Product Overview of Bromite
Introduction
Bromite is a Chromium fork designed specifically for Android devices, focusing on enhancing privacy, blocking ads, and providing a clutter-free browsing experience. It is an open-source project, making all its patches available under the GNU/GPL version 3, allowing other open-source projects to utilize them.
Key Features
- Ad Blocking: Bromite comes with a built-in ad-blocking engine that is enabled by default. Users can customize adblock filters using user-provided URLs or create their own personalized lists.
- Privacy Enhancements: The browser is designed to eliminate privacy-invasive features. It includes options such as always-incognito mode, disabling all field trials permanently, and disabling smart search by default. It also allows web searches from incognito mode and removes click-tracking and AMP from search results.
- DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH): Bromite supports DNS-over-HTTPS, enabling users to set up their preferred DoH server for secure DNS queries.
- Site Settings and Controls: Users have easy access to site settings such as cookie, camera, and microphone permissions directly from the address bar. Additionally, users can deactivate or activate JavaScript and JIT (Just-In-Time) compilation.
- User Scripts: The browser allows users to upload JavaScript files to perform automatic operations, such as redirecting social media platforms to their privacy-respecting frontends. However, users are advised to be cautious when loading third-party JavaScript code.
- Native Android Autofill Support: Bromite includes native Android autofill support, enhancing the user experience by simplifying form filling.
- Security Features: The browser includes several security features, such as site-per-process isolation for devices with more than 1GB of memory, warnings for TLSv1.0/TLSv1.1 pages, and the use of Control Flow Integrity (CFI) on all architectures except x86.
- User Interface: Minimal UI changes are made to maintain a clean and clutter-free browsing experience, aligning with the goal of preventing the browser from becoming an “advertisement platform”.
- Auto-Updates: Bromite supports automatic updates, ensuring users receive the latest versions and security patches without manual intervention. Updates are also available via the F-Droid repository.
Availability
Bromite is compatible with Android Marshmallow (v6.0, API level 23) and above, and it is available for ARM, ARM64, and x86 architectures.
Conclusion
Bromite offers a robust and privacy-focused browsing experience for Android users, combining effective ad blocking, enhanced privacy features, and a secure browsing environment. Its open-source nature and customizable options make it a compelling alternative to traditional browsers.