Every Blanc release, in one place.

Added

• 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.

Added

• 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.

Fixed

• 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.

Added

• 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.

Added

• 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.

Changed

• 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.

Fixed

• 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 [email protected] 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.

Added

• 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 [email protected] 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.

Added

• 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 [email protected] 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.

Added

• 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.

Fixed

• 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.

Fixed

• 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.

Fixed

• 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.

Added

• 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.

Changed

• 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.

Added

• 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

• 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.

Added

• 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.

Added

• 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.

Fixed

• /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 [email protected]; 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.

• Add newsletter signup with honeypot and KV storage
• Sync tab favicons safely

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.

• site: convert marketing site to Astro (F-parity, self-hosted fonts, hashed assets)
• fix(newtab): keep the ledger footer clear of synced tab rows
• Quiet rows for the expanded Island panel
• Utility sheet: Favorites/History/Downloads/Settings/Shortcuts open as a sheet, not tabs

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.

• Tab Sync: open tabs from your other devices (F27)

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.

• Add /save [folder] slash command
• Network privacy (M2+M3): WebRTC leak protection + encrypted DNS

• Import favorites from other browsers + favorites folders
• Reflect favorites folders in the native Favorites menu

• fix(webauthn): Touch ID passkeys — entitlement, provisioning profile, verified signing chain

• fix(pages): private new tabs open blank — register blanc:// on the private session

• fix(webauthn): restore Touch ID passkeys without restricted entitlement
• fix(security): harden desktop browser boundaries
• fix(privacy): audit follow-ups — telemetry pipeline, sync wipe, negative security tests

• fix(build): Gatekeeper rejection on fresh installs + Intel Mac support

• feat: add macOS Touch ID passkeys
• fix(release): guard all packaging inputs
• iOS M6: theming, settings-lite, session restore, TestFlight prep
• feat(site): marketing site release 1 — features, download, mobile optimization

• test: add YouTube ad-blocking filter-list regression tests
• ci: fix substrate job failing on the adblock-youtube unit test
• Move new tab / private launchers into a dedicated island panel footer
• feat(adblock): support $domain= in the WKContentRuleList converter
• build(adblock): add --check drift guard for the generated blocklist
• Island chrome: monochrome palette, favicon fix, and pill polish
• fix(ios): hold ContentBlocker pending targets weakly, drop on failure

• iOS port: roadmap, M0-M1 walking skeleton, M2 design

• Fix Google sign-in "browser may not be secure" by matching Chrome browser signals

• Patch Sec-CH-UA client hints to include Chrome brand

• Add cross-platform parity spec, acceptance tests, and substrate generators
• Document parity infrastructure in CLAUDE.md; guard settings:check against unguarded keys
• Harden ping worker against transient KV failures; enable Workers Logs
• Add active-user metrics to the launch ping

• Ship end-to-end encrypted profile sync (v1: Favorites + settings)

• Fix 15 code-review findings from the Supporter/monetization work

• Arrow-key workspace navigation + Help menu with Keyboard Shortcuts page
• Monetization phase 1: Blanc Supporter license, support rails, grant drafts

• Add Windows and Linux release builds via CI workflow
• Fix Windows/Linux release workflow: real filenames, cert-profile gate
• Drop nonexistent .blockmap from the Linux AppImage asset list
• Document tonight's Windows/Linux release gotchas in CLAUDE.md

• Expand native Tabs/Favorites menus: pin, mute, duplicate tab

• Add opt-in launch ping telemetry

• Add blancbrowser.com marketing site

• @bnfy made their first contribution

Blanc rebrand release: identity rebrand, extensions popover, and new-tab focus-race fix.

• Consistent SVG toolbar icon set (replaces mismatched Unicode glyphs)
• Fixed disconnected arrowhead on the reload icon
• New blank tabs autofocus the address bar
• Fixed the intermittent focus race so keystrokes reliably land in the address bar after opening a tab

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.

Auto-update test release: version label on the new tab page now reads v0.1.1.