Every change, release by release

Fixed

• The one-line PowerShell install works again. It stopped with "Cannot validate argument on parameter 'ArgumentList'" in Windows PowerShell (the version built into Windows) right before opening the installer.
• Pasted into a PowerShell window opened as administrator, the install command now opens the installer with your normal rights, so JBrowser never ends up running as administrator. If JBrowser is ever started as administrator anyway, it says so and suggests opening it normally.

Changed

• Simpler downloading. The website's Download buttons open a short, clear window with one big Download for Windows button. Once the download starts it shows three steps to install, including what to click if Windows says "Windows protected your PC". Installing with one PowerShell command is still there as an option.
• A new "Nothing hidden" section on the website about JBrowser being open source: all code public, nothing sent about you, checked downloads, free under the GPL.
• Ready for jbrowser.app. The website can move to its own domain with a single setting, and it now helps search engines: a structured description of JBrowser for Google and Bing, link previews on every page, old documentation versions kept out of search results, automatic notifications to Bing when pages change (IndexNow), and a security.txt for security researchers.
• Packages updated; the newest stable Chrome version is recorded as usual.
• The website and the app credit The JBrowser Team.

Changed

• JBrowser presents itself as the current Chrome. Websites now see Chrome 155, the newest stable version, instead of the year-old Chromium 140 that JBrowser's engine is built on, so no site treats JBrowser as outdated. The user agent is Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/155.0.0.0 Safari/537.36, and the browser details sites can ask for (client hints) match it. Every release records the Chrome version that is current when it is built, and between releases JBrowser keeps up by date.
• The active card's outline takes your colour. Instead of the blue outline, the card you're using is outlined in a soft, washed version of your colour tint, or grey with No colour.
• The engine's real Chromium version is shown in Settings → About JBrowser.

Fixed

• Google sign-in, second round. JBrowser's ad and tracker filters blocked two requests on Google's sign-in page that Google's security check relies on, so Google could still refuse with "Couldn't sign you in". Sign-in pages (Google, YouTube, Microsoft and Apple) are no longer filtered; dangerous sites are still blocked everywhere.
• Security: local files. A web page saved on your computer and opened in JBrowser could read your other files (Qt allows this by default, unlike Chrome). Local pages can now show their own images and styles but can't read other files.
• Videos and sounds in a format JBrowser can't play yet (H.264 and AAC, which JBrowser's engine doesn't include) no longer just stay black: a bar explains why and offers to copy the link to open it in another browser.
• The loading spinner draws half as often (30 times a second), and not at all when its card is out of sight.

Security

• A master password for the password vault now uses a stronger key derivation (Scrypt N=2^17, OWASP's recommendation). Existing vaults keep working and move up when the password is changed.
• Once JBrowser is code-signed, it installs only updates signed by the same publisher, on top of the SHA-256 check.

Added

• Ready for free code signing by SignPath Foundation, which will remove "Windows protected your PC": releases can now be built on GitHub's own Windows machines (release-build.yml), sent to SignPath for signing, and published from there. The website has the required code signing policy and a privacy policy listing every connection JBrowser makes. docs/SIGNING.md lists the steps left for the project owner. This release is still unsigned.

Fixed

• Signing in to Google works. Google stopped JBrowser with "Couldn't sign you in. This browser or app may not be secure", because it refuses browser engines built into other apps, which is what Qt WebEngine looks like to it. Like other Qt WebEngine browsers, JBrowser now presents a current Firefox user agent to Google's sign-in server (accounts.google.com) only. Every other site, Google's other services included, still sees Chrome.

Added

• Code signing. The build can now sign JBrowser.exe, the installer and its uninstaller with a code-signing certificate, which is what removes SmartScreen's "Windows protected your PC" warning. tools/sign.ps1 works with a certificate in the Windows certificate store (including hardware tokens and cloud keys), a .pfx file or Azure Artifact Signing, timestamps every signature and checks it. master.ps1 shows whether a build is signed, and the release notes and INSTALL.txt follow. docs/SIGNING.md explains why the warning appears and compares the ways to get a certificate. This release is still unsigned: a certificate from a trusted authority has to be requested by the publisher first.
• A website at jbrowser.app: a home page with a direct download of the newest installer, a permanent download link, this changelog, and developer documentation for every release (architecture, web engine, privacy, UI, building and releasing, and references generated from each version's code), with a version switcher and search. It is built by tools/build_site.py and published by GitHub Actions on every push and release.
• The home page shows real, high-resolution screenshots of JBrowser, with a feature tour to click through, a colour picker that shows each tint on the real window, and screenshots that follow the site's light or dark mode. tools/site_screenshots.py retakes them all in one command.

Changed

• The download page and the home page explain SmartScreen's warning and offer the PowerShell install, which checks the download and doesn't trigger the warning, with a Copy button.

Added

• Gallery. The new Gallery button on the ribbon (or Ctrl+Shift+G) spreads every card in the space out as a grid of live thumbnails that pop in one after another. Click a card to jump to it, type to filter by title or address, use the arrow keys and Enter, close cards with ×, drag them to reorder, and add a card from the New card tile. The This space / All spaces switch shows the cards of every space at once, grouped under each space's name and colour; drag a card into another group to move it to that space. It works with the keyboard and screen readers.
• Colour tints. Settings → Appearance → Colour tint has 10 colours (rose, coral, amber, lime, mint, teal, sky, indigo, violet and slate) and No colour. With Acrylic or Mica the colour is a light wash over the window; with Solid the window takes on the colour fully. Incognito spaces always stay black. You can also pick a colour in the welcome setup.
• Drag cards anywhere. Hold a card's ribbon and drag it along the canvas to reorder it, or drop it onto a space in the sidebar to move it there. Hold Alt and drag anywhere on a card to do the same. Cards in the sidebar list can be dragged too: a line shows where the card will land, and dropping it on a space moves it.
• The welcome setup has a new page about the Gallery, a colour picker on the Look page, and a Gallery step in the tour. It shows once more after updating so you can try them.
• The sidebar menu has Gallery of all spaces, and the main menu and command palette have Gallery. The command palette can also switch the colour tint (type "colour") and the New card button.

Changed

• Tracker and ad blocking works properly now. JBrowser reads the full Adblock Plus rules in EasyList and EasyPrivacy (address patterns, exceptions and per-site rules), not only whole domains, and hides the empty ad boxes that are left behind. A site on your allowed list is left completely alone. Settings shows how many rules are active. The rules download in the background the first time JBrowser starts after updating.
• Fewer "unusual traffic" and "Checking your browser" pages. JBrowser now looks like the Chrome it is built on: it sends the same language header, no longer changes the reported processor, memory or graphics card, and leaves Google, Cloudflare, Microsoft, Apple, PayPal and CAPTCHA pages untouched. Fingerprinting protection now only scrambles canvas images, where it helps most.
• The clock sits in the middle of the sidebar header.
• The New card button is always at the bottom of the sidebar list, even in an empty space. Turn it off with Settings → Appearance → Always show the "New card" button.
• The memory saver still keeps chats, calls and screen shares awake, but now finds them without adding anything to the page itself.
• Settings describes tracker blocking and fingerprinting protection more accurately.
• Packages updated to their latest versions; requirements.lock.txt lists the exact versions of this release. No known vulnerabilities in any of them (checked against the OSV database).

Fixed

• A card that scrolled out of view or went to sleep before its page had drawn showed a blank white picture. It now shows the page's title until a real picture is taken.

Fixed

• Setup no longer stops with "JBrowser is currently running". If JBrowser is open, Setup now offers to close it for you: JBrowser saves your cards and spaces, closes, and the last page offers to start it again. You can install this version straight over an open JBrowser 1.4.0.
• Setup no longer asks whether to install "for me" or "for all users". It installs for your account, as before.
• When Windows or an installer asks JBrowser to close (for example when you sign out), it now saves everything and shuts down in order, instead of quitting without saving the latest changes.
• Saving settings, the session and other data no longer fails with "Access is denied" when an antivirus scan or the search indexer briefly holds the file. Before, that save was lost and "Something went wrong" appeared.
• Update window: after closing it during a download, Install no longer downloads the update a second time, and Check for updates during a download now shows its progress instead of leaving a stray message for later.

Changed

• 30 MB smaller download (108 MB instead of 138 MB, and 344 MB instead of 523 MB installed). Parts of Qt that JBrowser never uses, non-English translations and a debug copy of the DevTools files are no longer included.
• The build scripts start from empty output folders, so files from an earlier build can never end up in an installer.
• GitHub: private vulnerability reporting is switched on (the Report a vulnerability link in SECURITY.md works now), a code of conduct was added, and the page links to the latest release.

Added

• Automatic updates. JBrowser checks GitHub Releases once a day. When a new version is out, an Update button appears on the ribbon; one click shows what's new, downloads the installer, verifies its SHA-256 fingerprint and restarts JBrowser on the new version. Settings → About has Check now and an on/off switch, and the Lazy Toolbar has Check for updates.
• A proper Windows installer (JBrowser-Setup-<version>.exe, built with Inno Setup): installs for the current user without an administrator prompt, adds a Start menu entry and an optional desktop icon, can register JBrowser as a Windows web browser (so it can be chosen as the default), and uninstalls from Apps & features.
• JBrowser now lives on GitHub (The-JBrowser-Team/JBrowser) under the GNU GPL v3 licence, with a README for every folder, guides in docs/, issue templates and a lint check on every push.
• tools/update_deps.py: creates or refreshes the virtual environment, updates every package the app and build need, then imports every module to prove they work (--check, --lock).
• tools/version.py, tools/build_app.ps1, tools/build_installer.ps1 and tools/release.ps1 for a one-command build and release.
• master.ps1 runs the whole process: packages, build, installer, a dated zip in distribution\, and (with -Publish) the GitHub release.
• One-command install and update from PowerShell: irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/The-JBrowser-Team/JBrowser/main/install.ps1 | iex.

Changed

• The welcome intro is livelier: three brand-coloured orbs swirl in on comet trails, pulse on the sound's first hit and merge into a bloom of sparkles; the logo springs out of it with a little twist and then floats; the JBrowser letters hop in one by one under a travelling colour wave.
• The welcome screen uses a softer mouse-click sound at half the volume, and no longer clicks on the first slide straight after the intro. (These changes were made after 1.2.0; there was no separate 1.3.0 release.)
• build.ps1 moved to tools/build_app.ps1.

Fixed

• After a restart, a removed HTTPS proxy could stay in use until JBrowser was closed and opened again.

Added

• A first-run welcome: an animated intro timed to its sound, three story slides, setup pages for look, search, protection, spaces and finishing touches, then a guided tour with a gliding spotlight. Replay it from Settings → About or the Lazy Toolbar ("Replay the welcome tour").
• Pull to add a card: keep scrolling past the first or last card and a "+" grows in the gap; when its ring fills, a new card opens there. Alt+← on the first card (or Alt+→ on the last) twice does the same.
• Favourites and pinned cards: sites pinned above the spaces (Arc-style tiles that work in every space; drag to reorder), and pinned cards that stay at the start of their space with no close button.
• The Archive (Ctrl+Shift+Y): cards closed in the last 48 hours, searchable and one click from coming back with their history. Clearing browsing history clears it too.
• An optional Home button on the ribbon that opens the Lazy Toolbar or a page you choose.

Changed

• The sidebar's hide button hides it completely; point at the left edge of the window to peek at it, or press Ctrl+B. Right-clicking the ribbon or sidebar offers show and hide options.
• The address bar is narrower and centred; the new-card button moved to a "New card" row under the last card; the "Cards in" label is gone.
• The old "favorites bar" is now the bookmarks bar.

Added

• New security features: phishing and malware protection with a warning page, fingerprinting protection, removal of tracking codes from links, an HTTPS-first mode that falls back safely, download protection with Windows Mark-of-the-Web tagging, warnings for insecure password forms and look-alike (IDN) addresses, a site information panel, "Forget this site", "Copy link without trackers" and a password health check (weak / reused).
• Settings pages Clear browsing data (by time range and space, plus clear on exit) and Reset (default settings or a full factory reset).

Changed

• Settings rebuilt as a translucent window with plain-language explanations under every option.
• Acrylic by default, Segoe UI, far less bold text, a 12-hour clock beside the logo (the logo opens Settings), Chrome-style grouped ribbon buttons, a subtle grey focus ring on spaces, and a Lazy Toolbar that stays empty until you type.
• History, Bookmarks, Downloads, Passwords, Cookies, Permissions, User scripts and the developer toolkit open as translucent windows.
• Default spaces are Home, Work and Other; 1.0 profiles are upgraded automatically.

Added

• First release: the infinite horizontal card canvas, isolated Spaces with per-space profiles and incognito spaces, the Lazy Toolbar command palette, memory saver and render throttling, secure DNS (Quad9 / Cloudflare), per-space proxies, tracker blocking, an encrypted password manager, downloads, history, bookmarks, DevTools and user scripts, on a Windows 11 Mica / Acrylic window. See docs/FEATURES.md.