netnyahooDownload

The browser that won’t leave office.

A Chromium browser for the Mac with tabs in the sidebar, split view, every Chrome extension and uBlock Origin built in. Make it your default. It will never step down.

Download for MacApple SiliconRead the source

v0.1.0FreemacOS 14 Sonoma+Apple Silicon

Big Yahu, the Netnyahoo mascot: a glossy toy caricature of Benjamin Netanyahu in a dark suit and blue tie.
Fig. 1 — Big Yahu, candidateDrag to turn · click to dance
The Netnyahoo window in light mode: pinned tiles and tabs in a sidebar on the left, Wikipedia’s article on Chromium on the right.
Fig. 2 — In officeNetnyahoo 0.1.0 on macOS. A screenshot, not a mockup.

The platform

Ten pledges.
All of them shipped.

Unusual for a campaign, so here they are with screenshots. Everything below is the real app, captured from version 0.1.0.

  1. Pledge No. 02

    One bar. No filibuster.

    ⌘L opens the command bar over the page. Type a word and it offers the tab you already have open before it offers a search.

    • ⌘L
    • Switch to Tab
    • Any search engine
    The command bar open over a page, with “swiftui” typed: a Switch to Tab result above search suggestions.
    Fig. 4 — The command bar

  2. Pledge No. 03

    Two pages, one window, no coalition talks.

    Split view holds up to three pages, side by side or stacked. Drag a tab onto the page to split it. Each pane is a real Chrome tab at its own size.

    • Up to 3 panes
    • Side by side or stacked
    • Drag to split
    Netnyahoo in split view: MDN on the left, Wikipedia on the right, both in one window.
    Fig. 5 — Split view

  3. Pledge No. 04

    Separate profiles for separate lives.

    Each profile is its own Chrome profile, with its own cookies, logins, passwords, extensions and colour, down to the painted mark on the new tab page. Switch with ⌃1–9 or swipe across the sidebar. Plausible deniability comes standard.

    • Per-profile everything
    • ⌃1–9
    • Two-finger swipe
    Fig. 6 — Three profiles, three new tab pages

  4. Pledge No. 05

    Forms a coalition with any extension.

    Install straight from the Chrome Web Store. Extensions run per profile and keep themselves up to date, because underneath it is Chrome. The store still asks you to switch to Chrome; the button next to it says Add to Netnyahoo.

    • Chrome Web Store
    • Manifest V3
    • Auto-update
    Dark Reader’s page on the Chrome Web Store, open in Netnyahoo, with an Add to Netnyahoo button.
    Fig. 7 — The Chrome Web Store, working

  5. Pledge No. 06

    Tracks nothing. Unusual, for a man in his position.

    uBlock Origin Lite ships in every profile, incognito included, and blocks ads and trackers from the first page, on your Mac. Cookie banners too, with one switch. The engine is built with ungoogled-chromium’s patches, so Google sign-in, crash reporting and the background pings are compiled out.

    • uBlock Origin Lite
    • ungoogled-chromium
    • No analytics
    Netnyahoo’s Privacy & Security settings: switches to block ads, trackers and cookie banners, and the number of filter rules loaded.
    Fig. 8 — Settings › Privacy & Security

Also passed, without a photo op

  1. Pledge No. 07

    Passwords and passkeys

    Chrome’s password manager and autofill, per profile. Passkeys with Touch ID or your phone. Keeps secrets better than his cabinet.

  2. Pledge No. 08

    Annexation, but consensual

    Import bookmarks, history, open tabs and passwords from Chrome, Arc, Safari, Firefox, Edge, Brave, Opera or Vivaldi; Arc’s spaces and pinned tabs too.

  3. Pledge No. 09

    Picture in Picture

    Chrome’s own, plus a stash: push the video off the edge of the screen and it waits there.

  4. Pledge No. 10

    Incognito

    ⇧⌘N. Always dark, kept in memory, gone when the window closes. Ad blocking stays on.

The record

It’s actually Chromium.

Not a WebKit skin and not Electron. Netnyahoo is our own build of Chromium, patched and compiled from source, hosted in a native Mac shell written in React Native, Swift and Objective-C++. Unlike most campaign promises, all of it can be checked: the patches are in the repository.

MeasureDetailsVote
EngineChromium 154 through our own patched build of CEF, Chrome runtime. Every tab is a real Chrome tab.Yes
De-Googledungoogled-chromium’s patches: Google sign-in, crash reporting, GCM and domain-reliability pings compiled out.Yes
Chrome Web StoreLeft on deliberately, with extension auto-update.Yes
Video and audioH.264 and AAC, built with Chrome’s proprietary codecs.Yes
Content blockinguBlock Origin Lite in every profile, incognito included.Yes
Passwords and autofillChrome’s password manager and autofill, per profile.Yes
PasskeysTouch ID and phone work. iCloud Keychain passkeys wait on an Apple entitlement.Partly
App updatesSparkle, with signed releases.Yes
SyncNot yet. There’s no server to sync through.Not yet
TranslateNot yet. Its Google backend is one of the things removed.Not yet
Widevine DRMNot yet, so Netflix and other protected video won’t play.Not yet
Intel MacsApple Silicon only, macOS 14 or later.No

Wanted
for questioning

Offline page · in development

Where’s Big Yahu?

When the Wi-Fi drops, Chrome gives you a dinosaur. Netnyahoo gives you a ballroom of donors, lobbyists and very generous friends, and one man hiding among them. It’s coming to the offline page in a later term. Until then, practise here: he’s in this picture.

A work-in-progress screenshot of the game: a ballroom packed with caricatured party guests, Big Yahu somewhere among them.

Fig. 9 — Level 1, 83 suspectsWork-in-progress screenshot

Press conference

Questions from the press.

Unlike some, we answer them.

Is this a joke?
The name is. The browser isn’t: it’s a full Chromium browser with the extensions, passwords and codecs you’d expect. The satire is aimed at Benjamin Netanyahu and his government’s politics, and at nobody else.
macOS won’t open it.

Version 0.1.0 is signed with a Developer ID but not yet notarized by Apple, so Gatekeeper blocks the first launch. Once:

  1. Open the DMG and drag Netnyahoo into Applications.
  2. Open Netnyahoo. macOS refuses; click Done.
  3. Go to System Settings › Privacy & Security, scroll down, and click Open Anyway.

Or, in Terminal:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Netnyahoo.app
Will it run on my Mac?
If it has Apple Silicon (M1 or later) and runs macOS 14 Sonoma or later, yes. There’s no Intel build. The download is 202 MB.
What doesn’t it do yet?
Sync, Translate, and Widevine DRM, so Netflix and other protected video won’t play. Passkeys stored in iCloud Keychain are waiting on an entitlement from Apple; Touch ID and phone passkeys work. There’s no AI assistant.
Does it update itself?
The app updates through Sparkle with signed releases. Extensions update themselves through the Web Store.
What does it collect?
Nothing. The app has no analytics, and Chromium’s crash reporting and usage pings are compiled out. The sites you visit, the extensions you install and your search engine see what they always see. Google is the default search engine until you change it; nobody paid for that.
Is this Dia?
No. The interface follows Dia’s closely. Netnyahoo has nothing to do with The Browser Company, which has not been asked for its opinion and would probably rather not give one.
Is it really open source?
All of it, including the Chromium patches, is on GitHub. Issues and pull requests are welcome; so is a fork.
Why “Netnyahoo”?
Because a browser should do what it’s told and leave when asked. Some offices could take notes.

Election day is today

Elect it
default.

Free, 202 MB, and it leaves when asked: drag it to the Trash. We checked.

Download 0.1.0DMGRelease notes

macOS 14 Sonoma or later · Apple Silicon · First launch help