--mesh: aurora
A browser you build yourself. Every colour, shape, size and font is a setting you can reach. No AI anywhere in it. No telemetry, no account, no server. Coming soon in 1.1: a look called Aurora, with the old one still one click away. Until then the download is 1.0.
This page is running the real thing: everything you can pick here is in Chalkboard 1.1, coming soon (1.0 has the fifteen 1.0 boards). Aurora's two fonts ship inside the app, and this page carries its own copy of them, so it still fetches nothing. Whatever you pick, the whole site wears it, on every page, and reset in the bar at the top goes back to Aurora.
1.1 · coming soon --mesh --tabstyle --frost-blur
Coming soon in 1.1. Aurora becomes the new default: a violet mesh, dark at the top and bright at the bottom, frosted glass bars, one butter yellow accent, and a pill for the tab you are on. If you liked 1.0 better, it is called Classic now, it is exactly the 1.0 look, and it is one click away. All fifteen 1.0 boards are still there, unchanged.
The new default. A violet mesh, frosted glass, one butter yellow accent, and two fonts, Unbounded and Manrope, that ship inside the app so nothing is fetched. Light, Dark, or Device to follow your Mac.
The tab you are on is a capsule with a dark fill and a thin edge that runs from violet to pink, the close button on the right. Glow and the 1.0 Outline are the other two tab styles.
The old default is called Classic now, and it is the exact 1.0 look: no glass, no mesh, outline tabs, the 1.0 fonts. Pick it in the tray or on the new tab page.
Every board from 1.0 is still in Boards, unchanged: Classic, Ice, Chalk, Acid, Grape, Paper and the nine borrowed browser looks.
Sunrise, Bloom, Lagoon, Meadow, Dusk and Smoke. Two colours washed across the top of the window, each with a light and a dark half, and a pill edge in the same two colours.
Every part of the new look is its own setting: background, frosted glass and how strong it is, grain, tab style, the pill's two edge colours, and fonts. Rebuild the old look by hand, or mix old and new. The mix travels in .board files.
Shortcuts with a + tile that is always there. It starts empty, because Chalkboard never guesses your sites. A world clock, a focus timer and lists. Customize picks the theme, the wallpaper and what to show. All of it stays on your machine.
Automatic, Standard, Compact or Touch. Automatic goes compact when the window is small, and switching boards keeps it.
One switch in Layout moves the tabs into a column on the left. Dragging to reorder works there too.
A button at the end of the tab strip opens a list of every open tab, and you can search it.
What you pick stays picked: after a quit, after a crash right after the change, after an update. Clearing your browsing data wipes cookies, site data and the cache, never your settings. In 1.0 the look quietly reset on every restart.
The tray opens with the look: theme swatches with the Style group right under them, then Light, Dark or Device, and window density. On Aurora and the gradient boards the sliders wear a tick ruler.
--radius --toolbar-h --font
Every visual value in Chalkboard is one named token. The Chalk Tray does nothing clever, it just rewrites them. So yes, there is a list of Boards below to start from, but none of them is locked. A Board is not a theme you are stuck inside, it is a starting position for every knob, and the knobs stay yours.
--strokeOutline colour, exact hex or H S L--glowHow much it glows, or none at all--radiusCorners, square to fully round--tab-radiusPill, rounded or square tabs--toolbar-hToolbar height, the page moves to fit--fontFive faces, and a size--wallYour own photo on the new tab page--speedAnimation speed, zero turns it off--ui-zoomThe whole UI, smaller or bigger--tab-maxHow wide tabs are allowed to get--textureThe grain over the browser's own surfaces--stripThe tab row, when it differs from the toolbar--meshThe window's background: Aurora, Aurora light, a wash, or none--frost-blurFrosted glass, up to 50px, zero turns it off--tabstylePill, glow, or the 1.0 outline--tab-edge-a/bThe two colours of the pill's edge--grainGrain over the background, 0 to 1--displayThe font for titles and numbersA Board is every setting as one line of text. Copy it, send it to a friend, and they get your exact browser. Twenty two to start from: Aurora, six gradient boards, and all fifteen from 1.0, including Classic, a proper light one and nine borrowed browser looks. The tray has Easy, Medium and Expert modes, from a few settings to every knob there is.
Sixteen grains over the browser's own surfaces: chalk, paper, concrete, static, film, linen, carbon, graph, halftone and more. All drawn by the browser, none downloaded, and websites are never touched.
One button in the toolbar opens a window with its own session: nothing goes into history, nothing is remembered, and everything it stored is wiped the moment you close it. The button glows while you are inside one, so you always know which kind of window you are in.
Easy is the first minute: Boards, the accent colour, a wallpaper, and the look: light or dark, the background, frosted glass and the tab style. Medium adds the fun knobs, like the pill's edge colours, grain and fonts. Expert shows every knob there is. Nothing is ever removed, deeper controls wait for the tier that asks.
A new version is a fifty kilobyte file you hand to the browser from the tray. It swaps itself and restarts, and going back is one button. Nothing is downloaded on its own and nothing is checked online.
Every keyboard shortcut is remappable. Tap one in the tray, press the combo you want, done. It works the same whether the browser or the page has focus.
Two stylesheets, yours. One over the browser itself, one injected into websites, per site or everywhere: your own dark mode for any page, your fonts on any site. Applied as you type.
Your own search engine, any URL with %s in it. Any font on the machine. Toolbar at the top or the bottom, tabs on top or on the side. Your pictures on the new tab page and the toolbars. Extensions by dropping a folder in.
.board files
A Board is a whole look as one small file. Tap a card to try it on this page, download it, and open it from the Boards section of the Chalk Tray. On a Mac, double clicking the file is enough.
Twelve of these only exist here. Twenty two ship inside the browser: Aurora, the six gradient boards, and the fifteen from 1.0, including the nine that borrow the colours of browsers you already know, so switching does not have to look like switching. Aurora and the gradient boards have a light and a dark half; the card shows the dark one.
site exclusive
A deep-blue board you can only get here. Save the file and open it in Chalkboard, or copy the code and paste it into Make a Board.
{
"chalkboard": 1,
"name": "Midnight",
"tokens": {
"--stroke": "#7C9CFF",
"--bg": "#06080F",
"--fill": "#101733",
"--panel": "#0A0E1C",
"--ink": "#EDF1FF",
"--ink-dim": "#7A85A8",
"--glow": "12px",
"--radius": "18px",
"--tab-radius": "999px",
"--stroke-w": "2px",
"--speed": "150ms"
}
}
privacy.js
Every privacy decision lives in one readable file, so you can check the whole story yourself instead of trusting a promise.
shortcuts
download
It is written, not finished. Built on the Firefox engine so add-ons genuinely work, with the engine's own ad and popup blocking, twelve remappable gestures and the same Chalk Tray. It builds now (0.6 beta, newest look) and is being tested; it comes out once it has run on a real phone.
Watch it on GitHubOne download, both versions inside — open the folder and pick Apple Silicon (Macs from 2020 on: M1/M2/M3…) or Intel (older Macs). First open: right-click the app → Open — macOS warns once about an unsigned app, then never again.
The download is Chalkboard 1.0 for now. 1.1 goes here as soon as it is finished.
Coming soon in 1.1: Aurora with a light and a dark half, the pill tab, six gradient boards, Classic (exactly the 1.0 look), Style for mixing old and new, a new tab page with shortcuts, a world clock, a focus timer and lists, window density, tabs on the side, list all tabs, smooth animations, and settings that stay saved. From 1.0: sixteen textures, an icon and a new tab mark that wear your board, and updating from inside the browser. From 0.6: a loading bar, Website CSS for restyling pages, Easy and Medium and Expert modes, fifteen boards with fonts, split view, pinned tabs, board files.
Coming from 1.0? When 1.1 is out, it switches you to Aurora once, because 1.0 never really saved your look. Classic is one click away, and from then on what you pick stays picked.
A real Mac app, nothing to install first. Pick the build for your chip — each is a one-click download.
Download for MacApple Silicon is any Mac from 2020 on (M1, M2, M3…); Intel is older Macs. First open: right click the app and choose Open — macOS warns once about an unsigned app, then never again.
The whole browser, about 40 KB of code. The same source also runs on macOS. This download is the 1.0 source, like the Mac app, until 1.1 is finished.
Eight pages showing the window, the six Boards, the Chalk Tray, the shortcut editor and the privacy stance. Drawn from the same design tokens the browser uses, so it shows the real thing.
Needs Node.js. The npm install step downloads Electron and takes a few minutes. After that it starts in about a second. Prefer a ready-made Mac app? It's the one-click download in the Mac section above, no Node needed. macOS will warn about an unsigned app: right click it and choose Open, or allow it under Privacy and Security in System Settings.
honest limits
A page where one side wins everything is not worth reading.