcut
• Show version information:
  • dumber version # display version, commit, and build date
• Launcher integration (dmenu‑style examples):
  • rofi: dumber dmenu | rofi -dmenu -p "🔍 " | dumber dmenu --select
  • fuzzel: dumber dmenu | fuzzel --dmenu -p "🔍 " | dumber dmenu --select
• Manage browsing history:
  • dumber history # list recent history (default: 20 entries)
  • dumber history list -n 50 # list 50 recent entries
  • dumber history search golang # search history for "golang"
  • dumber history stats # show history statistics
  • dumber history clear # clear all history (with confirmation)
  • dumber history clear --force # clear all history (no confirmation)
• Clean up data and cache:
  • dumber purge # purge all data (with confirmation)
  • dumber purge --force # purge all data (no confirmation)
  • dumber purge -d -H -c # purge database and both caches
  • dumber purge --browser-data # purge WebKit data (cookies, etc.)
• Manage logs:
  • dumber logs list # list available log files
  • dumber logs tail # tail current log file
  • dumber logs clean # clean up old log files

Dmenu mode invocation

You can invoke dmenu mode in two ways:

• Subcommand (recommended): dumber dmenu … and dumber dmenu --select
• Root flag (generate options only): dumber --dmenu

Note: The root flag path only generates options; for processing a selection (--select), use the dmenu subcommand as the receiving command.

In GUI mode the app serves an embedded homepage via dumb://homepage, and frontend assets under dumb://app/....

Tab Management

Each tab holds its own workspace. Each workspace can contain multiple panes (split or stacked). Switch between tabs to switch between independent workspaces.

How it Works

1. Enter Tab Mode: Press Ctrl+T to enter tab mode (modal interface with timeout)
2. Create/Close Tabs: Use keyboard shortcuts:
   • N or C - New tab
   • X - Close current tab
   • R - Rename tab
3. Navigate: Use Ctrl+Tab / Ctrl+Shift+Tab for quick tab switching, or L/H in tab mode
4. Exit: Press Escape to exit tab mode or wait for timeout

Tab mode provides visual feedback with an orange border indicator.

Pane Management

Split your browser window into multiple panes, each running independent web sessions.

How it Works

1. Enter Pane Mode: Press Ctrl+P to enter pane mode (modal interface with timeout)
2. Split or Stack Panes: Use arrow keys or letter shortcuts:
   • → or R - Split right
   • ← or L - Split left
   • ↑ or U - Split up
   • ↓ or D - Split down
   • S - Stack panes (Zellij-style, shows title bars for collapsed panes)
3. Navigate: Use Alt+Arrow Keys to move focus between split panes, or Alt+Up/Down to navigate within stacked panes
4. Close: Press X in pane mode to close the current pane

Configuration

Configuration file: ~/.config/dumber/config.toml (supports TOML, JSON, YAML)

A default config is created on first run. Changes are applied automatically (hot reload). Override any setting with DUMB_BROWSER_* or DUMBER_* environment variables.

Full documentation: docs/CONFIG.md - Complete reference for all settings, workspace controls, shortcuts, styling, and more.

Building With WebKitGTK 6 (GTK4)

• The GUI requires building with -tags=webkit_cgo and CGO enabled.
• Ensure WebKitGTK 6 and GTK4 dev headers are installed (see prerequisites).
• Make targets handle both frontend and Go build steps:
  • make build-gui (CGO enabled)
  • make build (CGO enabled by default in the Makefile’s main build)

Without the native tag, a stub backend is used: you can still run CLI flows and see logs, but no native window is displayed.

Media (GStreamer) & Hardware Acceleration

WebKitGTK uses GStreamer for media playback. Dumber includes automatic hardware video acceleration support that detects your GPU and configures the appropriate drivers.

Hardware Acceleration Features:

• Automatic GPU detection (AMD, NVIDIA, Intel)
• VA-API and VDPAU driver configuration
• Support for H.264, HEVC, VP9, and AV1 codecs
• Significantly reduced CPU usage during video streaming

Required packages:

• Arch Linux:
  • sudo pacman -S gst-plugins-base gst-plugins-good gst-plugins-bad gst-plugins-ugly gst-libav gst-plugin-pipewire pipewire pipewire-pulse
  • Hardware accel: gstreamer-vaapi mesa (AMD), libva-nvidia-driver (NVIDIA), libva-intel-driver intel-media-driver (Intel)
• Debian/Ubuntu:
  • sudo apt install gstreamer1.0-tools gstreamer1.0-plugins-base gstreamer1.0-plugins-good gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly gstreamer1.0-libav gstreamer1.0-pipewire
  • Hardware accel: gstreamer1.0-vaapi va-driver-all (covers most GPUs)

Contribute

I will gladly accept contributions, especially related to UI/UX enhancements. Feel free to open an issue and let's discuss it!

Security & Privacy

• History and zoom settings are stored locally in SQLite under XDG state.
• The tmp/ directory is ignored by Git and kept out of history.

Roadmap

• ✅ WebKitGTK 6 (GTK4) migration (GPU/Vulkan path complete)
• ✅ GPU rendering (Vulkan via GTK4 renderer) with graceful CPU fallback
• ✅ Modal pane management with binary tree layout and keyboard-driven workflow
• ✅ Tab management system with modal controls
• 🚧 UBlock-based content filtering (early stage - network blocking works, cosmetic filtering needs work)
• Full Vim-style motion and keyboard navigation across pages and UI
• Performance work: faster startup, lower memory, snappier UI
• Other shiny things I'm not yet aware of

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.