Nordstjernen Browser 1.0.20 released!
Today, 22 July 2026, we are pleased to announce the release of Nordstjernen 1.0.20. This release turns WebGL on by default, adds a blinking text caret, hardens site compatibility for dynamic pages, and fixes a series of script-reachable memory-safety issues. Nordstjernen is a web browser, written from scratch in C, focused on supporting the HTML and CSS standards. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, with builds for Android, iOS, FreeBSD, NetBSD and the JVM. Nordstjernen is built in Norway.
Nordstjernen Browser version 1.0.20 is available now! Read the full release notes here, or jump straight to the downloads.
It ships alongside Northstar 1.0.3, the GPL-licensed single-process edition of the same engine.
about:start page — the civilization panorama splash. more screenshots »what’s new in 1.0.20
- WebGL on by default. WebGL 1 & 2 are now enabled out of the box — no more per-site opt-in — while keeping the status-bar announcement when a page starts using it. The gating holes around WebGL were closed as part of the same work.
- A blinking caret. The text caret now blinks, and the renderer repaints after ticked changes — small polish that makes editing text feel right.
- Site compatibility. Hardened dynamic-site compatibility and improved document scoping; modules now populate
import.meta; text tracks are exposed on<track>elements; and headless navigation action flows were stabilized. - Networking. nghttp2 is now enabled on Windows, bringing the independent HTTP/2 transport backend to that platform too.
- Memory safety. Fixed script-reachable memory-safety holes, avoided mutating function bytecode for native facades, and fixed an Android framebuffer lifetime bug in the renderer thread.
- A calmer
about:start. The start page de-emphasizes the local-AI entry and refreshes the civilization panorama splash for 1.0.20. Platform fixes landed for Android and NetBSD.
HTML Standard. Behaviour is measured against the spec text, section by section, not against another browser — 140 spec rows fully implemented, 31 partial, 0 absent across WHATWG HTML sections 1–16 as of July 2026. Against the Web Platform Tests, the full wpt-fast tree passes 88.4% of subtests overall — 91.7% of the HTML suite. See docs/HTML-compatibility.md.
Secure. Process-per-tab design — each tab's engine runs in its own sandboxed process (seccomp + Landlock on Linux), talking to the UI over IPC and shared-memory framebuffers · no JIT.
Minimalism. The whole engine is about 145,000 lines of clean-room C (plus a thin GTK 4 shell), excluding the vendored libraries — small enough for one person to read and audit end-to-end.
Local AI. Nordstjernen can chat with a small language model running entirely on your machine via llama.cpp — no cloud, no network at inference time. Build with -Dai=disabled for a fully offline binary.
Nordstjernen has no JIT so it is much more secure, and can still be fast enough. It ships no telemetry of any kind.
news
22 JUL 2026 · Nordstjernen 1.0.20 released — WebGL on by default, a blinking caret, site-compatibility and memory-safety work. Release notes »
22 JUL 2026 · Northstar 1.0.3 released — the GPL-licensed single-process edition. Announcement » · Release notes »
17 JUL 2026 · Nordstjernen 1.0.19 released — web-standards conformance, a new animated splash, and an iOS port. Announcement » · Release notes »
6 JUL 2026 · Nordstjernen 1.0.18 released — a maintenance release. Announcement » · Release notes »
30 JUN 2026 · Nordstjernen 1.0.17 released — a maintenance release. Announcement » · Release notes »
27 JUN 2026 · Nordstjernen 1.0.16 released — a maintenance release. Announcement » · Release notes »
25 JUN 2026 · Nordstjernen 1.0.15 released — a maintenance release. Announcement » · Release notes »
23 JUN 2026 · Nordstjernen 1.0.14 released — a maintenance release. Announcement » · Release notes »
21 JUN 2026 · Nordstjernen 1.0.12 released — a maintenance release. Release notes »
19 JUN 2026 · Nordstjernen 1.0.11 released — a maintenance release. Announcement » · Release notes »
5 JUN 2026 · Nordstjernen 1.0.0 released — the first stable release. Announcement » · Release notes »
download
Latest tagged release: Nordstjernen 1.0.20 — released 22 July 2026. full release notes »
Nordstjernen is also available on the Microsoft Store.
For platform-specific builds, use the nightly builds. They are rebuilt
from main each night and point at the latest code — bleeding
edge, expect rough edges.
| Windows | nordstjernen-windows-x86_64.zip · Microsoft Store |
|---|---|
| macOS | nordstjernen-macos.dmg |
| Debian | nordstjernen-debian-amd64.deb |
| Ubuntu | nordstjernen-ubuntu-amd64.deb |
| openSUSE | nordstjernen-opensuse-x86_64.rpm |
| Linux (portable) | nordstjernen-linux-x86_64.zip |
| Alpine (musl) | nordstjernen-alpine-x86_64.apk · .zip |
| Java API (JDK 21) | nordstjernen-java.jar · sources · javadoc · API docs |
| Source | nordstjernen-src.tar.xz |
| Checksums | SHA256SUMS · all nightly files |