NCraft Browser

A regular browser — just quieter

At the bottom of the window there is a search circle and a tabs button. Click the circle and it grows into the address bar; look away and the bottom chrome fades out of the page's way.

macOS screenshot

Address bar

  • Searches four lists at once: recent queries, tabs and history, text on the open page, and commands. ⌘L / Ctrl+L.
  • When focused, back / forward / reload slide away and a home icon appears — to the widgets screen. Esc in the field cancels typing; Esc outside collapses the bar.
  • Search engine: macOS — from system settings; Windows — Google by default, change with /search (Google, Bing, Yahoo, Ecosia, DuckDuckGo).
  • Clicking the page, or scrolling insistently at its end, hides the bottom chrome; it comes back at the bottom edge.

"/" commands

Type "/" in the address bar:

command what it does
/private private tab: nothing kept on disk, invisible to remote requests
/history clear clear address and query history
/cache clear clear the cache and reload
/devtools developer tools for the tab (Web Inspector / Edge DevTools)
/network slow, /network normal emulate a poor network (macOS 14 or later)
/tab close, /tab close <name> close unnamed tabs / the tab with that name
/language system|en|ru|th interface language, no restart
/relay only|auto connect only through the group's relay — to test TURN, until restart
/search <engine> Windows only: search engine

Tabs

  • The tabs button opens the tab row; while it is open, the same button is "+".
  • Order: current → with missed items → open → the rest. Reorder by hand; "Arrange automatically" restores the order.
  • Give a tab a name. A named tab only closes after you confirm — the name is your work.
  • A tab tile shows how much you missed in this page's discussions.
  • Drag a tab out into its own window.

Site view (the settings strip on a tab tile)

  • Device: phones 375 / 393 / 430, tablets 744 / 820 / 1024, orientation.
  • Zoom (⌘= / ⌘− / ⌘0, Ctrl on Windows) — remembered per tab.
  • Site theme: auto, light, dark; the window follows the site's colours. Sites that ask get the theme hint right away (Sec-CH-Prefers-Color-Scheme). Device and theme are remembered per domain.

What the engine supports

Uploading files to sites, downloads via a save dialog, site dialogs, window.open, full-screen elements, WebGL. Camera, microphone and location for sites — after your consent and the system prompt.

Not yet

A downloads list, website notifications, extensions, mailto: and other external link schemes.

Browsing privacy

History (up to 500 visits), queries, cookies and site data stay on your device. Visiting a site sends nothing to your groups: a page's address joins a group only when you start a topic or a note about it — without the query string and anchor.

This page is a place to talk. Open it in NCraft: notes, tasks and chat about it sit right next to it, in an NCraft group.