A fast, private, multi-profile browser for Windows — designed and built from the ground up.
Tabbed browsing · Isolated profiles + incognito · Built-in ad blocking · Download manager · Local AI · Chrome/Edge import
Mergus is a complete desktop web browser for Windows, independently designed and developed as an end-to-end product exercise: a polished user experience on top of a carefully hardened Chromium foundation. It targets users who juggle multiple identities online (personal, work, clients) and want tracking protection and everyday power tools built in — no extension hunting required.
Status: stable release · Platform: Windows 10/11 (x64) · License: proprietary — see LICENSE
- Multi-tab engine — every tab runs in its own view with independent navigation, history-aware back/forward, reload/stop, and smart URL bar (URLs, domains, and search queries all resolve from one input)
- Drag-to-reorder tabs, duplicate, pin, sleep inactive tabs automatically (configurable timeout), "keep awake" override
- Split view — two pages side by side in one window with adjustable ratio; survives resizes and sidebar toggles
- Find in page (
Ctrl+F) with live match counts, page zoom with % indicator, printing - Session restore — picks up exactly where you left off (toggleable in Settings)
- Private start page — instant, offline, zero tracking: search box + quick tiles, no network calls
- Styled error pages instead of blank views when a site fails to load
- Unlimited color-coded profiles, each with fully isolated cookies, storage, cache, and extensions (separate Chromium partitions)
- Incognito profiles — pure in-memory sessions; nothing touches disk, everything vanishes on close
- Per-site permission memory — camera, microphone, location, notifications, clipboard and more, remembered per origin
- Chrome-style permission bubble anchored to the address-bar lock icon — small, dismissible, no fullscreen interruption
- Local favicon cache — site icons are fetched from the site itself and cached on disk; unlike most browsers, Mergus never phones a third party (e.g. Google's icon service) with your browsing history
- Built-in ad & tracker blocking — a native request-level engine covering major ad networks, trackers, and analytics, with a live blocked-counter; no extension required, works in every profile including incognito
- Command palette (
Ctrl+K) — every action at your fingertips - 3-dot main menu unifying tabs, downloads, library, AI, import, and settings
- Library — bookmarks, page likes with address-bar auto-suggest, and full searchable history
- Real download manager — every download asks where to save, with progress, open/reveal-in-folder, and cancel
- Sidebar apps — dock Gmail, YouTube, WhatsApp, Spotify… one click away, with per-app context actions
- Import in seconds — one-click bookmarks import from Chrome, Edge, and Brave, plus any bookmarks HTML file
- Page summarization 100% on-device — page text is extracted locally and sent only to a model running on your own PC (via Ollama); nothing ever goes to the cloud
- Model manager — list installed models, download new ones with live progress, delete, and one-click browsing of Hugging Face
- Honest capability check — Mergus reads your RAM/CPU and tells you which model sizes your PC can actually handle before you download gigabytes
- Glassmorphism UI with per-profile theme hues, dark aesthetic, collapsible sidebar, custom frameless window controls
- Full keyboard control — see shortcuts below; shortcuts work even while a page has focus
Mergus treats the browser as hostile-input software, not a CRUD app:
| Area | What was done |
|---|---|
| Site permissions | Allow/Block prompt per origin with remember list — nothing auto-granted, camera/mic included |
| Downloads | Save-dialog confirmation for every file, visible progress, no silent drops |
| Navigation | Non-HTTP(S) top-level redirects (e.g. file:// phishing) blocked at the view layer |
| Renderer hardening | sandbox, contextIsolation, no Node in pages, strict CSP on the browser UI |
| Extension installs | Unpacked extensions show a full permission manifest for approval before receiving file access; auto-downloaded components are hash-pinned and tamper-checked |
| Code protection | Shipped binary is obfuscated and packed (asar + integrity checks), DevTools disabled in release builds |
| Process model | Single-instance lock eliminates Chromium cache-lock corruption |
- Runtime: Electron 35 (Chromium) · Node.js · Windows x64 (NSIS installer + portable)
- Tab engine: one
WebContentsViewper tab, bounds-managed against a custom frameless chrome window - State & IPC: main-process managers (tabs, profiles/sessions, extensions, downloads, AI, history store) bridged to the UI over a typed
contextBridgeAPI - Local services: on-disk favicon cache served over a privileged custom scheme; private
mergus://pages (start, error); Ollama REST integration for AI - Build: obfuscated + asar-packaged release pipeline producing signed-layout installer and portable EXE
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
Ctrl+T / Ctrl+W |
New tab / close tab |
Ctrl+L |
Focus address bar |
Ctrl+F / Ctrl+K / Ctrl+P |
Find · Command palette · Print |
Ctrl + / Ctrl - / Ctrl 0 |
Zoom in / out / reset |
Ctrl+1…9, Ctrl+Tab |
Jump to tab / cycle tabs |
Ctrl+R, F5 |
Reload |
- Download
Mergus-Setup-1.0.0.exe(installer) orMergus-Portable-1.0.0.exe(no install, runs anywhere) from this repository. - Run it — no account, no telemetry, no setup wizard questions.
- Optional: install Ollama to unlock page summarization and the model manager; one-click import your Chrome/Edge bookmarks from the ⋮ menu.
Note: the release is unsigned, so Windows SmartScreen may ask for confirmation on first run — click “More info → Run anyway”.
Auto-updater · password manager with OS-keyring encryption · extension store · tab groups · cross-device profile sync · macOS/Linux builds.
© Mergus. All rights reserved. This software is proprietary freeware — see LICENSE for the terms. Third-party components (Chromium, Electron, Ollama) remain property of their respective owners and are governed by their own licenses.
Built solo, end to end — product design, UI, browser engineering, security model, and release pipeline.
Omar Elhifny - Omar.a.elhifny@gmail.com - Linkedin.com/in/omar-elhifny/