Hilal is an experimental desktop browser built on Firefox. It combines isolated workspaces, a compact sidebar-first interface, per-site customization, and configurable privacy profiles while retaining Gecko and Firefox extension compatibility.
The project is in alpha and was previously developed as Huma Browser.
- Vertical sidebar tabs and an optional horizontal tab strip
- Tahoe interface with a translucent sidebar, floating toolbar, and site-aware window colors
- Compact mode with an auto-hiding toolbar and support for left- or right-aligned sidebars
- Drag and drop across the sidebar and horizontal tab strip
- Customizable sidebar footer with built-in actions and user-defined links
- Separate container context for each workspace
- Optional shared pinned tabs and tab groups
- Workspace creation, switching, and visibility controls
- First-run setup for tab layout, workspaces, pinned sites, toolbar behavior, and privacy level
- Per-site font, text scale, capitalization, smart invert, and custom CSS
- Element Zapper for hiding selected page elements
- Accent and gradient controls with automatic color extraction from websites
- Optional browser chrome tinting and Tahoe page-color blending
- Custom and built-in search bangs in the address bar
- Editable keyboard shortcuts for Hilal actions and Firefox commands
- Balanced, Strict, and Maximum local privacy profiles
- uBlock Origin included by default
- Telemetry disabled by default
- In-browser language selection and Turkish localization
Privacy profiles are hardening presets, not anonymity modes; they do not hide your public IP address.
Downloads are available from the releases page.
Install the Firefox build prerequisites for your platform first. Rust is also required to compile the hil patch manager.
git clone https://github.com/VastSea0/hilal-browser.git
cd hilal-browser
cargo build --release --manifest-path hil/Cargo.toml
mkdir -p bin
cp hil/target/release/hil bin/hil
./bin/hil setup
./bin/hil applyThen run the build script for your platform:
scripts/build-macos.sh
scripts/build-linux.shOn Windows, use .\scripts\build-windows.ps1. See docs/BUILD-WINDOWS.md for the required environment and setup steps.
This repository contains the Hilal-specific patches, overlays, and build tooling. The Firefox source checkout is created in the gitignored engine/ directory.
changes/ patches and overlay files
manifest.toml patch and overlay order
upstream.lock pinned Firefox revision
engine/ local Firefox checkout
Source changes are made in engine/. Run ./bin/hil refresh afterward to regenerate the files under changes/, then review and commit those files in this repository.
The complete patch workflow, including conflict resolution, is documented in docs/WORKFLOW.md. Other build, release, localization, and upstream sync notes live in docs/.
Hilal's patches, scripts, and other source files are available under the Mozilla Public License 2.0. Branding assets are copyright Hilal Browser contributors.