🍫 Darkelf Cocoa Browser

A native macOS browser built with PyObjC and WebKit, designed for private, streamlined browsing.

Current release: v7.1.8 · Platform: macOS · Engine: Apple WebKit

Website · Releases · Source code

About Darkelf Cocoa

Darkelf Cocoa is a macOS-native browser built using Python, PyObjC, AppKit, and Apple's WebKit framework. Its interface combines familiar browser navigation with built-in privacy controls, an ephemeral browsing approach, and customizable appearance.

Darkelf Cocoa is a separate implementation from Darkelf Shadow CE. It uses the system WebKit engine rather than QtWebEngine.

Highlights

🛡️ Privacy-first browsing

• Ephemeral browsing design that avoids maintaining a conventional persistent browsing-history database.
• Built-in tracker and advertising content-rule defenses.
• WebKit content-rule management with improved compilation compatibility in v7.1.8.
• Site-aware protection policies, including trusted, protected, and standard handling where supported.
• First-party/tab isolation architecture.
• Privacy monitoring and a MiniAI status interface.
• Session cleanup controls.

Privacy defenses reduce exposure; they do not guarantee anonymity, block every tracker, or eliminate every possible macOS forensic artifact.

🔒 Browser Lock

An optional Browser Lock adds a local access check to the browser:

• Authenticate at startup when Browser Lock is enabled.
• Re-lock after approximately 10 minutes of browser inactivity.
• Re-lock when the browser window is minimized to the Dock.
• Unlock using the macOS authentication dialog, which can offer Touch ID or the Mac account password, depending on the device and its configuration.
• Manage Browser Lock in Privacy & Security.
• Refined locked-state menu behavior and interaction handling.

Darkelf Cocoa delegates authentication to macOS LocalAuthentication. It does not collect or store fingerprint data or your Mac password. Browser Lock is an application-level access feature, not disk or memory encryption.

🎨 Native macOS interface

• AppKit-based navigation, tabs, menus, and keyboard shortcuts.
• Accent-color presets and background themes.
• Accent-aware application/Dock icon and in-app Darkelf shield branding.
• Native macOS appearance and window controls.
• Integrated Find in Page, bookmarks, and download UI.
• Custom window movement, resizing, and arrangement controls.
• Lower-left webpage link preview.

⌨️ Address bar and shortcuts

• Right-click editing controls: Cut, Copy, Paste, Paste and Go, and Select All.
• ⇧⌘V — Paste and Go: navigate to a copied address or search the copied text using the existing address-bar behavior.
• ⌘L — Focus address bar.
• ⌘T — New tab; ⌘W — Close tab.
• ⌘R — Reload; ⌘F — Find in page.
• Built-in Keyboard Shortcuts reference in the browser menu.

What's new in v7.1.8

• Corrected a WebKit content-rule compilation error caused by conflicting rule-trigger conditions.
• Updated the content-rule engine to v15.33, ensuring a fresh compiled rule list.
• Restored reliable adblocking initialization in the compiled macOS application.
• Preserved site-specific compatibility handling for CNN, GameSpot, and Deutsche Welle.
• Refined Browser Lock menu interactions and locked-state behavior.
• Improved native application-menu handling and interface stability.
• Continued improvements to window arrangement, link previews, and macOS integration.
• Verified core browser functionality during pre-release smoke testing.

Known compatibility work: Reddit feed loading and Euronews behavior remain under investigation for a future release.

See the v7.1.8 release notes for the release overview.

Get Darkelf Cocoa

Download the macOS build from GitHub Releases.

A Python package is also available on PyPI. For a source/package installation, use an appropriate supported macOS Python environment and consult the repository's installation instructions and dependencies.

python3.11 -m pip install darkelf-cocoa

The packaged macOS application and Python-launched development environment may display different application names in native system authentication prompts.

Architecture

Darkelf Cocoa uses PyObjC + AppKit for the native interface and WKWebView/WebKit for page rendering. Browser components are separated across modules for UI, tabs, policies, content rules, first-party isolation, monitoring, branding, and themes.

Its content-blocking architecture combines WebKit content-rule lists, site-aware compatibility handling, and an isolated Sentry rule manager.

It relies on the WebKit functionality provided by macOS; support for particular media formats, DRM systems, and websites may vary with the operating system and WebKit implementation.

Security and limitations

Darkelf Cocoa is a privacy-oriented browser, not a promise of complete anonymity or forensic resistance. Browser Lock protects access through the running app but does not replace macOS FileVault, a secure account password, or device-level security controls.

Some websites may require compatibility adjustments, and blocking behavior can vary by site. WebKit content blocking does not guarantee that every advertisement, tracker, or page placeholder will be removed.

License

Licensed under LGPL-3.0-or-later. See the repository's license and third-party notices for the applicable terms.

Darkelf Labs · darkelfbrowser.com