@builtbyashwin@thelemmy.club

member since 14 Sep 2026 13:32

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c/privacy@lemmy.ml · builtbyashwin@thelemmy.club · 15 Sep 2026

Aero: a Chromium-based privacy browser with zero ads, zero crypto, zero telemetry

GitHub GitHub - builtbyashwin/aero-browser: A Chromium-based privacy browser. No ads. No crypto. No telemetry.

preview

I’m starting Aero, a Chromium-based privacy browser. The pitch:

Zero ads. Not “acceptable ads,” not replaced ads. Zero.
Zero telemetry. No analytics, no crash reporting, no pings.
Zero crypto, no VPN upsells, no affiliate links, no AI assistants that phone home.
Fingerprint resistance on by default.
Fork of ungoogled-chromium with a minimal patch stack.

It’s not a Brave clone. Brave is a company with investors and a crypto business model — they have an ads program that replaces ads with their own, a VPN to sell you, and a wallet built in. Aero is a project with no business model. Different species entirely.

Repo: github.com/builtbyashwin/aero-browser

Background: I’ve contributed patches to the Linux kernel across staging, networking, media, and filesystem subsystems, reviewed by maintainers including Greg Kroah-Hartman, Dan Carpenter, and Jan Kara. Same patch-management discipline applied to Chromium.

Right now it’s just me. I’m looking for 4-5 people to own specific lanes: build/CI, Chromium patches, features, docs, privacy research. Async-first. If you’re interested, check the issues — each lane has a “good first issue.” Comment there or reply here.

comments

Ai ass comment lmao

I type like this, moving on

on Aero: a Chromium-based privacy browser with zero ads, zero crypto, zero telemetry in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 15 Sep 2026
nah i just type like this. dashes are my thing yk

on Aero: a Chromium-based privacy browser with zero ads, zero crypto, zero telemetry in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 15 Sep 2026
It’s a tradeoff, not an obvious call.

Chromium, because:
```
Ungoogled-chromium already exists as a mature fork to build on. That's years of patch work Aero inherits instead of redoing.

Sites work. Chromium is what 65%+ of the web is tested against. Firefox has more rendering inconsistencies and more site breakage.

Bigger contributor pool. More people know Chromium internals than Gecko.

Better security posture — sandboxing, site isolation are more mature.
```
The honest downside: even stripped clean, it’s Google’s engine. That’s a real philosophical problem for a “privacy browser.”

Firefox would be more independent, but Mozilla is Google-funded ($500M+/year search deal), is laying off staff, ships AI features nobody asked for, and has its own opt-out telemetry. Gecko is also harder to fork — fewer people have done it, less documentation, fewer patches to inherit.

Neither choice is pure. I picked Chromium because it gives the best shot at actually shipping something real in a reasonable timeframe. If someone wants to fork Aero onto Gecko later, the project structure supports that — but v0.1 is Chromium.
on Aero: a Chromium-based privacy browser with zero ads, zero crypto, zero telemetry in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 15 Sep 2026
Helium already exists that seems to do mostly the same thing. What are you looking to do differently?

Fair question. Helium does a lot of what Aero aims to do, and they’re a solid project.

The difference is architectural. Helium runs a proxy layer — “Helium Services” for extension downloads, filter updates, bangs. It’s privacy-respecting, and you can self-host it, but the browser still depends on servers someone else operates.

Aero’s goal is to have zero server layer. No proxies, no services, no Aero-operated infrastructure. Extension downloads come direct. Filter updates come from uBlock’s own sources. The browser should work offline and never need to phone home to function.

The other difference is verifiability. Reproducible builds from v0.1, so users can rebuild from source and confirm the binary matches. Helium doesn’t publish reproducible builds, and neither does Brave. That’s the actual trust gap in every privacy browser right now, and it’s the one Aero wants to close.

I’m not claiming Helium is bad. It’s not. But their trust model says “trust our proxies.” Aero’s should say “you don’t have to trust anything — verify it yourself.”

on Aero: a Chromium-based privacy browser with zero ads, zero crypto, zero telemetry in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 15 Sep 2026