In the Spaces menu, a shared Space's sync status now sits on its own line under the Space's name, so a long name is no longer cut short.
Fixed
With Shared Spaces on, the Spaces menu no longer keeps saying "Sync is busy; retrying." or marks shared Spaces "Waiting to upload" during routine sync. They now appear only when sync is actually being held back or a Space has changes it hasn't uploaded yet.
With Also for links I open in a new tab on, a link you open in the background (middle-click, ⌘-click or Ctrl-click) whose rule needs a new window now opens that window behind the one you're using, instead of in front.
Shared Spaces. Keep a Space the same on each of your computers. With Sync on, open Settings → Sync, turn on Spaces and groups under What syncs, and choose which Spaces to share. Their open tabs, tab names, groups and pinned tabs, in the same order, then match on every device that has it turned on, and a change on one appears on the others. Every device that turns it on can change these Spaces. The page you're looking at never changes under you: a close or a new address from another device waits until you leave that tab. The switch is off by default and set on each device; turning it off keeps a copy of your Spaces on that device, and your other devices keep syncing. Shared Spaces is end-to-end encrypted like the rest of Sync and belongs to the Personal profile. Private tabs, internal pages and local files never sync. Up to 25 Spaces can be shared, and a Space you delete still uses sync storage for 30 days. A Space too large to sync says so and asks you to split it.
Recently closed on every device. A tab you close in a shared Space closes on your other devices too, and their Recently closed lists it with the name of the device it was closed on, so you can bring it back from any of them. Closed tabs still use sync storage for 30 days.
Turn on Sync without a passphrase. In Settings → Sync, Turn on Sync starts syncing this device with nothing to name or remember. To add another device, choose Add device to show a code, and on the other device choose Add this device with a code and enter it; the sheet says when the device joined. Because a sync like this has no passphrase, the device that started it offers Keep a way back in: copy its recovery code into your password manager, since it's the only way to reach your synced data if you ever lose all your devices. Starting with a sync name and passphrase is still there under Other ways.
Play the Sunrise when Blanc opens. Settings → Appearance → Play the Sunrise when Blanc opens draws the Sunrise once on the first Start Page after launch, over the page as it already looks. It's off by default and set on each device. Any click or key ends it, and it's skipped when your system reduces motion.
Links you open in a new tab can follow your link rules. Turn on Settings → Profiles → Open links from other apps → Also for links I open in a new tab, and a link you open in a new tab (a click on a link that opens a new tab, a middle-click, ⌘-click or Ctrl-click, or Open Link in New Tab) opens where a rule sends it: another profile, another Space or a private tab. It's off by default and set on each device. Links a page opens by itself, such as a sign-in window, and links in private tabs stay where they are.
Connect your iPhone. Pair Blanc for iPhone, now in a public beta on TestFlight, by scanning a code. In Settings → Sync choose Connect your iPhone (it's also in the Start Page's Finish setup list), and on your iPhone open Blanc, choose Pair with your Blanc and point it at the code. If Sync isn't on yet, Blanc asks before turning it on. When Sync is on, Add device shows the same scannable code.
Changed
Vertical tabs show your Space. With tabs on the side, the current Space's mark sits in the rail's top row and opens the Spaces menu; with no Spaces yet it offers them. The rail's footer gains a button beside New tab that puts the current tab, or the selected tabs, in a new group.
Fixed
A tab a site opened in the background (with ⌘-click or Ctrl-click on GitHub or YouTube, for example) no longer stops you from switching Spaces once it has loaded.
Site icons that aren't square, such as a wide logo, keep their shape instead of being stretched.
Reader Mode. Read an article without the clutter around it. Type /reader, or choose Enter Reader Mode when the expanded Island offers it. Blanc lifts the article out of the page you've already loaded, on your computer, and keeps its headings, links, images with captions, tables and code. Choose System, Light, Dark or Sepia, one of four typefaces, a text size from 16 to 28 pixels and one of three widths; Blanc remembers your choice on this device. Exit Reader Mode returns to the page as you left it, without reloading. Reader Mode is free. Some pages aren't articles, and on those Blanc says so and leaves the page as it was.
Move to Space. Once you have a space, a tab's menu has Move to Space ▸: it moves the tab, as it is, to the end of another space without leaving the window you're in. New Space… in the same menu makes a space that starts with that tab. A tab group's menu has Move Group to Space ▸, which moves the whole group with its name and colour, and Open Link in Space ▸ in a link's menu opens the link in another space. Private tabs don't offer these.
Select several tabs. In the ⌘L panel and in vertical tabs, ⌘-click (Ctrl-click on Windows and Linux) adds or removes a tab, Shift-click selects a range, and Shift with the arrow keys extends the selection. Right-click a selected tab to move, group, pin, mute, reload, quiet, copy the links of or close them all at once. Closing them is one entry in Recently closed.
Send to Device. Send the page you're on to another of your synced Blanc devices from the tab menu's Send to Device ▸ or with /send <device>. It waits for you in Sent to this device at the top of the Other devices drawer and on the Ledger start page; nothing opens by itself. Pages stay up to 7 days. Private tabs and internal pages can't be sent. Sending needs Profile Sync on both devices.
Open links from other apps where they belong. When another app opens a link in Blanc (a link you click in Slack, Mail or a terminal, say), rules in Settings → Profiles → Open links from other apps decide which profile, and optionally which Space, it opens in. A rule reads "Links to jira.example.com open in Work". It matches that domain and its subdomains, or, from the rule's ⋮ menu, any address that contains text you choose. The first matching rule wins. A Space that isn't open opens in a new window of its profile, and a rule can open its links as private tabs. Links no rule matches open where they always have, in the window you used last. The group appears once you have two profiles or a Space. Rules stay on this device and aren't synced.
Make a rule from the page you're on. With two or more profiles, the shield popover has Open links to this site in this profile (or …in this Space when the window shows one); click it again to remove the rule. /route in the ⌘L panel does the same for the current page, and /route off removes its rule. Neither is available in a private tab.
Copy Link (⇧⌘C, Ctrl+Shift+C on Windows and Linux). Copies the current page's address without selecting the address first, from the keyboard or Edit → Copy Link. The Island briefly says "Link copied". On macOS, ⌥⇧⌘C copies the address without tracking parameters (Edit → Copy Clean Link). Blank and internal pages copy nothing.
`/copy` and `/copy clean`. The same two copies from the ⌘L panel, so the clean copy has a keyboard path on Windows and Linux too.
Ctrl+Tab by most recent use (Linux and Windows). Ctrl+Tab goes back to the tab you used before, and a second tap comes back. Hold Ctrl and press Tab again to step further back; a row of tab icons under the Island shows where you'll land, and letting go of Ctrl switches there. Esc stays put (on Windows, Ctrl+Esc opens the Start menu, which also leaves you where you were), a click on a tile switches at once, and Ctrl+W closes the picked tab. Ctrl+PageDown and Ctrl+PageUp still go by position. Turn it off in Settings → General → Switch tabs with Ctrl+Tab. On macOS, Ctrl+Tab still goes by position for now.
Vertical tab text size. Settings → General → Island → Vertical tab text size: Default, Large or Extra large. Titles and group names grow together, in every open window at once.
Site icons on the Island. Settings → General → Island → Show site icons on the Island draws each tab on the Island as its site’s icon instead of a dot, so you can tell which tab is which without hovering. A small dot under an icon marks the current tab. Icons take more room, so fewer tabs fit before the rest go into a count. It’s off by default and stays on this device.
Changed
Switching spaces says which tab is in the way, and is in the way less often. When a page has to stay open during a switch, the switch box names up to three of them with the reason (still loading, using your camera, microphone or screen, a pop-up open, or connected to the page that opened it, as during a sign-in) and a Show tab button. A tab another page opened no longer holds the window once that page has closed, and a page whose ad or chat frame keeps reloading no longer counts as loading.
Settings → Sync shows your devices. This device comes first, with a name you can edit in place, followed by your other synced devices and their platforms. What syncs is shown as tiles. The recovery code, joining with a code and turning sync off are now under More options.
Pinned tabs always lead the Island's dots, including pinned tabs inside a group, and show as rounded squares (on a tile with site icons on). While a pinned tab is active, the Island keeps showing its group, or the last section you were in.
Fixed
Open in Glance in a tab's menu now works on either page of a two-page split: that page leaves the split and floats over the other.
With vertical tabs on Windows and Linux, the main-menu button moves into the rail, so it stays reachable.
Blanc 1.43.0 didn't start on Linux distributions whose C library (glibc) is older than 2.38, such as Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and Debian 12, so Linux updates were held at 1.42.1. Blanc 1.43.1 needs only glibc 2.28 and starts on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, and Linux updates resume with it. If you downloaded the 1.43.0 AppImage, download 1.43.1 again; 1.43.0 can't start to update itself.
Protected video playback. Blanc now plays video and music that sites protect with Widevine DRM (copy protection), on macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel), Windows and Linux. The first time Blanc starts after the update, it downloads the Widevine component from Google's update service in the background, and you can keep browsing meanwhile. Protected media in Settings → Help shows when the component is ready. On Linux, Blanc asks you to Restart Blanc once the component is installed, and again after the component updates; on any system the same button appears if setup fails or takes too long. Netflix and Spotify were tried on an Apple Silicon Mac. Whether a particular site plays still depends on that site.
Sunrise Spectrum and Sunrise Amber. Two new macOS app icons: the Sunrise redrawn in glass as a ring sun, rays and water lines inside a white outline. Spectrum is coral and red over royal blue and navy on a gray tile; Amber is gold over bronze on a cream tile. Both tiles turn dark in Dark mode. Choose one in Settings → General → App icon.
Neutral surface style. A new Surface style setting in Settings → General swaps the cream and gold of the Start Page and of Favorites, History, Downloads and Settings for plain ink and gray, in Light and Dark. Sunrise stays the default. Wallpapers, app icons and the Sunrise mark don't change. The choice applies to this device and to the next page that opens.
Changed
Pinned tabs can join a Split View. A split is now pinned or unpinned as a whole. Split a pinned tab with any other tab, or press Keep as split on a Glance card over a pinned page, and the split is pinned. Pin Split and Unpin Split in either tab's menu pin or unpin both tabs. A pinned split is one row under Pinned in the ⌘L panel and in vertical tabs, stays pinned after a relaunch, and comes back pinned with Reopen Closed Tab. Before, pinned tabs couldn't join a split, and pinning a tab took it out of its split.
Blanc now runs on castLabs' Electron for Content Security 44.9.3, a build of Electron that can play Widevine-protected media, instead of Electron 44.8.0. Chromium stays at 152.0.7977.167. The optional uBlock Origin blocker remains available on this version. It includes Electron 44.9.1's security fix that stops trusting compromised eMudhra intermediate certificates.
On macOS, an HTML file you open from Finder or another app now opens in its own window as a static preview instead of in a Blanc tab. Its scripts don't run, and it can't load anything from the network or from other files, so only what is inside the file itself shows.
Local HTML tabs from earlier versions are kept. A local HTML file's tab, restored from your last session, a Space, a pinned tab or Reopen Closed Tab, keeps its place and title and shows a short explanation instead of the page. The file itself is unchanged: open it in another app, or close the tab.
Tabs that a page opens keep that page's restrictions. These are tabs from a link that opens a new tab, a ⌘-click or Ctrl-click, a middle-click, or a page's own pop-up. Blanc can't rebuild such a tab with those restrictions, so it never goes quiet and can't be duplicated. After a relaunch, or when you reopen it after closing it, it shows This tab can’t be reopened and a Copy link button instead of loading the page. Tabs you open yourself are unaffected.
Fixed
A page you opened while Blanc was still starting could show a "blocked" error page even though the page itself had loaded. Blanc holds web pages for a moment at startup until its blocker is ready, then opens them; the error no longer appears over a page that opened normally.
The floating Glance card stands out more from the page behind it: it casts a deeper shadow, its corners are rounder, and the page inside it sits slightly inset under its header.
Fixed
On Windows, with Auto-hide set to Float, the floating Island no longer loses its rounded ends when it gets wider, for example after you open more tabs or visit a site with a longer address.
Search priority results. A new setting in Settings → General, under Island, puts search suggestions first as you type: the search for what you typed and your search engine's suggestions come before your tabs, groups, Spaces, Favorites and history, and Enter searches. It is off by default, so the order you know stays the same until you turn it on.
Fixed
On Windows and Linux, the first permission prompt in a window no longer keeps the keyboard, so what you type next goes to the page instead of being lost.
With Auto-hide set to Float, the floating Island casts one shadow again, without a second outline along its bottom edge.
Clock Font & color. Choose how the Billboard Start Page's clock looks, like the iOS Lock Screen: open Customize and pick Clock, or right-click the clock. Pick a font (Instrument Sans, Instrument Sans Condensed, Inter or Roboto Flex), its weight and its height, then a color: Automatic or one of eight colors with a tone. Glass bends the page behind the numerals like glass; Solid draws them flat. Every clock now has a soft shadow so it stays readable on any background.
Start Page pins. Pin up to eight pages to the Start Page, and they come first on every layout, newest first. Pin a Billboard tile, a favorite on Ledger, Shelf or Tally, a favorite on the Favorites page, or the current page from a tab's right-click menu with Pin to Start Page. Pins sync with Profile Sync.
Fixed
After a site asks for a permission, the keyboard goes back to that page instead of to a tab you can't see.
On the Billboard Start Page in dark mode, a tile's × is visible again.
Split View. Show two tabs side by side in one window. Right-click a tab and choose Split with, or press Keep as split on a Glance card. Drag the divider between the panes to resize them. The pane you click is the current tab, so the Island, Back and Reload follow it, and each pane's corner shows its site. A split stays together in the ⌘L panel and comes back after a relaunch and in Blanc Spaces. Remove from Split in a tab's menu (or the × in its corner) takes one tab out; Close Split closes both, and Reopen Closed Tab brings the split back.
Changed
Glance floats over the page. The tab you pick now opens as a large card over the current page instead of beside it, and the page behind stays usable. Drag the card's header to move it, drag an edge to resize it, and double-click the header to put it back; Blanc remembers where you left it. Open as tab makes the Glance page the current tab, and Keep as split turns the two into a Split View. Switching tabs closes the Glance, and so does Escape on the card's header; Escape inside the page stays with the page.
With Auto-hide on, the Island floats over the page when it comes back instead of pushing the page down. To keep the old behavior, choose Push the page down under When the Island comes back in Settings → General. While it floats, the Island comes back only from the top edge of the window (or ⌘L, Ctrl+L on Windows and Linux) and hides as soon as the pointer moves into the page, and the window buttons hide and come back with it.
Fixed
After you close a window's last tab, the address field is ready to type into, as it is after ⌘T.
Dark and private tabs load on a dark background instead of flashing white.
Auto-hide the Island. Turn on Auto-hide the Island in Settings → General, from the View menu, or with ⌘⌥B on macOS (Ctrl+Alt+B on Windows and Linux), and the page fills the whole window. Point at the top edge of the window, rest the pointer near the top, or press ⌘L (Ctrl+L) to bring the Island back; it slides away again once you move off it. It's off by default.
Tab Archive. Turn on Archive inactive tabs in Settings → General, and loose tabs you haven't looked at for 12 hours, a day, 7 days or 30 days close themselves into an Archive. Pinned, grouped and private tabs are never archived, and neither is a tab that is playing media or holding something you typed. Find archived tabs in the ⌘L panel, or in History → Archived tabs (or /archive), and restore them with one click. The Archive stays on this device and keeps each tab for 30 days. It's off by default; a new profile offers it during setup.
Sunrise Gold. A new macOS app icon: the Sunrise in glass over gold, soft in Light and polished in Dark. Choose it in Settings → General → App icon.
What's New. After an update that adds features, Blanc opens a page on blanc.day showing the highlights, once.
Changed
Settings → General is grouped into cards: Island, Appearance, Start Page, Search and Browsing. The theme setting is now labeled Theme.
A panel opened by hover closes when you move away from it, unless you used it.
On macOS, the window buttons sit where Safari and Finder put them.
Your own Start Page image. Open Customize on the Start Page and choose Your image under Wallpaper to show a JPEG or PNG of your own, up to 25 MB. Wash (Auto, Light, Dark or Spotlight) and Fade keep the page readable over it. Blanc keeps a resized copy on this device only, with location, camera and time details removed. It isn't synced, and private tabs never show it. Settings → General → Start Page image offers the same choice.
A Start Page color. Choose Color under Wallpaper to paint the Start Page in one of the eight colors Spaces use, as a Soft, Solid or Gradient fill. Turn on Match each space's color, and a window that belongs to a space shows that space's color instead. The color settings sync with Profile Sync; an image chosen on this device still takes priority here. Private tabs never show the color.
Tab group colors. A group can take one of eight colors, the same ones Spaces use, or none, which is the default. A colored group's block in the ⌘L panel and on the vertical tabs rail takes a light tint, its name gets a dot, and its tabs' dots in the Island take the color.
A menu for each group. Right-click a group's header, or press the ⋮ that appears when you point at it. The menu holds the group's name, its color, New Tab in Group, Move Group to New Window, Ungroup and Close Group.
Put ungrouped tabs anywhere. Drag an ungrouped tab above, between or below your groups in the ⌘L panel or on the vertical tabs rail, or move it with ⌥⇧↑ and ⌥⇧↓. Each run of ungrouped tabs gets its own place in the Island's dots and in ⌘1–9. New tabs still land at the bottom, and windows and spaces saved before this update open exactly as before.
More in the tab menu. Right-click a tab for New Tab Below, Close Tabs Above and Close Tabs Below, which leave pinned tabs alone and can be reopened in one go, and Mute Site, which mutes every tab on that site, including ones you open there later, until you quit Blanc.
Pinned pages. A pinned tab remembers the page you pinned it on. When you reopen Blanc after quitting normally, each pinned tab starts back on its pinned page. After a crash, it reopens on the page you were on. Right-click a pinned tab for Back to Pinned Page or Replace Pinned Page with Current.
Open the Island on hover. Turn on Open the Island on hover in Settings → General, and resting the pointer on the Island's address for a moment opens the panel. It's off by default.
Site icons on bang rows. Bangs in the ⌘L panel now show each site's icon. Blanc uses an icon you already have from your own visits when it can. Otherwise it asks blanc.day's icon server for that one site's icon and keeps a small copy on this device. Private tabs never ask.
Tooltips throughout the Island. Buttons in the ⌘L panel and on the resting Island now show their tooltip reliably when you point at them.
Changed
Links open as ungrouped tabs. A link opened in a new tab from a grouped tab now opens ungrouped, at the bottom, like any new tab, instead of joining the group.
Quieter private mode. Private tabs no longer draw dashed outlines. The Island's private marker is a small Private label that shows its × when you point at it, the header on a private Start Page matches its wallpaper, and the private Start Page shows the date.
The Start Page footer sits on the wallpaper instead of on a solid band, shaded to match each wallpaper and time of day so it stays easy to read.
The Island's reload, favorite and close buttons match in size and hover, and a button you can't use right now is dimmed instead of nearly disappearing.
A clearer Glance icon in the ⌘L panel, and larger pin, mute, Glance and close buttons on tab rows.
Fixed
On Linux, Invite a Friend now copies the invite when no mail app opens it, and says so.
The scroll bar in the ⌘L panel and on the vertical tabs rail no longer covers the end of each row.
Dragging a tab to the top of your unpinned tabs now works when you have no pinned tabs.
Bangs. In the ⌘L or Ctrl+L panel, type an exclamation mark and a site's code before your search, like !yt lofi, and Blanc opens that site's results directly, whichever search engine you use. The code also works at the end (lofi !yt), and a code on its own, like !yt, opens the site. Type ! on its own to see the bangs you used recently and a set of popular ones, then keep typing to search more than 10,000 bangs by code or site name. The list is Kagi's open bang list. It ships inside Blanc and changes only with a Blanc update, so Blanc never looks bangs up online. Add your own bangs, or turn bangs off, in Settings → General. Blanc doesn't ask your search engine for suggestions while a bang is in the box. The bangs you used recently stay on this device, and private tabs don't record them.
Add a device to Sync with a code. On a device that already syncs, go to Settings → Sync and choose Add another device. It shows a code that works for ten minutes. On the new device, choose Add this device to my sync and enter the code. Your sync name and passphrase still work too. A device that started its own sync by mistake can join yours with Connect to a different sync with a code. Copy recovery code puts a code on the clipboard for your password manager, which also adds a device.
Name your devices. Right-click a device under Other devices in the ⌘L panel and choose Rename Device…, or set This device's name in Settings → Sync. The name shows on your other devices running 1.36.0; earlier versions keep showing the computer's name.
Invite a Friend.Help → Invite a Friend…, or /invite in the ⌘L or Ctrl+L panel, opens a new email in your mail app with a short invite and a link to download Blanc. You choose who it goes to and send it yourself. Blanc sends nothing and doesn't learn who you invited. If no mail app opens, the invite is copied so you can paste it.
Rename, ungroup or close a group from its header. Right-click a group's header in the ⌘L panel or on the vertical tabs rail and choose Rename Group…, Ungroup or Close Group.
About Blanc shows the Chromium version Blanc runs on.
What's new after an update. Once Blanc restarts into a new version, the Start Page footer shows a What's new in 1.36.0 pill that opens that release's notes on blanc.day. It stays for seven days, or until you open it or close it with its ×. While it shows, it takes the place of the Patron pill. Fresh installs and private tabs don't show it.
Changed
A tidier ⌘L panel.
Recently closed is a band under Pinned. It's folded each time the panel opens; unfold it to see every closed tab Blanc keeps (up to 25), newest first. Drag its header to move it among your groups. Each window remembers where you put it, and so does each space.
The footer is one line: New tab, Private, Other devices and the tools. Tabs from your other devices moved from the bottom of the list into an Other devices drawer above the footer, shown only when another device shares its tabs.
A tab in Glance shows a Glance icon beside pin and close instead of a "glance" label.
Labels in the panel use sentence case, and slash commands and bang codes sit in small chips.
Group names keep the capitals you type. Matching still ignores case, so /group research joins a group named Research. Group names saved before this update get a capital first letter once.
Finish setup leads with Make Blanc your default on macOS and Windows, and checks it off once Blanc is your default browser. If you finish setup on a new install without switching, Blanc asks once more, between 12 hours and 14 days later, with Set as default and Not now, and never again.
A Mac now appears on your other devices under its computer name, not a name taken from the network such as "mac.lan".
On Windows, Blanc and its installer name Bananify Creative as the company, so Windows Firewall's prompt and Settings → Apps show Bananify Creative instead of GitHub, Inc.
Fixed
Open tabs could stop syncing to your other devices while one tab's title kept changing, such as a timer or an unread count.
Name your tabs. Right-click a tab and choose Rename Tab…, or type /rename and a name in the ⌘L or Ctrl+L panel, to give a tab a name of your own instead of the page's title. Reset Tab Title in the same menu, or /rename on its own, goes back to the page title. The name stays when you browse to another site, when the tab goes quiet, when you move it to a new window, reopen it after closing it, save it in a space or restart Blanc. With Profile Sync sharing your open tabs, your other devices show the name too. History and Favorites keep the page's own title, and a private tab's name is forgotten when Blanc quits.
Open a link straight into Glance. Right-click a link and choose Open Link in Glance to see it beside the page you're on. Typing /glance in the ⌘L or Ctrl+L panel opens the Glance picker, and /glance followed by a few words opens it showing only the matching tabs.
Back and Reload in Glance. The page you keep beside your main page in Glance now has its own Back button and Reload (or Stop) button.
Back and Forward shortcuts: ⌘[ and ⌘] on macOS, Alt+Left and Alt+Right on Windows and Linux.
Changed
Glance follows the page you're using. When you click into the page in Glance, Reload, Close Tab, Find, zoom, Print, Back, Forward, mouse gestures and the 1Password fill act on that page instead of the main page. When that page opens a link in a new tab, the link opens in Glance; links you open in the background still open as background tabs. ⌘L, ⌘T, ⌘1–9, the shield and slash commands still act on the main page.
Glance opens and closes with a short slide and fade (a plain fade when Reduce Motion is on), its picker rows look like the ⌘L list, and a private tab in Glance shows the private label. While Glance is open the Island hides its tab dots to keep room for the address.
Blanc's interface text is now set in Instrument Sans. In light mode, the Start Page and the Favorites, History, Downloads and Settings sheets use a new warm off-white palette, Blanc White.
The Sunrise app icon and the Sunrise mark inside Blanc are redrawn from a vector drawing, so they are sharper at large sizes on macOS, Windows and Linux.
Blanc no longer starts its screen-sharing helper every time it launches. It starts the first time a site asks to share your screen, so idle Blanc uses a little less memory.
Updated to Electron 44.8.0 and Chromium 152.0.7977.167 for upstream fixes. The optional uBlock Origin blocker remains available on this version.
Fixed
PDFs show in Blanc's built-in viewer again. Since v1.20.0 every PDF opened as an empty viewer: a dark toolbar with no pages.
Importing Favorites from Chrome could find nothing when you were signed in to Chrome. Recent Chrome keeps a signed-in profile's bookmarks in a separate file, which Blanc didn't read. Blanc now imports from both files, without duplicates. This also applies to Edge, Brave, Chromium and Vivaldi.
With uBlock Origin chosen, some requests could get through unblocked while uBlock Origin reloaded its filter lists, which it does shortly after launch, after a list update and after you change filters. Pages now wait for the reload to finish, usually less than a second.
Shortened slash commands put the command into the name: /gr work made a group named "/gr work", /sav and /spa did the same, and /the dark did nothing. They now work like the full commands.
In Glance, sound from a video in the Glance page now plays, and a site in the Glance page can ask to share your screen. Moving the main page to a new window, or closing the group that holds it, now makes the Glance page the main page, and closing the Glance page returns the keyboard to the main page.
Glance's layout: the divider stays under the pointer while you drag it. When Glance is stacked, the Island is centered on the window and the picker fits. On Windows and Linux the window buttons stay readable over the Glance header, and with Glance open the Island no longer slides under the macOS window buttons, or under the Windows and Linux ones with vertical tabs.
⌘⇧G (Ctrl+Shift+G on Windows and Linux) opens the Glance picker even with one tab open, where it explains that Glance needs another tab. Closing Glance while its picker is open closes the picker too.
Screen readers now announce when you reorder tabs in the ⌘L list.
Kagi, or your own search engine. Settings → General → Search engine now offers Kagi, and Custom… for any search engine that puts your search words in its address, such as SearXNG. Paste that address with %s where the words go, for example https://searx.example.org/search?q=%s. It syncs with your other settings when Profile Sync is on. Plain http:// addresses work only for this computer or your home network.
Kagi shows live suggestions as you type, like the other search engines. Kagi needs a Kagi account, and private tabs don't share your sign-in, so a Kagi search in a private tab asks you to sign in. A custom search engine shows no suggestions, so nothing you type is sent before you press Enter.
Changed
In Settings, the lists of sites that skip ad blocking or Dark websites now sit directly under their switches, in one bordered box, and every site has an always-visible × to remove it.
Fixed
On Linux, a page could stop redrawing and barely respond to scrolling after you came back to its tab: by switching tabs, viewing it beside another tab with Glance, reopening a closed tab, returning to a space or moving it to a new window. These pages now keep drawing.
On Linux, with Settings → General → Quiet inactive tabs turned on, a background tab that keeps data for the current session could come back frozen after it was quieted: it didn't redraw or scroll. It now reloads, redraws and responds to scrolling again when you go back to it.
On Windows and Linux, closing the last window with Blanc's own close button (✕) lost your tabs: the next launch opened only a new tab. Blanc now keeps them, as Quit already did.
On Windows and Linux, closing Blanc's original window while another Blanc window stayed open didn't fully close it: its pages kept running, and it came back with its tabs the next time you started Blanc. It now closes for good. Blanc also no longer opens an extra empty window after restoring only a second window.
Paste and Go with a search operator such as site:example.com opened a broken address. It now searches.
In Settings → Privacy & Security, an invalid custom Encrypted DNS address could switch you to a custom address you had saved earlier. It now keeps the provider you had. The error under the field now shows in red, and screen readers announce it.
Blanc's interface is available in Italian, machine-translated, alongside German, Spanish, French and Portuguese (Brazil). If your system uses Italian, Blanc now follows it; choose English or another language any time in Settings → General → Language.
Blanc Spaces, redesigned. Each space now has a colour and a symbol, shown at the start of the Island; click it to switch, edit, reorder or delete (with Undo). Pick any colour — Blanc keeps the symbol readable in light and dark mode.
Changed
Blanc Spaces is free for everyone. Anyone can save, switch between and import spaces, including bringing Spaces over from Arc. Blanc Patron is now simply a way to support Blanc — thank you to every Patron whose support made Spaces possible.
Fixed
Switching between spaces no longer stops with "Your retained spaces are full." Every switch now goes through. To keep memory in check, Blanc may free up memory used by tabs in spaces you left a while ago; those tabs reload when you go back to them.
On Linux, with Settings → General → Quiet inactive tabs turned on, a background tab that keeps data for the current session could stay loaded instead of freeing up its memory. It now frees it, and reloads when you go back to it.
In Spanish, French and Portuguese, the /theme hint and its entry in the slash command reference showed translated appearance names (for example "oscuro" or "sombre"), and typing them after /theme did nothing. They now show system, light and dark, the words /theme accepts in every language.
Bring your Spaces over from Arc. In Bring Your Tabs (type /bring-tabs in the ⌘L or Ctrl+L panel), the new Arc option reads Arc's sidebar and brings each Space you pick, with its pinned tabs, its Today tabs and its folders, which become tab groups. With Blanc Patron, each Arc Space becomes a space in Blanc Spaces; without it, each Space opens in its own window. Tabs load only when you open them. You can also add Arc's top-row Favorites to a Favorites folder named Arc. Sign-ins, passwords, history, archived tabs, Notes and Easels stay in Arc, and Blanc only reads Arc's sidebar file without changing it. Arc never came to Linux: there, copy StorableSidebar.json from your Mac or PC and choose it with Choose file….
Blanc's interface is available in German, Spanish, French and Portuguese (Brazil), machine-translated. If your system uses one of these languages, Blanc now follows it (any Portuguese system gets Brazilian Portuguese); choose English or another language any time in Settings → General → Language.
Changed
Named Workspaces is now called Blanc Spaces, and each saved set of tabs is a space. Type /space in the ⌘L or Ctrl+L panel to switch to a space or save the current window as one; /workspace still works. Creating spaces is still part of Blanc Patron.
When 1Password login fill isn't set up yet, the prompt's Open Settings button now opens Settings at the 1Password card instead of at the top.
Blanc's website is now blanc.day. Settings → Help, the About window, the welcome screen's privacy link and the update error messages point there. Older blancbrowser.com links still work.
Fixed
On Windows and Linux, the keyboard shortcuts sheet showed "Search && Commands". It now reads "Search & Commands".
Opening Blanc while it's already running, for example by opening a link from another app, now just passes the link to the open Blanc. The second launch used to keep starting up in the background on the same profile and then fail.
The start page footer is reorganized. The "ready to move in?" checklist is now a Finish setup pill on the left of the footer that opens the list; its × hides the checklist for good, as before. Customize sits alone in the middle.
The Blanc Patron reminder is now one Upgrade to Blanc Patron pill in the start page footer. Its × hides it on this device for 90 days. Patrons and private tabs still never see it.
Billboard's clock, recent sites and groups are centered vertically in the window, and the clock no longer shows AM/PM.
Start page, onboarding and Settings headings use a narrower cut of Blanc's serif typeface, the same one as blancbrowser.com, and the Billboard clock is set in a lighter weight.
Private tabs are marked more consistently: the "private" chip in the Island, the tag in the expanded tab list and the marker in vertical tabs share one dashed style, and the tag lines up on every row.
Blanc 1.31.0 and later report two facts on their first day, if usage measurement is on: whether Blanc is your default browser, and whether you opened three web pages in regular tabs. Nothing about the pages is sent. The privacy page and FAQ explain the details.
Fixed
Opening the Island by clicking it no longer makes it blink, and a slow frame now pauses the expand instead of making it jump ahead.
The Tabs step of Bring Your Tabs shows every tab in each window. A window used to show only two or three, with no way to scroll to the rest.
The Island, Blanc's floating address and tab bar, grows slightly as your pointer approaches it. That movement is now smooth at any display refresh rate. It used to update about 60 times a second, which looked stop-start on 120 Hz and faster screens.
Activating a Blanc Patron license key while Polar, the payment service, is busy or down now says Polar is not responding and to try again in a few minutes, instead of saying the key could not be activated.
When Blanc checks an active Patron license and Polar reports that the key is missing, revoked, or expired, Patron now ends. Before, that answer was treated like an outage. A Polar outage still keeps Patron active for up to 30 days, as before.
You can drag to reorder tabs and groups, in the expanded Island and in vertical tabs. Drag a tab within its group, into another group, or out of its group. Dropping a tab on a group's header adds it to that group, even when the group is folded. Drag a group's header to move the whole group, and Cmd/Ctrl+1–9 follow the new order. Pinned tabs stay pinned, and releasing a drag over the page does nothing.
The same moves work from the keyboard: focus a tab or a group header and press Alt+Shift+Up or Alt+Shift+Down (Option+Shift on macOS). Folded groups are skipped.
Settings has a new About & Trust section. It shows facts about the installed build, checked on your device: the version, the Electron and Chromium versions, the blocker's filter sources and, on macOS and Windows, the app's code signature. It links to the release, the verification guide, the software bill of materials and the build provenance, and can export diagnostics. Opening it makes no network request.
Intel Macs get every release again. Each release now ships both an Apple Silicon and an Intel build.
Changed
Blanc saves its settings, Favorites, history and workspaces in the background instead of pausing the app while it writes to disk. Quitting still saves everything before Blanc closes.
In a Flatpak, Check for Updates says that Flatpak keeps Blanc current instead of showing an unsupported-channel warning.
Fixed
With uBlock Origin selected, uBO now restarts on its own if it fails while you browse. Pages wait while it restarts instead of loading unfiltered, and the shield shows that it is restarting. After three restarts in 10 minutes, Blanc offers to restart it for you instead.
With uBlock Origin selected, a moment when Blanc itself was busy no longer counts against uBO's time to decide on a request, so pages stop failing after a brief freeze.
On macOS, changing a setting no longer briefly freezes Blanc while it reloads the Dock icon.
On Linux under Wayland, Settings and other sheets appear every time you open them, not only the first time, and the page underneath keeps responding.
On Linux under Wayland, each permission prompt shows its own question instead of the previous one.
Dark websites: while Blanc is dark, it can darken websites that have no dark mode of their own, from the first paint. Turn it on in Settings → General. It is off by default and stays on this device. The Island shield's new Dark website switch, or /dark-site, darkens or restores a single site. It uses the open-source Dark Reader engine, bundled with Blanc. Embedded frames keep their original colors.
Match site colors, in Settings → General, controls whether the Island bar takes on the color of the page you're on. It is on by default; turn it off to keep the bar on your theme's background.
Interrupted downloads can be resumed, or retried from the original link when resuming isn't possible. Retry reuses the save location you already chose.
On local and private-network addresses, such as a home server with a self-signed certificate, the certificate warning offers Advanced and a way to continue. The choice lasts until Blanc quits, applies only to that site and certificate, and is never saved or synced. Public sites keep the warning with no way through.
Changed
The start page has one shared frame for all four layouts: the date and moving-in checklist at the top, centered content, and a Customize popover in the footer for the layout and dynamic wallpaper.
Ledger is a centered spread, with Favorites beside your tab groups and other devices. Billboard labels its tiles with short site names on one row. Shelf arranges its tiles and cards on one grid sized to how many you have. Tally balances its columns and gives its chart a warmer tint.
Fixed
With uBlock Origin selected, a slow first install no longer leaves a new start page loading until it finishes, and a slow first start on a fresh profile has 45 seconds, not 15, before it is treated as stalled.
With uBlock Origin selected, the first page you open right after it starts no longer fails to load on a slower computer. For its first 15 seconds, uBO gets 10 seconds instead of 2 to decide on each request; nothing is let through unfiltered while it decides.
A Settings, History or other sheet whose page never finishes loading is removed after 8 seconds instead of leaving an invisible layer over the page.
The new tab and private buttons at the bottom of the Island panel no longer overflow on Windows and Linux in small windows or at 125% zoom.
Optional full uBlock Origin 1.75.0 on Apple Silicon and native Intel Macs, Windows x64, and Linux x64. Click the Island shield, choose your blocker, then use Restart Blanc to apply the change.
Blanc styling for uBO’s popup and Dashboard, with filter subscriptions, custom filters, dynamic rules, picker/zapper, logger, and backup/restore. Filter lists can update automatically; executable resources stay pinned to reviewed Blanc releases.
Separate uBO configuration for each regular profile. Blanc Blocker remains the default and protects private tabs; the two blockers keep separate site exceptions. Provider selection and uBO configuration stay outside Profile Sync. General extension-store support is not included.
Automatic return to Blanc Blocker with an explanation if saved uBO selection is unavailable in the running build, preserving uBO configuration. Intel builds running under Rosetta use Blanc Blocker. An available uBO instance that crashes or exceeds its request deadline keeps traffic blocked until recovery or an explicit user choice.
Fixed
Provider restart and shutdown no longer lose an overlay callback when Electron removes a native child view.
Linux AppImage provider restarts use the upstream extraction launcher and retain Chromium sandbox enforcement. Normal close/relaunch preserves the selected blocker and saved uBO filters.
The Linux sandbox refusal dialog offers Open Setup Guide and Quit. X11 retains Copy Link; Wayland omits clipboard controls. A relaunch with the guide URL omits Open Setup Guide to prevent a loop. Sandbox requirements and system security settings are unchanged.
Settings → Help now shows the running Blanc, Electron and Chromium versions, platform and architecture. Links explain how Blanc works, privacy choices, source code and release notes. Check for updates uses the existing update flow; applying an update still requires restarting.
Refined
The background behind the Island follows wallpaper fades and page color changes after loading. Sampling stays on the device; private tabs retain their theme background.
Setup and privacy settings explain search suggestions and pseudonymous usage measurement, their recipients, and when sending starts. Fresh defaults and saved choices are retained. Opening the privacy explanation preserves unsaved setup choices.
Fixed
Ctrl/Cmd-click and middle-click open eligible website links in new tabs while preserving their navigation and sandbox restrictions.
A rejected Windows update can be retried through Check for Updates without leaving the restart action stuck.
Security
Windows requires a completed publisher check and matching verified installer bytes before installation. If verification cannot complete, installation is deferred for a later retry.
Linux refuses launches that disable Chromium's sandbox, including an AppImage launcher's automatic fallback. On systems that cannot provide the required sandbox, Blanc shows guidance instead of opening browsing windows. This does not change the system's user-namespace or AppArmor configuration.
Verify the download
Authenticate SHA256SUMS with its Sigstore bundle using the certificate identity anthony@bnfy.me and OIDC issuer https://github.com/login/oauth. The same values are published on Blanc's security page.
The folder picker opened by move ▸ in Favorites now stays above neighboring rows, opens upward when needed, and stays inside the window. With many folders, its options scroll inside the menu while the new folder… field remains visible. Opening the picker no longer scrolls the selected favorite out of view.
Escape closes the folder picker and returns focus to its move button; a second Escape closes Favorites.
Refined
Favorites group headings now use plain labels and count badges, without the curved bottom divider.
Verify the download
Authenticate SHA256SUMS with its Sigstore bundle using the certificate identity anthony@bnfy.me and OIDC issuer https://github.com/login/oauth. The same values are published on Blanc's security page.
A free, optional time-of-day wallpaper for the start page. Sunrise now follows your local clock through dawn, day, dusk, and night, with no location permission or network requests. Enable dynamic wallpaper beside the layout picker or Time-of-day wallpaper in Settings.
The wallpaper works in every start-page layout and private tabs. Turning it on or off fades over two seconds; reduced-motion settings switch immediately. If you use Sync, your wallpaper preference follows your devices.
Fixed
Linux AppImages no longer require FUSE 2. The packaged desktop shortcut also passes URLs correctly and no longer adds unintended command-line arguments. Existing shortcuts may need to be integrated again to receive that correction.
Security
Updated the official Electron runtime to 44.5.1, including upstream security fixes.
Updated dependency inputs to address brace-expansion advisories and the website's devalue advisories.
Verify the download
Authenticate SHA256SUMS with its Sigstore bundle using the certificate identity anthony@bnfy.me and OIDC issuer https://github.com/login/oauth. The same values are published on Blanc's security page.
Settings, Favorites, History, Downloads, Shortcuts, and Bring Your Tabs now share a clearer Sunrise sheet design. Roomier cards, easier-to-scan headings, and controls that fit the minimum window size make everyday tasks less cramped.
History groups visits by day, shows site icons, and lines up visit times. Favorites shows saved site icons or a domain-initial tile when no icon is available.
Downloads lines up status and actions across rows, identifies the source site, and keeps the extension visible on long filenames.
Privacy & Security settings are grouped by topic. Longer explanations can be expanded with More without losing any of their detail.
The moving-in checklist and welcome tour are easier to use in a small window or at increased zoom.
Fixed
A site permission request no longer takes keyboard focus away from the page or an open Island panel.
The Settings section marker now follows scrolling, and Shortcuts shows readable key labels instead of raw accelerator names.
Mahjong's completion screen has two clear next steps. Play Another starts a fresh deal with the current layout and rules.
Verify the download
Authenticate SHA256SUMS with its Sigstore bundle using the certificate identity anthony@bnfy.me and OIDC issuer https://github.com/login/oauth. The same values are published on Blanc's security page.
Navigate Blanc with customizable mouse gestures. Enable Mouse gestures in Settings → General, then hold the right mouse button and draw before releasing. On a trackpad, hold Alt/Option while clicking and dragging with one finger. Blanc includes gestures for Back, Forward, New tab, and Close tab, and lets you draw or reassign gestures for navigation, tabs, Reload, and the Island.
Improved
The onboarding dialog now fully covers the start page, uses rounder geometry, and shows a current miniature of the Island.
Billboard clocks use more natural digit spacing, keep the meridiem close to the time, and remain centered in 24-hour locales.
Fixed
Mahjong now keeps hints, Undo, and Rescue aligned with the current board while preserving its standalone-tab behavior and game documentation.
Blanc now remembers each window's size, position, and display mode. Quit and reopen Blanc to restore normal, maximized, or fullscreen windows where you left them on macOS, Windows, and Linux. Windows you explicitly close are forgotten instead of returning later.
Start pages now use the Sunrise visual system across Ledger, Billboard, Shelf, and Tally, with warmer artwork, more consistent controls, and clearer layout-specific character.
Newsreader typography gives start-page invitations and editorial moments a more expressive voice while the rest of Blanc retains its familiar interface type.
Fixed
Websites can no longer set or clear Blanc's operating-system app badge through the Badging API.
Mahjong now opens as its own tab. Launch it from the footer of any start-page layout. Your current start page stays open, and an unfinished game is still available through Mahjong's Continue prompt. Existing direct Mahjong links keep working.
Start pages now offer four layouts: Ledger, Billboard, Shelf, and Tally. If Mahjong was your selected layout, Blanc moves that preference to Billboard without changing other layout choices or saved games.
Mahjong keeps its familiar green lacquer table and tile artwork, with a Sunrise mark in its header and quieter framing. Private Mahjong retains its separate purple treatment and prominent private indicator.
Links that return a browser sign-in to an installed app can now discover its registered handler and ask for your permission, including callbacks beyond the previously reviewed app schemes. Browser-internal and dangerous system schemes remain blocked. Repeated page prompts wait for another click or activation key.
Choose Blanc as your default browser. macOS now recognizes Blanc's web browser role in System Settings. On Windows, the installer registers Blanc as a browser candidate and the Make default button opens Default apps, where you make the final choice. Linux desktop environments can also offer Blanc for web links. Availability in each system's picker depends on its desktop settings.
On macOS, an existing HTML document opened with Blanc from Finder opens in a tab.
Updated to Electron 44.4.3, which retains Chromium 152.0.7977.130 and includes upstream fixes.
Fixed
Windows checks the system's chosen handlers for both HTTP and HTTPS before saying Blanc is the default browser. Opening Default apps alone no longer makes Blanc report that it is the default.
Sync now tells you how to set it up. Settings asks whether this is your first device or another one, and explains what a sync name is before you pick one. Choosing "I already sync on another device" checks your name and passphrase against the server before anything is saved, so a typo no longer quietly starts a second, empty sync. When nothing is found, Blanc says so and lets you try again or deliberately start a new sync with what you typed.
Moving into Blanc feels intentional. A quiet start-page checklist brings Sync and Bring Your Tabs together, remembers each task you finish, and gets out of the way when you are done. You can hide it at any time. Sync also sits second in Settings, and /sync opens it from the command bar.
Improved
Updated to Electron 44.4.2 and Chromium 152.0.7977.130 for upstream fixes.
Sync's settings now list what is covered and when it last ran: your sync name, favorites and settings with the time of the last sync, and whether this device shares its open tabs. A sync problem appears in one place instead of two.
Blanc says "Sync" everywhere it used to say "Profile Sync" or "Tab Sync". What syncs is unchanged: favorites and settings, plus this device's open tabs if you turn that on. History, downloads, permissions, cookies, site data, and private tabs stay on the device, and sync remains end-to-end encrypted and Personal-only.
Blanc now exits cleanly after the last visible window is closed on Windows and Linux, so relaunching the app no longer requires ending leftover Blanc processes in Task Manager.
Blanc no longer shows its own username and password dialog for HTTP authentication challenges, including HTTP Basic, Digest, and proxy prompts. A website's own sign-in page and forms are unchanged.
Known limitation
Sites and proxies that rely on a browser-managed HTTP authentication prompt no longer get one in Blanc; without a site-provided sign-in flow, access may fail with a 401 or 407 response.
Named Workspaces preserve live drafts, history, and page state when you switch, with reliable saving, recovery, ordering, and deletion controls.
Sign-in flows can now return from Blanc to installed desktop applications such as Claude after browser approval completes.
Blanc's built-in 1Password fill stays inside the focused sign-in popup, including Google login windows.
Reviewed Claude and standard Microsoft and Google native OAuth callbacks ask before opening the installed application, preserve the exact callback through redirects and popup closure, and show a useful error when no handler is available.
Unknown application schemes remain blocked, and callback secrets never appear in confirmation prompts or persistent browser data.
Opening or restoring a Chrome Web Store page no longer crashes Blanc. Until Electron ships its upstream correction, Blanc shows a local explanation page before the affected site can trigger the native crash.
Restored Chrome Web Store tabs now recover safely without preventing the rest of the saved session from opening.
The macOS About panel now displays a distinct build number instead of repeating the public version.
Known limitation
Chrome Web Store pages are temporarily unavailable inside Blanc. Use another browser to browse the store until Blanc can adopt Electron's upstream fix.
Session recovery is visible in every New Tab layout. Links opened from email or another app can continue after you choose whether to restore your saved tabs.
Restoring tabs after closing and reopening the recovery window from the Dock no longer waits indefinitely. Recovery also keeps named profiles separate and avoids restoring tabs into windows closed during startup.
Improved
Onboarding now uses Sunrise artwork, with Sunrise Dark in dark mode.
Retired B-monogram app icons have been removed from Settings and packaged internal pages. Existing retired icon choices fall back to Sunrise. The B motif in Mahjong tiles remains as a nod to Blanc's origins.
Updated to Electron 44.3.0 and Chromium 152.0.7977.78 for upstream fixes.
Known issue
Opening some Chrome Web Store pages can still crash the browser because of an upstream Electron issue. This release fixes session recovery, but does not include the pending upstream Chrome Web Store fix.
Share your screen and system audio. When a website asks to present, Blanc opens its own centered confirmation before any capture begins. Choose a screen or window, decide whether to include computer audio, and stop each active share from the Island even when its tab is in the background. Linux continues from Blanc's confirmation to the system sharing chooser.
Bring Your Tabs opens in the current window. Import open tabs from a supported browser through Blanc's private handoff, review the proposed organization, and add them to the window you are already using.
Security
Chromium's actively exploited V8 vulnerability is patched. Blanc now runs on Electron 44.2.0, which carries the upstream fix for CVE-2026-85046. The flaw allowed a malicious page to execute code inside Chromium's renderer sandbox; it was not itself a sandbox escape. Update promptly.
Updated js-yaml to 4.3.2 to prevent excessive CPU use from malicious YAML merge input (GHSA-2883-xcg3-v3hh).
Improved
Screen sharing keeps website sessions deny-closed and grants capture only through a trusted Blanc helper after explicit approval. Direct and legacy desktop-capture paths remain blocked.
Links handed to Blanc from another app now restore and foreground the browser reliably.
Fixed
Thousands separators on the Mahjong Burst completion score now render cleanly instead of inheriting the score's dimensional text effect.
Profile settings now converge correctly during sync.
Five more Mahjong boards. Pyramid, Fortress, Butterfly, Bridge, and Cross join Turtle, Arch, and Peaks. Every deal is still solvable by construction, and the Daily deal now rotates through all eight layouts.
A Records sheet opens from a new dock control or the R key. It shows boards cleared, your current and longest daily streak, dailies cleared, the best Classic time and Burst score for each board, and the last four weeks of dailies. Everything stays on this device.
Pick up where you left off. A fresh Mahjong tab starts with your last layout, mode, and deal choice, and offers to continue an unfinished board from another tab instead of silently dealing a new one.
Updated
Shuffle can be undone. Shuffle records the board it replaced, so Undo restores it exactly, including from the Burst rescue dialog.
Tile faces keep JetBrains Mono. Character numerals and wind badges return to the bundled monospace at its full ExtraBold weight, while the game's meters and sheets stay in Inter.
Notices float as lacquer pills inside the table instead of loose text along its edge, and the desktop control rail now sizes itself to the embedded table so all six controls always fit.
Fixed
The first clear of a board reads "first clear" rather than "new record", hints survive arrow-key navigation, Daily layout cards read as disabled, the dead-end notice offers Shuffle, and the daily result appears in the Boards sheet and on the completion card.
Mahjong completion totals are counted exactly once, even when a storage write or an old-event prune fails.
Faster new tabs add a quiet Plus shortcut beside the Island's slash-command keycap. It opens one regular, ungrouped tab and puts the address field immediately in focus.
Updated
A calmer resting Island adopts the website navigation's compact 44px geometry, material surface, and shorter shadow while keeping the existing controls and unified proximity response.
Inter vertical tabs replace the remaining monospaced labels across the rail, including section headings, groups, private markers, and the New tab row.
Fixed
Vertical-tabs mode no longer reserves an empty shortcut gap when both Island keycaps are hidden on a page.
Frequently visited sites make Billboard useful automatically from local browsing history. Ranking and favicon artwork stay on the device, private tabs receive no history-derived row, and each tile can be hidden without deleting history.
Updated
Inter start pages replace the remaining monospaced typography across Ledger, Billboard, Shelf, Tally, Mahjong, onboarding, and the shared footer.
Sunrise branding now carries across Blanc's supported platforms and public brand surfaces, with a Windows-specific icon treatment for clearer small taskbar sizes.
Simpler macOS icon choices retain Sunrise, Sunrise Dark, Paper, and Ink while retiring the other legacy variants.
One-time presentation reset moves every existing profile to Sunrise and Billboard for this release. Users can change either setting afterward, and those choices remain preserved across future updates.
Fixed
A populated Billboard remains readable and scrollable at Blanc's minimum supported window size instead of pushing its date above the viewport.
Call audio buffering adds Automatic, Stable, and Resilient receive-buffer choices for WebRTC calls. Stable targets about 400 ms for smoother speech, while Resilient targets about 1 second for severe crackling or chopped audio at the cost of slower conversation.
Sunrise app icon becomes Blanc's default on macOS, with an appearance-aware light variant and a separately selectable Sunrise Dark variant.
Billboard start page becomes the default layout for new profiles. Existing layout choices remain unchanged.
Fixed
Reopening Blanc from the Dock after closing every browser window no longer leaves a blank macOS window.
On macOS, approving a website's microphone or camera request now also asks for the required system-level access before capture begins. This restores live microphone input for ChatGPT voice and other approved media sites.
Blanc's capture indicator now turns on only after both the website permission and the native macOS permission have been granted.
Mahjong is now available as a complete start-page layout. Fresh Mahjong tables begin with the deterministic Daily Peaks board in Burst mode, with scoring, timed combos, automatic clears, hints, shuffle, undo, records, sound controls, and a footer that can be hidden while playing.
Local crash diagnostics can now be exported from Settings, and an unclean shutdown offers explicit recovery choices without sending browsing data anywhere.
Certificate failures now use a dedicated Blanc surface with clearer site-trust information instead of falling through to a generic navigation error.
Changed
Mahjong has a more visual, responsive game experience: clearer rack tiles, dimensional score feedback, board-to-rack movement, stronger match and hint effects, polished dialogs and controls, reduced-motion fallbacks, and layouts that adapt cleanly to smaller windows.
Blanc's revised B mark now appears consistently across the desktop app, app-icon variants, internal pages, website, favicons, press assets, and social media artwork included in the repository.
The desktop blocker now ships with a verified precompiled seed for faster initialization while retaining the same bundled, hash-pinned filter inputs and fail-closed package checks.
Blanc is now distributed under the MIT License, with generated dependency notices, packaged compliance checks, and a CycloneDX software bill of materials for releases.
When optional usage measurement is enabled, packaged builds can record one bounded Mahjong-use event and the fixed start-page layouts rendered during an app session. These events contain no URLs, searches, page content, custom text, or game state and are never sent from private tabs.
Electron has been updated to 44.1.0.
Fixed
Mahjong completion actions remain reachable at Blanc's minimum window size, Daily acceptance respects the selected layout, and Undo or Shuffle can no longer leave stale motion or score feedback behind.
Windows update verification now releases installer handles reliably and avoids rearming the download watchdog while signature verification is in progress.
On macOS, the optional 1Password integration can now show a small key hint when the active page declares a visible current-password field. The bounded local check reads form structure only, never field values or page text, and does not contact 1Password. Filling still begins only when you explicitly choose the hint, use View → Fill Login from 1Password, press Option-Command-P, or run /1password.
The 1Password section in Settings now includes Verify, which saves the entered sign-in email or account ID and confirms the connection through the installed 1Password app.
Changed
1Password setup decisions, errors, and success feedback now appear in a Blanc-styled in-app capsule instead of stock dialogs. When several Login items match, the native picker opens beside the detected login field.
1Password setup copy now leads with the email address used to sign in to 1Password while continuing to accept an account ID.
Fixed
1Password fill attempts now withdraw cleanly when you navigate, switch tabs, open another Blanc surface, or dismiss an authorization prompt, preventing late results from appearing over or filling a page you have left.
The fill capsule now preserves keyboard cancellation, accessible status announcements, and success-message timing while hovered or focused.
Synced tabs no longer lose their favicons during startup. Blanc now waits for the restored tab snapshot before publishing tab and icon state, while still publishing removals immediately when tab sharing is explicitly turned off.
Sites with unusual favicon setups are handled more reliably, including pages that provide app or touch artwork, large source images, or PNG files served with a generic content type. When a site has no usable image, Blanc shows a domain initial instead of an anonymous gray square.
Permission prompts keep their surrounding surface transparent instead of briefly painting an opaque rectangle over the page.
On macOS, Blanc can now fill a login from the installed 1Password app when you explicitly ask it to. Enable the device-local option in Settings, then use Option-Command-P, View → Fill Login from 1Password, or /1password. Blanc never fills automatically, and Windows and Linux do not expose the integration.
Changed
Blanc's app icons now use a stronger, more legible mark across macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, the start page, Settings colorways, and exported artwork.
The browser engine has been updated to Electron 44 and its current Chromium release.
Fixed
Quiet tabs remain represented in the Island's tab dots, preserving their normal order and click-to-wake behavior while using a calm dimmed treatment.
Press Option-Command-Z on macOS to switch to the last active tab; press it again to jump back. The same action is also available from the Tabs menu.
Settings now includes a direct Report an issue link that opens Blanc's guided GitHub issue forms.
Changed
Settings dropdowns now use solid in-page menus that fit Blanc's interface, preserve keyboard navigation, and avoid macOS Liquid Glass showing the closed control through the open menu.
Settings privacy controls use clearer language, while Settings fields and Quick Switcher metadata use Inter consistently.
Downloads and Settings now live in the File menu instead of View.
Named Workspaces now stops non-Patrons at an upfront Patron prompt and links directly to Patron Settings instead of opening a workspace name editor that only fails after submission. The main process still re-checks every create/save write, while existing workspaces remain available to lapsed Patrons.
Named Workspaces let Blanc Patrons save a window's tabs and groups, switch between those sets in place, and rename or delete them from the command panel. Workspaces autosave as you browse and return after a relaunch; the /workspace command provides the same controls from the keyboard.
Patron Settings now includes a direct checkout path for becoming a Patron, with monthly and annual options. Existing Patrons can still enter their Polar license key when activating another device or reinstalling Blanc.
Changed
When another app asks Blanc to open a website, Blanc now brings the destination window to the front instead of loading the page behind whatever you were using.
Fixed
Website icons are substantially more reliable across the interface. Blanc now recovers icons through redirects and generic ICO responses such as App Store Connect's, heals previously iconless Favorites, paints Favorite results in the Quick Switcher, and carries decoded PNG icons through Profile Sync to the start page and Quick Switcher on another device.
Named Workspaces now protect private tabs and unsaved windows during a switch, keep editor focus stable while tab state updates, and avoid the save-first dead end when only private tabs are at risk.
The Recently Closed section's Clear action now uses Blanc's interface typeface consistently.
Right-click now opens a menu where it used to do nothing. Right-click the resting command pill for the active tab's actions; right-click a tab — whether in the ⌘L panel or the vertical tab rail — for that tab's actions, with Open in Glance and Quiet This Tab Now added for background tabs; and on macOS, right-click Blanc's Dock icon for the frontmost tab plus New Window and New Private Window.
Changed
Tab grouping moved off the tab row and into that right-click menu. The per-row group chip and its inline picker — the main thing that crowded long tab titles — are gone; you now group a tab, or start a new group, from the tab's right-click menu.
Fixed
Windows updates install reliably again. An update could previously download and then just sit there, sometimes for a very long time, without ever offering to restart. Blanc now fetches the update in one straight download instead of a slow block-by-block transfer, no longer trips over a too-short signature-verification timeout, and shows a taskbar progress bar while it downloads — then surfaces the restart prompt once the update is ready.
The command pill expands from its own centre again. After you resized the window, the pill-to-panel animation could grow out of the left or right edge instead of the middle; Blanc now re-measures the pill's position when the window resizes, so it always opens from centre.
Closing a tab now returns you to the tab you were actually on before it, not whichever tab happened to sit to its right. Blanc keeps a per-window history of which tabs you activated, and each close walks one step back through it — open something from mid-list, close it, and you're back where you started. When the history runs out (right after a relaunch, say), the old nearest-neighbor rule still applies.
The island is a steadier target. Its approach animation no longer pulls sideways toward your cursor, the remaining rise and growth are about half their old size, and the motion now finishes while your cursor is still on its way in — so by the time you click, nothing under the pointer is moving. The old motion could shift the pill's edge buttons by up to fifteen pixels mid-aim, which is exactly the kind of mis-click bait a browser's chrome shouldn't be.
Quiet tabs now show themselves by their fade alone. The quiet labels that repeated down the command panel and tab rail — one per dimmed row, which after a session restore meant most rows — are gone. A quiet row still dims to half strength, brightens when you reach for it, and still announces itself as quiet to screen readers.
Restarting to install an update on Windows no longer tears down Blanc's BrowserWindows and WebContents on a one-second forced-exit timer. Blanc now hands shutdown, installation, and relaunch directly to the signed NSIS updater, removing the native race that could leave 1.4.0 hung behind a Windows “Blanc is not responding” dialog.
The incoming Windows installer now gives an older Blanc build two seconds to complete its normal quit, then terminates a stuck old process and continues through the existing bounded process-close fallback. This installer-side compatibility path protects upgrades that begin inside 1.4.0, before the new app-side restart code is installed.
Check for Updates now responds as soon as it finds a newer version, confirming that the download has started instead of appearing to do nothing until the installer is ready.
A compiled blocker-cache file still held or refused by Windows after an interrupted upgrade no longer keeps browser protection offline. Blanc rebuilds from the bundled, hash-verified EasyList and EasyPrivacy snapshot and uses that in-memory engine immediately; cache persistence remains a startup optimization, while bundled-list verification still fails closed.
Windows packages now preserve the pinned EasyList and EasyPrivacy inputs with their required LF byte representation. The byte-verification gate introduced in 1.2.0 exposed an existing Windows checkout conversion: confirmed published 1.3.0, 1.4.0, and 1.5.0 installers carry CRLF list bytes, so their security hashes correctly fail closed and produce Blocking could not start; builds before that gate could still parse the converted lists. The native Windows workflow now verifies the blocker inputs before packaging, and startup failures expose their local diagnostic directly on the recovery card.
Recently closed tabs now behave like a bounded undo buffer instead of a hidden session archive. The internal recovery-tier label is no longer shown, each row can be explicitly forgotten, the section can be cleared at once, and untouched entries automatically expire after one hour. Forgetting an entry during its brief live-restore window immediately destroys the parked page.
Faster Windows updates
Packaged builds check on launch, every thirty minutes instead of every four hours, and when Blanc regains focus after the previous check is at least fifteen minutes old. Concurrent checks are coalesced so the faster schedule does not duplicate network work.
Differential Windows downloads are explicitly enabled and continue to use the signed release's installer block map when a patch can be applied; electron-updater safely falls back to the full installer when it cannot.
Downloaded updates remain eligible for automatic installation on a normal app quit, and an explicit Restart Now uses the silent installer path and relaunches Blanc after the update completes.
Release verification
Unit and packaged coverage lock the Windows NSIS handoff, installer-side graceful-quit window, bounded process-close fallback, blocker cache recovery, cross-platform filter-byte integrity, visible blocker diagnostics, duplicate-restart guard, closed-tab disposal and expiry, coalesced update checks, focus throttling, differential-download configuration, and manual-check feedback.
Before publication, the signed Windows build must complete real public upgrades from both Blanc 1.4.0 and Blanc 1.5.0 without a crash dialog, and the installed executable and installer must retain the expected Bananify Creative Authenticode identity.
SHA256SUMS is authenticated with a Sigstore bundle whose expected certificate identity is anthony@bnfy.me and whose expected OIDC issuer is https://github.com/login/oauth.
Other platforms
macOS Apple Silicon, signed Windows, and Linux are built from the same v1.5.1 source tag and published with one signed SHA-256 manifest.
Reopen Closed Tab now gives the tab back rather than reopening its address. For thirty seconds after you close a tab, Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+T returns the page itself — the same view, with no reload, keeping scroll position, half-typed form text, video position, and pages that only exist because you submitted a form. After that window it restores from a snapshot instead: the address, the back and forward history, scroll position, group, pin, mute, and the tab's original place in the order.
Closing a group is one step to undo. /close-group used to cost one keypress per tab to reverse; the whole group now comes back together, with its name, its members in their original order, its pins, and its position among your other groups.
The command panel lists what you recently closed. Open it with Cmd/Ctrl+L and the last few closed tabs sit below your open ones, each reopening on click, so you can pick the one you meant instead of pressing Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+T repeatedly. A group entry shows how many tabs it holds.
/reopen joins the slash commands as another way to reach the same thing.
A new tab now shows where to type. The resting island reads "Search or type a URL" with a band of light washing through the words, and typing anywhere on a blank tab opens the island with what you typed already entered. A / chip beside the prompt opens the command list.
The start page offers three layouts, and first run walks through setup: theme, default browser, importing Favorites from another browser, and your privacy choices.
Privacy and compatibility
Private tabs are excluded from all of this, exactly as before. They are never recorded as closed tabs, never held, and never reopenable.
A tab held for reopening is silenced and frozen the moment you close it. It cannot open windows, cannot navigate, and is refused every permission it asks for — including ones you previously granted that site — so a closed tab can never quietly acquire your microphone or camera. Tabs using the microphone or camera are never held at all; closing one ends its access immediately.
Pages reached by submitting a form are restored exactly for the thirty-second window and then re-fetched as an ordinary page load. Blanc never silently resubmits a form, so a payment or a submission cannot be replayed by reopening a tab.
Nothing about closed tabs is written to disk, session restore, Profile Sync, telemetry, or crash reports. The list lives in memory and ends with the app.
Reduced motion is honored on the new-tab prompt: the wash is replaced by a stronger resting ink rather than simply being removed.
Fixed
Answering a permission prompt after closing its tab no longer grants or remembers that permission. Previously a prompt left open outlived the tab, and a late "Allow" saved a decision for a page that no longer existed — affecting every future visit to that site.
Quitting or relaunching on macOS no longer intermittently opens an Electron “Object has been destroyed” error dialog.
macOS raises one "change your default browser?" dialog instead of two.
Onboarding buttons stay readable on hover.
Release verification
The source gate includes 811 unit tests and 114 runnable desktop acceptance scenarios with 688 steps, covering closed-tab tier selection, the held-tab permission firewall, group-close undo, the new-tab prompt, and macOS shutdown visibility. Packaged verification exercises first run, release regressions, live favicon compatibility, and migration from public Stable v1.4.0.
Audio stopping when a held tab is closed, and the macOS microphone indicator clearing on close, were confirmed by hand on real hardware; the microphone result was independently corroborated against the operating system's own audio-device state.
SHA256SUMS is authenticated with a Sigstore bundle whose expected certificate identity is anthony@bnfy.me and whose expected OIDC issuer is https://github.com/login/oauth.
Other platforms
macOS Apple Silicon, signed Windows, and Linux are built from the same v1.5.0 source tag and published with one signed SHA-256 manifest.
Glance keeps one tab visible as a temporary reference while you work in another. Open it with View → Open Glance or Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+G, choose from the current window's tabs, then change the reference, make it the main page, resize the split, or close Glance without closing either tab.
The main page stays dominant in a 62/38 side-by-side layout, while narrow windows stack the reference below it. Glance includes a dedicated local-tab picker, keyboard-resizable divider, accessible labels and focus handling, and distinct dark and private-tab treatment.
Reopen Closed Tab is now scoped to the focused window. Closing a tab in one workspace can no longer consume or restore another window's recently closed tab, and private or blank tabs still leave no recovery trace.
Privacy and compatibility
Glance is temporary and device-local. Its tab relationship and divider position are not written to session restore, Profile Sync, telemetry, or crash reports, and its picker never searches history, Favorites, remote tabs, search suggestions, or another window or profile.
Quiet Tabs understands both visible Glance pages. A quiet reference wakes only after explicit selection, and a visible reference cannot be discarded by background housekeeping.
Fixed
Windows and Linux window controls remain above the Glance header and clickable while the side-by-side layout is open.
Glance now preserves focus when its reference closes under an open picker, keeps a known title visible during navigation, and applies every repeated keyboard resize step reliably.
Release verification
The source gate includes 752 unit tests and 104 runnable desktop acceptance scenarios with 639 steps, including six Glance scenarios, per-window recovery coverage, and window-teardown cursor and visibility regressions. Packaged verification exercises first run, release regressions, live favicon compatibility, and migration from public Stable v1.3.0.
SHA256SUMS is authenticated with a Sigstore bundle whose expected certificate identity is anthony@bnfy.me and whose expected OIDC issuer is https://github.com/login/oauth.
Other platforms
macOS Apple Silicon, signed Windows, and Linux are built from the same v1.4.0 source tag and published with one signed SHA-256 manifest.
Blanc now supports multiple independent browser windows. Each window owns its own tabs, groups, Island overlay, utility sheets, and restored workspace, while the application menu follows whichever window is focused.
Local profiles provide persistent, on-device browsing identities without requiring an account. Each named profile isolates cookies, site data, Favorites, history, downloads, remembered permissions, normal browsing, and private browsing from every other profile.
Profiles can be created, opened, renamed, and permanently deleted from Settings. The permanent Personal profile keeps all existing Blanc data in place, while named profile windows restore into the same isolated identity after relaunch.
Privacy and compatibility
Device-wide appearance, privacy choices, telemetry preference, and Supporter status remain shared. Profile Sync remains available only to Personal, so adding a local profile never silently expands cloud synchronization.
Session persistence now stores multiple independent window workspaces while retaining a rollback mirror for older Blanc builds.
Release verification
The release gate exercises the full unit and desktop acceptance suites, first-run and packaged regression smokes, live favicon compatibility, and same-profile migration from public Stable v1.2.5.
Other platforms
macOS Apple Silicon, signed Windows, and Linux are built from the same v1.3.0 source tag and published with one signed SHA-256 manifest.
Blanc now keeps the sharp declared SVG or Retina website icon when a site also supplies an earlier low-resolution ICO. This restores the crisp Blanc mark in the Island without reducing compatibility for ordinary site icons.
Website-owned favicon changes that happen after a page finishes loading, such as an unread-count badge, now remain visible instead of being replaced by the page's original icon declaration.
Apple touch icons are used only as an availability fallback when a page has no ordinary desktop favicon, preventing mobile home-screen artwork from displacing a site's intended browser icon.
Release verification
The signed packaged candidate checks Blanc's own icon pixels against Chromium's raster of its declared SVG, in addition to the two non-overlapping 25-site favicon matrices.
Other platforms
All three platforms are built from the same v1.2.5 source tag and published with one SHA-256 manifest.
Website icons now load reliably across a much broader range of sites, including pages whose icon redirects, CDN behavior, request requirements, or mislabeled image types previously left a gray placeholder. Blanc keeps a working icon when a later candidate fails and still checks every resolved address before connecting.
Synced tab icons continue to use the sanitized pixels captured by the source device. Receiving devices do not contact the website again, and this release does not change the synced-icon format.
Tabs opened in the background as part of a multi-link handoff can no longer start playing sound unexpectedly. Media that first starts while a tab is hidden stays silent until you reveal that tab; media you started in the foreground continues normally when you switch away.
Release verification
Blanc now checks two non-overlapping 25-site favicon matrices against the signed packaged candidate before creating an immutable release tag.
Other platforms
All three platforms are built from the same v1.2.3 source tag and published with one SHA-256 manifest.
Website icons load again. Blanc still checks every resolved address before connecting, while allowing the connection to fall back across the approved IPv4 and IPv6 addresses when the first one is unavailable.
Sites that check microphone or camera permission before asking can now show their recording flow normally. An undecided permission truthfully reports prompt; choosing Allow or Block updates retained permission status objects and fires their standard change event. Blanc continues to refuse access until you explicitly allow it.
Tabs restored from Blanc 1.1.1 or earlier no longer appear as identical “New Tab” rows when the older session file has no saved titles. Blanc derives a useful title from each website’s address until the page is opened and supplies its real title.
Other platforms
All three platforms are built from the same v1.2.2 source tag and published with one SHA-256 manifest.
Blanc now gives back the memory of tabs you have not opened in a while. A tab left alone past the delay you choose hands its page back to the system; it keeps its place in the Island, the rail, and the switcher, and reloads when you come back to it. Choose the delay — off, 30 minutes, 1 hour, or 6 hours — under Settings → General → Quiet inactive tabs. It is set to an hour to begin with, and the choice stays on this device.
A quiet tab says so where you pick tabs: its row dims in the ⌘L panel and the vertical rail, and carries the word quiet. Screen readers hear the same word. The dim alone would not do — after a relaunch every restored tab is quiet, and a uniformly dim list reads as styling rather than as a state.
Blanc leaves a tab alone when quieting it would cost you something: anything playing or that has played sound, anything muted or pinned, a page with something typed into it or a checkbox you ticked, a page that asks before you leave, a result of a form you submitted, a tab waiting on a permission prompt, a window it opened or was opened by, and a page you have scrolled deep into. The new /sleep command quiets every eligible background tab straight away — it skips the waiting and nothing else, and it works even with the delay set to off.
Reopening Blanc is quicker. Restored tabs come back quiet with their titles and site icons already in place, and only the tab you were last using loads.
You can now see when a site is using your microphone or camera. While any tab or pop-out window is recording, a red microphone or camera mark appears in the Island; clicking it lists every site currently listening or watching, and each one has a stop button. Blanc knows a site started recording because it granted the permission itself, so the mark cannot be suppressed by the page — and if a site's own recording ends in a way Blanc cannot observe, the mark stays up rather than going quietly dark. A tab that is recording is never quieted.
Changed
Turning the quiet delay off stops Blanc quieting anything new. Tabs that are already quiet stay as they are and come back normally when you open them — switching the setting off never throws away what a quiet tab needs to return.
Permission requests now appear along the bottom of the page instead of beside the Island, where they crowded it, and a request for your microphone or camera shows which one it is asking for.
Fixed
Pinned tabs that belong to no group stay visible in the ⌘L panel.
Opening Settings, History, or Downloads while a page is still loading no longer risks a crash.
Site icons synced from your other devices are drawn sharply on high-resolution displays.
Other platforms
All three platforms are built from the same v1.2.1 source tag and published with one SHA-256 manifest.
The stop button no longer draws a second ✕. While a tab was loading, the reload button became an ✕ sitting two buttons from the close-tab ✕ — two near-identical marks, one cancelling the load and one closing the tab. Stop is now a ring with a filled square, drawn at the same size as the reload arc it replaces, so nothing shifts as a page loads.
Fixed
Finishing a download no longer empties the downloads button. The button fills like a vessel as bytes arrive, but the level was drawn from the download still in flight — so the moment it completed, the fill drained away and the button looked as though nothing had happened. A completed download now tops the vessel out, marks it with a check, and keeps it full until you open Downloads.
Other platforms
All three platforms are built from the same v1.1.1 source tag and published with one SHA-256 manifest.
The island now senses your cursor. Move toward it and it leans your way, rises slightly, and grows — reaching full strength as you arrive and easing back as you leave. It follows how close you are rather than switching on at a threshold, so there's no edge you can feel, and it stays completely still while another app has focus or the panel is already open.
Opening the command bar is now a movement rather than a cut. The panel grows out of the resting island — starting at its exact size and shape, corners rounding out as it expands — and shrinks back into it when you dismiss. The page underneath stays clickable the moment you press Escape; only the picture takes a moment to leave.
If you have "reduce motion" turned on in your system settings, both of these are off entirely rather than shortened.
Changed
The island has been rebuilt against the Blanc design system. The resting pill drops the group name it was repeating — group identity already reads from the dots and the ⌘L panel — and gains a close button in its action cluster. The address field is a capsule, tab rows drop their domain column so the title has room, and the panel's dismiss control is now a downward chevron that points the way the panel travels.
Ad and tracker blocking is now called Blanc Blocker throughout, and its icon is a shield cut by the diagonal from Blanc's own mark. The count sits on the shield's shoulder instead of floating beside it.
The Blanc mark is heavier across every icon — the Dock, the taskbar, and the favicon on Blanc's own pages. The previous drawing was too fine to survive being scaled down, and broke up at small sizes.
Every keyboard shortcut in the interface renders in the system font. JetBrains Mono draws ⌘, ⇧, ⌥ and ⎋ malformed, which was most visible on the start page.
Fixed
Fixed a crash that could quit Blanc when a tab was closed a moment before the application menu rebuilt itself. The rebuild is deliberately delayed to batch up rapid changes, and it could still be handed a tab that had just gone.
The island's shadow no longer gets sliced off where the chrome meets the page. The refreshed shadow was deeper than the band had room for, leaving a faint straight line under the island. The find bar had the same problem against its own edge.
Other platforms
All three platforms are built from the same v1.1.0 source tag and published with one SHA-256 manifest.
Fixed a crash that could quit Blanc when a tab was closed immediately after changing ad and tracker blocking for that site — from the shield popover's toggle, or from /allow-ads and /block-ads. Changing those settings schedules the page to reload a moment later, and if the tab was gone by then, Blanc tried to reload something that no longer existed and shut down instead.
Other platforms
All three platforms are built from the same v1.0.10 source tag and published with one SHA-256 manifest.
The shield's popover now tells you about the connection, not just the blocking. One new line states it plainly — "Uses HTTPS", "Not encrypted", or "Local" for development servers — and says nothing at all while a page is still loading, so it never carries a stale claim across a navigation. It reports what the address proves and no more: Blanc doesn't inspect certificates, so the line deliberately says "Uses HTTPS" rather than claiming the connection is verified.
The "Not secure" badge on the island is now a button. On a plain-HTTP site, clicking either the badge or the shield opens the same site controls, anchored under whichever one you clicked — and if the popover is already open, clicking the other control slides it over instead of closing it. Escape puts keyboard focus back on the control that opened it.
Changed
The popover's toggle is now labeled "Ad & tracker blocking" instead of "Protection". On an unencrypted site the old wording could read as a safety claim sitting right under a "Not secure" warning; the new label says exactly what the switch does.
Other platforms
All three platforms are built from the same v1.0.9 source tag and published with one SHA-256 manifest.
The shield on the island is now a control, not just a readout. Click it to open a small popover and turn ad and tracker blocking on or off for the site you're on — the same thing /allow-ads and /block-ads do, without having to remember a command. The chip shows a quiet glyph when there's nothing to report, a count when Blanc has blocked something, and a slashed shield when the site is allow-listed.
You can bring your favorites over from another browser. Blanc reads bookmarks from an installed Chrome, Edge, Brave, Chromium, or Vivaldi profile, keeps their folders, and skips anything already saved, so importing twice doesn't create duplicates. It's offered during first run and stays available from the Favorites page. Blanc only goes looking when you press "Look for other browsers", and it only ever opens that browser's bookmarks file — passwords, history, cookies, and open tabs are never read. Firefox and Safari aren't read directly; use the existing "Import HTML…" route for those.
Fixed
Find in page now shows matches while you type. Before this fix the counter stayed blank and nothing was highlighted until you pressed Enter — Blanc was telling Chromium to continue a search session it had never started.
Changed
The optional launch ping now includes a coarse OS version alongside the platform, so it's possible to tell how many installs could run an OS-gated feature. It is deliberately a single major number — "26" on macOS, "11" or "10" on Windows, a kernel major on Linux — never a full version string, which would narrow a device more than counting audiences requires. It's still one ping per launch with no browsing data, and it's still a single switch in Settings under "Help improve Blanc".
Other platforms
All three platforms are built from the same v1.0.8 source tag and published with one SHA-256 manifest.
/block-ads now works on sites that were previously allow-listed with /allow-ads. Before this fix, running /block-ads on an allowed site toggled the global ad-blocker but left the per-site exception in place, so ads kept loading.
The Dock icon mark no longer changes size between the quit-state bundle icon and the running app's dynamic icon. The vector mark in the Icon Composer source is now scaled to match the raster colorway PNGs' visual proportion (~63% of the visible tile).
Fixed a crash that could occur when /block-ads or /allow-ads reloaded the active tab during the settings fan-out. The reload is now deferred so it runs after the synchronous settings handlers finish.
Other platforms
All three platforms are built from the same v1.0.7 source tag and published with one SHA-256 manifest.
Blanc 1.0.6 fixes the expanded-island click bug that 1.0.4 and 1.0.5 both tried and failed to resolve, and corrects the record on what was actually wrong.
Fixed
Fixed pinned tabs occasionally becoming unclickable when the expanded island overlapped a site's draggable interface regions. Some sites — typically those built from shared desktop-app UI — mark parts of their own interface as draggable. In a desktop shell those marks become operating-system-level regions that are resolved before the application's own windows are consulted, so a click meant for an island row was taken by the page underneath before Blanc ever saw it.
Clicking a row while a page was loading could be dropped for a second, unrelated reason: a tab-state update could rebuild the panel list between mouse-down and mouse-up, destroying the row being pressed, so the click was retargeted and the row's own handler never ran. List rebuilds are now held for the duration of a click and applied as soon as it completes.
Large tab collections now scroll inside the expanded island, keeping the footer and all controls visible.
Changed
Summoning the island with ⌘L now expands it in place, on the same anchor as clicking it. It previously opened lower down with the resting island still visible above it, which read as a separate floating window rather than the same control opening.
⌘L now closes the expanded island as well as opening it, so the same shortcut puts it away. A half-typed query is never discarded — pressing it again there re-selects what you typed, as an address bar does.
Removed the overlay background-colour workaround introduced in 1.0.4. Electron parses eight-digit colours as AARRGGBB, so the value it set was fully transparent and never had the effect its comment described. The 1.0.5 panel-centering change is kept — it was not the fix, but it is correct and simpler than what it replaced.
Known limitation
Shadow-DOM drag regions remain unsupported. A page can declare a draggable region inside a shadow root, and no styling the browser applies from outside reaches into one, so a region declared there still takes clicks aimed at the island. Closing this needs a fix below the web layer and is tracked separately.
Erratum
The release notes for Blanc 1.0.4 and 1.0.5 each claimed to have fixed this issue and were wrong. Neither the overlay background layer nor the panel's centering method was responsible. Both of those releases have been annotated with a correction rather than rewritten.
Other platforms
All three platforms are built from the same v1.0.6 source tag and published with one SHA-256 manifest.
Blanc 1.0.5 is a maintenance release for macOS, Windows, and Linux.
Fixed
Clicking a pinned tab in the expanded island panel now works across the full row width. The v1.0.4 fix resolved most click-through cases, but a CSS transform on the panel's centering wrapper created a GPU compositing layer that caused Chromium to misroute mouse events past roughly the first third of the row. Replaced with flexbox centering.
Updated
Electron 43.3.0 (Chromium 150.0.7871.212, Node v24.18.1). Includes a use-after-free fix in custom protocol stream handling and a BrowserWindow sizing fix on Windows multi-monitor setups with mixed DPI.
Correction
This release's flexbox-centering change did not resolve the pinned-row click issue. The layout change remains, but it was not causal. The actual fix shipped in Blanc 1.0.6.
Blanc 1.0.4 is a maintenance release for macOS, Windows, and Linux.
Fixed
Clicking a pinned tab in the expanded island panel now works reliably on macOS. A fully transparent overlay base layer caused macOS to forward mouse events past the panel, so clicks on upper rows (pinned tabs, group headers) were silently swallowed.
Other platforms
The Windows and Linux application behavior is unchanged. All three platforms are built from the same v1.0.4 source tag and published with one SHA-256 manifest.
Correction
This release's overlay-background change did not resolve the pinned-row click issue. The actual cause was native drag regions declared by underlying webpages and was fixed in Blanc 1.0.6.
Blanc 1.0.3 ships digitally signed Windows builds. There are no application
changes in this release.
Signed Windows installer
The Windows installer and application binaries are now code signed by Bananify Creative through Azure Trusted Signing.
New installs no longer trigger the Windows SmartScreen "unknown publisher" warning, and Microsoft Defender false positives on the unsigned installer are resolved.
Windows auto-update continues to work from earlier versions; updating from an unsigned install to 1.0.3 is seamless.
Release integrity
The macOS, Windows, and Linux applications are built from the same v1.0.3
source tag and published with one SHA-256 manifest.
Blanc 1.0.2 improves the native Windows and Linux chrome and corrects the
optical size of Blanc's Windows taskbar icon.
Windows icon
Windows now uses one fixed Paper icon instead of exposing the macOS icon colorways in Settings.
The Windows icon is generated as a native nine-frame ICO from 16 through 256 pixels, with the macOS-style transparent margin removed and the Blanc mark enlarged for better visual parity with other Windows taskbar icons.
macOS keeps its existing selectable icon colorways, including the supporter colorways.
Windows and Linux chrome
The native application menu has a dedicated upper-left hamburger button that stays legible over light and dark web pages.
Alt+F opens the same native menu regardless of which Blanc surface has focus.
About Blanc is now available from the native application menu.
Release integrity
The macOS, Windows, and Linux applications are built from the same v1.0.2
source tag and published with one SHA-256 manifest.
Blanc 1.0.1 is a maintenance release for macOS, Windows, and Linux. It fixes
the Windows restart handoff that could leave an old Blanc process running while
the installer tried to replace it.
Fixed
The Windows installer now closes the old Blanc process and retries for a bounded period before asking for manual intervention. This replaces the failure mode where the first install attempt said Blanc could not be closed and clicking Retry later succeeded.
Restart Now on Windows now tears down every Blanc browser surface after session data has been preserved, with a forced-exit backstop if Chromium does not finish shutting down promptly. This also prevents an old instance from reclaiming the relaunch and offering the same update again.
Other platforms
The macOS and Linux application behavior is unchanged. All three platforms are
built from the same v1.0.1 source tag and published with one SHA-256 manifest.
Blanc 1.0 puts the browser in one small Island: navigation, search, tabs, named groups, page actions, and slash commands stay close without a permanent horizontal tab strip or conventional toolbar.
What is new in 1.0
Optional vertical tabs. Turn on the resizable left rail from the Island, View menu, Settings, or with Command-Option-V. It preserves open pages and keeps the Island as Blanc's only address, search, and command surface.
A first-class Island. Press Command-L to navigate, search, switch among tabs, Favorites, history, named groups, and tabs shared by another device, or type / to run a browser command.
A menu on the command bar. Right-click the Island's address field for the usual editing items plus two Blanc actions. Copy Clean Link copies the address with known tracking parameters stripped, leaving every other parameter untouched. Paste and Go navigates straight from the clipboard through the same path as a typed address, then closes the Island.
View Page Source. Right-click a web page to read its source in Chromium's own highlighted view. It opens in a new tab, so Back never loses your place.
Named groups and private tabs. Groups organize tabs by name rather than color. Private tabs share a separate, non-persistent in-memory browsing session that is discarded when Blanc quits.
Built-in blocking. EasyList and EasyPrivacy filtering runs at the browser session layer rather than through an extension.
Profile Sync. Optional passphrase-based end-to-end encryption covers Favorites and settings. Per-device open-tab sharing is separate, read-only, and off by default.
Release hardening
Local browser chrome remains usable while blocking filters initialize. Failure offers Retry and an explicit Continue without blocking path.
A fresh profile presents Search suggestions and Help improve Blanc before either path may send; both choices can be changed before continuing.
Chrome and internal-page fonts are bundled locally.
Release publication verifies the exact signed and notarized package, updater metadata, blockmaps, and SHA-256 checksums before any asset is made public.
Availability and boundaries
Blanc 1.0.0 is for macOS on Apple Silicon.
Blanc has no extension runtime or password import.
Ad and tracker blocking is best effort.
Copy Clean Link removes a curated list of known tracking parameters from http(s) addresses. It is not a general query-string cleaner, and it does not affect tracking that lives outside the query string.
The address field's menu is pointer-invoked on macOS.
An optional US$19 one-time Blanc Supporter purchase unlocks three cosmetic app-icon colorways; browser features remain free.
Download the Apple Silicon DMG and its SHA256SUMS manifest from the release assets. Product, press, and private security feedback can be sent to support@blancbrowser.com; put Security in the subject for vulnerabilities.
Blanc v0.22.0 turns the Island into a full search surface. Start typing in ⌘L and Blanc now blends your open tabs, groups, Favorites, and history with live suggestions from the search engine you chose in Settings; arrow through the six-row list or press Enter to search exactly what you typed. Suggestions can be switched off, and private tabs, pasted text, addresses, local paths, and sensitive-looking input never leave the device for autocomplete.
Tabs synced from your other Blanc devices now carry their site icons too. The source device converts each favicon into a tiny inert PNG inside a separate end-to-end-encrypted sidecar, so another device never contacts a remote tab's site just to draw its row; strict budgets, cancellation, mixed-version compatibility, and graceful fallback keep this cosmetic layer from interfering with tab sync.
Blanc v0.21.0 clears the clutter out of the ⌘L command panel. Favorites, History, Downloads, Settings, and Shortcuts now open as a sheet that floats over the page you're on instead of taking up a tab — open one, glance or change what you need, and dismiss it with Esc or a click, leaving your tab strip for actual browsing. Anything you open from it, like a favorite or a history entry, still opens as a normal tab.
The panel's tab list is quieter too: every row now shows just the site's icon and title at rest and reveals the address and controls when you hover or focus it, while long titles fade out softly instead of being cut off with an ellipsis. The tab you're currently on keeps its address in view, so you never lose track of where you are.
Blanc v0.20.0 introduces Tab Sync: see your open tabs from your other devices. Turn on "share this device's open tabs" under Settings → Sync and each machine publishes a snapshot of its tabs — browse them from the ⌘L panel, the Quick Switcher, or the start page on any synced device, and open one locally with a click. It's a menu, not a mirror: nothing ever force-opens or closes a tab on another machine.
Sharing is off by default and per-device, private tabs never leave the machine, and like the rest of Profile Sync the snapshots are end-to-end encrypted — the sync server only ever stores ciphertext it cannot read.
This release also updates Electron to 43.2.0 for the latest Chromium stable.
Blanc v0.19.0 brings fully adaptive app icons to macOS 26 and later. Every Dock colorway is now an Icon Composer stack that follows the user's Icon & Widget Style — Default, Dark, Clear, or Tinted — including the system-selected tint color, while older macOS releases retain the existing flat icons.
This release also updates Electron to 43.1.1, electron-builder to 26.15.3, and Cucumber to 13.1.1, bringing the latest Chromium patch and a clean dependency audit.
Blanc v0.18.0 sharpens the everyday chrome. The resting Island pill is larger and easier to read, and each tab dot now blooms into a small disc showing that tab's favicon when you hover or focus it — so you can see which tab you're switching to before you click.
The Favorites page gets a quieter, ledger-style layout: row and folder actions become understated text revealed on hover or focus, folder names move into their section headers, and dates line up in a right-aligned column.
Blanc v0.17.0 adds two privacy features that respect the VPN or proxy you already use: WebRTC leak protection and optional encrypted DNS (DoH).
Encrypted DNS hides your DNS lookups from the network in transit to the resolver you choose. It does not hide the sites you visit — destination IPs stay visible to your network — and choosing a provider is a trust decision. Automatic mode upgrades opportunistically and can fall back to unencrypted DNS; only the named-provider and custom positions are strict.
WebRTC leak protection keeps WebRTC from exposing addresses beyond your default connection, with an optional "disable direct UDP" mode for use behind an application proxy.
Light mode: warm-stone light palette (now the default), with a System/Light/Dark appearance setting that themes the chrome, internal pages, and web content together.
Google analytics and limited Google and OpenAI ad measurement require your choice in the EEA, UK and Switzerland, and are on by default elsewhere. You can turn them off here. Cloudflare counts page views without cookies.