Northstar Browser 1.0.5 released!
Today, 28 July 2026, we are pleased to announce the release of Northstar 1.0.5. Northstar is the free-software edition of the Nordstjernen project: a single-window, single-page, single-process desktop browser built from the same clean-room C engine, licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 3 or later. It runs on Linux, macOS and Windows.
Northstar Browser version 1.0.5 is available now! Read the full release notes here, or jump straight to the downloads.
It ships alongside Nordstjernen 1.0.21, the source-available flagship built from the same engine.
about:start page — the “Open source edition” splash. more screenshots »what’s new in 1.0.5
- Graphics and media. SVG is now rendered in-engine, WebP and APNG decode through the shared image path, AVIF is available when libavif is present, and MPEG-1
<video>plays with play, pause and seeking — decoded in-tree by the same pl_mpeg that already handled MP2 audio. Video no longer merely lays out. - Web platform compatibility. Substantially better HTML, CSS and JavaScript conformance, including flexbox, grid, floats, iframes, Shadow DOM, custom elements and CSSOM.
- Networking. Request deduplication, reusable preloads, correct
Varycaching, and accurate Fetch Metadata headers. - Performance. Less style and layout work through incremental invalidation, lazy computed styles and container-query optimizations, plus link-time optimization in release builds.
- Reliability and security. Fixed a double free on cancelled requests, an out-of-bounds read in the MPEG decoder, and unsafe image decoding in the system-plugin path.
about Northstar
Free software. Northstar is licensed under the GNU GPL, version 3 or later — use it, read it, change it, share it.
One process, one page. All rendering happens in a single compact process — about 141,000 lines of original C, excluding the vendored WAMR, Wuffs and audio decoders — prioritizing auditability. On Linux it runs behind a Landlock filesystem sandbox (plus PR_SET_NO_NEW_PRIVS) with a default-deny seccomp syscall filter. No JIT.
Standards-first. The same engine lineage as Nordstjernen: lexbor v3.0.0 for HTML/CSS, quickjs-ng v0.15.1 for JavaScript, WAMR for WebAssembly, Wuffs for image decoding. Modern CSS (flex, grid, transforms, gradients, keyframes), Shadow DOM, custom elements, the Navigation API, service workers and WebExtensions with local persistence. Behaviour is measured against the spec text, section by section.
What it leaves out. Compared with Nordstjernen: no multi-window browsing, no per-tab renderer processes, no WebGL or WebGPU, no embedded PDF viewer. Audio playback (MP3, MP2, Ogg Opus/Vorbis, audio MSE streams) is included, and video is MPEG-1 only — an ISO standard whose patents have expired, so it costs no dependency and no licence, but also not a format the modern web serves.
It sends no telemetry and no update pings, and includes no AI-style web APIs.
See the full comparison of Nordstjernen and Northstar on the home page.
news
28 JUL 2026 · Northstar 1.0.5 released — in-engine SVG, WebP/APNG, MPEG-1 video playback, and much better HTML, CSS and JavaScript compatibility. Release notes »
28 JUL 2026 · Nordstjernen 1.0.21 released — Media Queries Level 4, in-engine SVG, HLS and DASH streaming, and a redesigned about:start. Announcement » · Release notes »
23 JUL 2026 · Northstar 1.0.4 released — a maintenance release. Release notes »
22 JUL 2026 · Northstar 1.0.3 released — Media Queries Level 4, CSSOM used values, and use-after-free fixes. Announcement » · Release notes »
19 JUL 2026 · Northstar 1.0.2 released. Release notes »
18 JUL 2026 · Northstar 1.0.1 released — the first public release of the GPL edition. Release notes »
download
Latest tagged release: Northstar 1.0.5 — released 28 July 2026. full release notes »
| Windows | northstar-1.0.5-windows-x86_64.zip |
|---|---|
| Source | 1.0.5.tar.gz · 1.0.5.zip |
| All releases | github.com/nordstjernen-web/northstar-browser/releases |
On Linux and macOS, build from source with meson — see the README for instructions.