Keep the web in front.
The resting island keeps navigation and tab controls in a slim band above the page. Open its panel for more controls without shifting the page below.
Blanc Support
A little help
goes a long way.
Find an answer. Get back to what you were doing.
Using Blanc
The Island & commands
browser controls, together
A compact home for browser controls.
See the essentials at a glance.
At rest, the island shows the tabs in your current group as dots, the site you are on, and a quiet shield. Click the shield to see the connection and change Blanc Blocker for that site.
It notices you coming.
Move toward the island and it rises and grows a little, settling before you click and easing back as you leave. It follows how close you are rather than switching on at a threshold, so there is no edge to feel—and it stays completely still while another app has focus.
Opening it is a movement, not a cut.
The command bar 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. If you have reduce motion turned on, both of these are off entirely.
Search without leaving the island.
Find tabs, Favorites, history and groups alongside search results. For search text, Enter opens the highlighted result. A strong match can come first; choose the search result showing your exact text when you want to search the web.
Open your whole session in one place.
Open the island to switch tabs, navigate, favorite a page, start a private tab, or use the browser's commands—without moving the page underneath.
little everyday choices
Get to a new page with one click.
A Plus that puts you straight into the address field.
The resting Island’s Plus opens one regular, ungrouped tab and focuses its address field. It sits beside the slash-command keycap. In vertical-tabs mode, use the rail’s New tab control instead.
Choose the icon you want to keep in your Dock.
On macOS, Settings offers Sunrise and Sunrise Dark. Both app-icon choices are free; no Patron subscription is required.
Choose what a new tab looks like.
Try a list of Favorites, local frequent sites, or launch standalone Mahjong from any footer. Explore the four Start Page layouts.
Keyboard shortcuts & commands
jump, don't hunt
The same input gets you to the next thing.
Find a tab with a few letters.
The Quick Switcher matches across open tabs, favorites, browsing history, and named groups. Choose a result to focus it without sorting through a tab strip.
Search with the engine you chose.
Live provider suggestions appear alongside local matches when enabled. For search text, Enter opens the highlighted result. A strong match from your tabs, Favorites, history or groups can come first. Choose the search result showing your exact text to search the web. Provider suggestions can be turned off before first use or later in Settings.
Run a browser action with /.
Type / to see commands for everyday browser work, including
/private, /find, /group work, and /allow-ads.
Keep the page where it is.
The command palette floats over the page instead of moving content to make room. Dismiss it with Escape when you are done.
Reach the tab you just closed or the set you saved.
Use Recently Closed to pick a tab or group, or Named Workspaces to switch saved sets.
See all shipped slash commands
-
/favorites - Open favorites
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/bring-tabs - Bring open tabs from another browser
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/save [folder] - Save this page to favorites, into a folder if you name one
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/history - Open browsing history
-
/downloads - Open downloads
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/settings - Open settings
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/sync - Set up or manage sync
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/clear - Clear browsing history
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/new - Open a new tab
-
/private - Open a private tab (history stays untouched)
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/close - Close this tab
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/reopen - Reopen the tab you just closed
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/pin - Pin or unpin this tab
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/mute - Mute or unmute this tab
-
/sleep - Quiet background tabs and free their memory
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/group <name> - Move this tab into a group, creating it on first use
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/ungroup - Take this tab out of its group
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/close-group - Close every tab in this group
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/find - Find in page
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/block-ads - Block ads here, or toggle blocking everywhere
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/allow-ads - Allow ads on this site
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/1password - Fill a login from 1Password · macOS only
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/theme [system|light|dark] - Cycle appearance, or switch directly to system, light, or dark
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/patron - Support Blanc with a Patron subscription
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/workspace - Switch to a named workspace, or type a new name to save this window
Named Groups
keep work in context
Groups have names, not colors.
Name the task, then keep moving.
Use /group work to create or join a named group from the active
tab. A group exists only while it has tabs in it.
Keep the active group close.
The resting island shows the active group's tabs. Group names and the rest of your groups live in the expanded panel, where you can choose what to return to.
Fold the rest without losing the thread.
Groups can tuck away in the panel, and the Quick Switcher finds them by name when it is time to return.
Vertical tabs
how it works
One switch. No reload. No second address bar.
Switch layouts instantly.
Choose View → Tab Layout → Vertical Tabs, or press Command or Control Alt V. The page you are reading stays exactly where it is — nothing reloads.
A rail that fits your session.
Every open tab becomes a row with its title, so a wide session stays readable instead of shrinking into dots. Drag the rail's edge to the width you want; Blanc remembers it on this device.
Still one island.
The rail is an overview, not a second interface. Searching, navigating, and commands stay on the island, so nothing you have learned about Blanc changes.
Quiet Tabs
how it works
You choose the delay. Blanc does the rest.
Set it once.
Settings, General, Quiet inactive tabs: off, 30 minutes, 1 hour, or 6 hours. It starts at an hour, and the choice stays on this device rather than following you to another one.
Or say when.
Type /sleep in the island and every eligible background tab
goes quiet immediately. It skips the waiting and nothing else, and it works
even with the delay switched off.
Come back and it is there.
Opening a quiet tab reloads the page and brings back its address, its title, and its back button. Nothing disappears from your session while it is quiet.
left alone
The tabs that would cost you something stay awake.
Anything you are part way through.
A half-filled form, a ticked checkbox, a page that asks before you leave, or the result of something you submitted. Blanc checks every frame on the page, not just the top one.
Anything playing, pinned, or connected.
Sound, video you have paused, muted tabs, pinned tabs, a window a page opened for a sign-in, and any tab waiting on a permission prompt.
Anything you have read deep into.
A page you have scrolled a long way down is left as it is, because a reloaded feed cannot honestly put you back where you were.
Recently Closed
undo a close
Pick the one you meant.
Use the shortcut or the panel
Press ⌘⇧T on macOS or Ctrl+Shift+T on Windows and Linux, type /reopen, or open the Island panel and choose an entry from Recently Closed.
Bring a group back together
Closing a named group records one undo entry. Reopen it to restore its ordinary tabs together, including its name, member order, and pins.
Keep each window’s history independent
Reopening in one window uses that window’s list. Use Forget for one entry or Clear all to remove the list.
a short second chance
Some pages can return without a reload.
For about 30 seconds
At most one eligible closed page per window can retain the same page for about 30 seconds. Reopening it during that time can preserve things such as scroll position and text you were typing without fetching the page again.
After that, it may reload
A still-recent entry falls back to a safe navigation snapshot or its URL. Page state is not guaranteed, and Blanc never silently resubmits a form. Loading, recording, quiet, and other ineligible pages do not receive the same-page recovery window.
An undo buffer with limits
Recently Closed holds up to 25 entries per window, and entries expire after one hour. It lives only in memory and ends when the app quits.
Profiles & Windows
separate identities
Sign into the same site in different profiles.
Start with Personal
Personal is permanent and keeps your existing Blanc data. In Settings, name another profile and choose Create profile window.
Keep browsing data separate
Named profiles isolate cookies, site data, Favorites, history, download metadata, and remembered permissions. Their ordinary and private sessions are separate from other profiles.
Open more than one window
Each native window owns its tabs, groups, Island panel, and Recently Closed list. Saved windows return to their associated profile after relaunch.
what is shared
A profile is a browsing identity on this device.
Device preferences stay consistent
Appearance, network and privacy preferences, usage-measurement choices, and Patron status remain shared across the device.
Sync belongs to Personal
Sync is available only to Personal. Creating a named profile does not create another synced identity.
Delete deliberately
Deleting a named profile requires its exact name. It closes that profile’s windows and removes its browsing data and saved workspaces. Files you downloaded remain on disk; Personal cannot be deleted.
Named Workspaces
your sets of tabs
Name it once. Keep it up to date as you browse.
Save this window or start a new set
Open the workspace control in the command panel or type /workspace. Active Patrons can save the current window or create a blank named workspace.
Return without rebuilding the set
A bound workspace automatically saves its tabs and groups as you browse and returns after relaunch. Switching replaces the current window’s set; a workspace already open elsewhere brings that window forward.
You decide what belongs together
Create groups and assign tabs yourself. Blanc saves those choices; it does not detect tasks or organize tabs by meaning.
part of Patron
Support Blanc and keep your saved workspaces.
Available on every desktop platform
Browsing essentials and ordinary tab groups are free. Blanc Patron is the optional subscription: US$30 per year or US$4 per month, plus applicable tax. It adds saved Named Workspaces. Creating a named workspace requires an active Patron subscription. Named Workspaces are available on macOS, Windows and Linux.
Existing workspaces remain yours
If membership lapses, existing workspaces remain openable, switchable, and automatically updated. Renaming and removing existing workspaces continue to work if it lapses. Earlier one-time supporters keep their lifetime Patron access.
Keep private browsing separate
Private tabs are excluded from saved workspaces. When a switch would discard private tabs or an unsaved window, Blanc asks you to make an explicit choice.
Sync
what syncs
Favorites and settings. Open tabs if you choose.
Favorites and settings.
Your favorites, search engine, blocking state and exceptions, home page, and theme, encrypted on your device before upload.
Open tabs, per device.
Off until you turn it on. Each machine publishes its own open tabs; nothing merges or rearranges.
Never synced.
History, downloads, permissions, cookies, site data, and private tabs stay on the device.
a menu, not a mirror
Reading another device never rearranges it.
Off until you say so, on each device.
Sharing is a per-device switch in Settings, off by default. A machine’s tabs never leave it until you flip the switch on that machine — and flipping it off withdraws them.
Open here, not there.
Another device’s tabs are a read-only list. Picking one opens it as a fresh local tab; nothing force-opens, closes, or reorders on the other side.
Sync belongs to Personal.
Sync is available only to Personal. Named local profiles and independent windows let you separate browsing identities on this device.
Everywhere you already look.
Remote tabs sit behind a folded section in the island panel, match in the Quick Switcher below your local tabs, and appear on the start page under “on your other devices.”
Start Page & Mahjong
four layouts
A different starting point, whenever you want.
Billboard
A large clock, your weekly blocked-request total, frequently visited sites, and your named groups. Billboard is the default; change layouts from the start-page footer or Settings → General.
Ledger
A simple list of Favorites and named groups. When you opt into sharing tabs, Ledger also shows tabs from your other devices.
Shelf
Favorites as tiles, with named groups and a weekly blocking total underneath.
Tally
Favorites and groups beside a day-by-day chart of blocked requests this week.
familiar places
Your regular sites, a click away.
Built from your own visits
Billboard ranks ordinary browsing history on this device. Its site icons come from locally cached artwork; drawing the row makes no new request to those sites or a favicon service.
Hide a tile without erasing a visit
Remove a site from Billboard when you do not want it there. That choice stays local and does not delete its history. Private tabs neither contribute to nor receive the history-derived row.
a little room to play
Eight boards. A different Daily deal.
Standalone Mahjong
Open a standalone Mahjong solitaire table from any start-page footer. Your start page stays open while the game runs in its own managed tab.
A board with a solution
Turtle, Arch, Peaks, Pyramid, Fortress, Butterfly, Bridge, and Cross are solvable by construction when dealt. The Daily deal rotates across all eight; your choices during play can still leave you needing a hint, Undo, or Shuffle.
Play at your own pace
Choose Classic or Burst, with scoring, timed combos and automatic clears in Burst. Hints, sound controls, Undo, and Shuffle are built in. Shuffle itself can be undone, including after a Burst rescue.
Keep a record of your progress
The Records sheet keeps boards cleared, best Classic times and Burst scores, and current and longest Daily streaks on this device.
Continue an unfinished board
Blanc remembers your last board, mode, and deal choice. A new Mahjong tab can offer to continue an unfinished game from another tab.
Glance
choose your reference
Bring another open tab into view.
Choose explicitly
Press ⌘⇧G on macOS or Ctrl+Shift+G on Windows and Linux, or choose View → Open Glance. Pick a tab from the current window; the picker stays within its local profile.
Give each page the room it needs
Drag the divider or resize it with the keyboard. Wide windows put the pages side by side; narrow windows stack the reference below the main page.
Change, swap, or finish
Use Change to choose another reference, Make main to swap the two pages, or Close to dismiss Glance without closing either tab.
stay with the page
A temporary view for the task in front of you.
Both visible pages stay available
Selecting a quiet tab for Glance reloads it. While it remains visible as your reference, Quiet Tabs leaves it alone.
Keep the choice local
The picker uses tabs from this window and profile. It does not search history, Favorites, remote tabs, or another window.
Mouse gestures
start anywhere
The page becomes the control.
With a physical mouse
Hold the right mouse button, draw the gesture over the active page, then release. A normal right-click without a drag still opens the page’s usual menu.
With a trackpad
Hold Alt on Windows or Option on macOS, click and hold with one finger, then drag and release. A click without the drag stays an ordinary click.
Only the finished motion runs
Blanc waits for release before acting. Unassigned gestures and drawings with more than three directions do nothing.
make it yours
Draw the shortcut you want to remember.
Begin with four defaults
Left goes Back, right goes Forward, up opens a New tab, and down closes the current tab. Restore defaults brings these four motions back at any time.
Add turns when one direction is not enough
In Settings → General, choose Add gesture and draw up to three directions. Pick its action, save it, and it is ready on the active page.
Choose from nine browser actions
Assign Back, Forward, Reload, New tab, Close tab, Reopen closed tab, Previous tab, Next tab, or Open Island. Existing gestures can be reassigned or removed.
Set up 1Password
a one-time setup
Connect the app you already use.
1. Enable the connection in 1Password.
Install the 1Password desktop app and sign in. Open Settings → Developer. Under Integrate with the 1Password SDKs, enable Integrate with other apps.
2. Enable login fill in Blanc.
Open Settings → Privacy & Security → 1Password. Turn on Fill logins from 1Password, enter the email address you use to sign in to 1Password or your account ID, and choose Verify. Approve Blanc Browser when 1Password asks.
3. Fill when you need it.
On a website login form, press ⌥⌘P (Option + Command + P), or
choose View → Fill Login from 1Password. If several Login items match the
site, choose the one you want. You can also run /1password from
the Island.
you choose when
A hint at the form. Fill on request.
A shortcut beside your browsing.
Once configured, the Island can show a key hint on a page with a visible current-password field. Choose it to start the same login-fill flow.
Your passwords stay in 1Password.
Blanc never fills automatically or saves the returned credentials. The setting and account identifier stay on this device and are excluded from Sync. Read how login fill handles data.
Mac support today.
The integration is currently available on macOS only. Windows and Linux builds do not offer 1Password login fill. It fills matching Login items; it does not provide password saving, payment-card filling, or 1Password passkeys.
Straight answers
What is Blanc built on?
Blanc uses Chromium to render websites and Electron to package that engine with a desktop runtime. Blanc supplies the floating island, tab management, settings and network-layer blocker. It uses official, unmodified Electron releases.
This lets one small team maintain an app for macOS, Windows and Linux. The trade-off is a bundled runtime and a multi-process memory footprint; it is not a separate web engine or a native system-webview browser.
How do browser and engine updates work?
Installed builds check the official GitHub release channel. A new Blanc release replaces the whole app and carries its selected Electron and Chromium builds. Applying an update requires restarting Blanc; Chromium does not update independently inside an older app.
Linux builds are AppImages. Make the file executable and keep it in a location you can write to for in-app replacement. AppImage requirements vary by distribution. If automatic updating is unavailable, download the current official AppImage and replace the old file.
What connections does Blanc make?
Blanc connects to the websites you visit, GitHub for app updates, and your selected search and DNS providers. A search sends the completed query to your search provider. If Google is selected, Google receives it; enabled search suggestions can also send eligible typed prefixes. Private tabs exclude suggestion requests.
Help improve Blanc sends pseudonymous events to a Blanc-owned Cloudflare collector: a launch event plus bounded, once-per-app-session counts for the first real Mahjong move and each start-page layout that renders. Layout events add one fixed layout name. Events contain random install and session IDs, app version, platform, architecture, coarse OS major and fixed feature names; they contain no URLs, searches, history, page contents or game state. The collector replaces the install ID with a keyed hash. If its optional Google Analytics mirror is configured, Google receives that hash and the same limited event fields.
Both optional choices are presented on in fresh first-run setup. Sending starts only after you save the choices, and existing saved choices are retained. You can turn either off in Settings. Optional Sync, Patron, 1Password and tab handoff make their own connections when configured or requested.
This website has separate controls: optional Google analytics and ad attribution remain off until you allow them through footer Privacy choices, or an existing saved grant applies. Cloudflare’s cookieless page counts and aggregate download counts remain enabled.
Is Blanc open source?
Yes. The MIT License covers Bananify Creative-owned software, documentation and media. You can inspect, modify, redistribute and build that material. Blanc and Bananify names, logos and reserved identity assets have separate terms; MIT does not grant trademark rights. Third-party material retains its own terms, including the bundled EasyList and EasyPrivacy lists.
Published macOS releases are signed and notarized; Windows releases carry a timestamped Authenticode signature. A Sigstore-authenticated checksum manifest helps authenticate release artifacts. Windows and Linux CI artifacts carry GitHub provenance attestations. A local build does not prove that a published binary matches its source byte for byte; those records do not make local builds reproducible.
How much memory does Electron use?
Memory use depends on the pages, number of tabs, background activity and operating system. Electron uses multiple processes, so a single process’s memory figure does not describe the whole browser. Quiet Tabs can reclaim inactive-tab renderers and rebuild them when needed.
Blanc’s published benchmark is dated measurements from August 9, 2026 on macOS 27, arm64 and 8 GiB RAM, using its published harness and raw runs. It measures phys_footprint across each browser’s process tree, rather than summing RSS, which can count shared engine memory repeatedly.
Brave is a useful comparison because it also blocks by default. That run also included Blanc with blocking disabled. These results describe those browser versions and workloads on that machine; they are not Windows or Linux results, a current-release benchmark, or a promise that Blanc will always use less memory.
What does optional Patron add?
Browsing essentials and ordinary tab groups are free. Blanc Patron is the optional subscription: US$30 per year or US$4 per month, plus applicable tax. It adds saved Named Workspaces. Creating a named workspace requires an active Patron subscription. If membership lapses, existing workspaces remain openable, switchable, and automatically updated. Renaming and removing existing workspaces continue to work if it lapses. Earlier one-time supporters keep their lifetime Patron access.
Blocking, private tabs, favorites, ordinary tab groups, Quiet Tabs and optional encrypted Sync remain free. Patron does not restrict access to the open-source code.
Does Blanc work with 1Password?
Yes, on macOS. Blanc includes an optional integration that fills matching Login items from your installed 1Password desktop app and account when you ask. It is off by default. Windows and Linux do not currently offer this integration.
In 1Password Settings → Developer, enable Integrate with other apps under Integrate with the 1Password SDKs. In Blanc, open Settings → Privacy & Security → 1Password, enable Fill logins from 1Password, enter your sign-in email or account ID, and choose Verify. On a login form, press ⌥⌘P (Option + Command + P), or choose View → Fill Login from 1Password. You can also run /1password from the Island.
Can I install browser extensions?
Blanc does not offer a general third-party extension runtime. Ad and tracker blocking is built into the network layer. On macOS, the optional 1Password integration is a narrow, user-invoked bridge to the installed 1Password app, not an extension runtime or a Blanc password store.
Does Blanc include a VPN?
No. Blanc does not proxy or anonymize traffic. You can use it with a system VPN. Secure DNS controls how names are resolved; it does not hide website requests or replace a VPN. Private tabs keep certain browsing records out of the local profile, but websites and your network can still observe connections.
Is AI used to build or review Blanc?
AI assists implementation and security review. Anthony J. Loria remains accountable for product decisions and release approval. AI-assisted checks and maintainer review do not constitute an independent security audit.
Has Blanc had an independent security audit?
No independent external security audit has been completed. Public source, maintainer reviews, automated tests and authenticated release artifacts provide specific evidence; they do not substitute for an independent audit. The next step is preparing a scope and funding proposal, without promising a date.
Does Blanc include AI?
Blanc has no built-in AI assistant or page summarizer. Named Groups and Named Workspaces are user-directed; Blanc does not infer tasks or organize tabs by meaning. You can visit AI websites as you can other websites.
What stays local on the start page?
Blanc offers four start-page layouts: Ledger, Billboard, Shelf, and Tally. Billboard derives frequent sites from ordinary local history. Ranking, cached site artwork, and hidden-tile choices stay on the device; private tabs neither contribute to nor receive this row.
Every start-page footer opens Mahjong in a standalone managed tab. Its eight boards include rotating Daily deals, records, streaks, and unfinished-game continuation across tabs. Game state and records stay on this device and are not cloud-synced. Your choice among the four start-page layouts can sync through Personal’s optional Sync.
If you enable usage measurement, Blanc can count fixed layout names and the first real Mahjong move once per app session, without browsing data or game state. Private-tab feature activity is excluded.
Can I bring bookmarks from another browser?
Yes. First-run setup can look for installed browsers. You can also open Favorites, choose Look for other browsers, select a detected profile, and use Import from browser. Import HTML… accepts an exported bookmarks file.
Imports happen on this device. This imports bookmarks into Favorites; it does not import passwords, cookies, or every part of another browser’s session. Favorites may later sync if you separately enable Personal’s Sync.
Who makes Blanc?
Bananify, an independent software studio. Source code, official releases and security reporting are linked from How Blanc works.
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