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Show HN: Helium Browser for Android with extensions support, based on Vanadium

Been working on an experimental Chromium-based browser that brings 2 major features to your phone/tablet:

1. desktop-style extensions: natively install any extensions (like uBO) from the chrome web store, just toggle "desktop site" in the menu first.

2. privacy/security hardening: applies the full patch sets from Vanadium (with Helium's currently wip).

Means you get both browsers' excellent privacy features, like Vanadium's webrtc IP policy option that protects your real IP by default, and security improvements such as JIT being disabled by default, all while being a reasonably efficient FOSS app that can be installed on any (modern) android.

It's still in beta, and as I note in the README, it's not a replacement for the full OS-level security model you'd get from running the GrapheneOS Vanadium combo. However, goal was to combine privacy of Vanadium with the power of desktop extensions and Helium features, and make it accessible to a wider audience. (Passkeys from Bitwarden Mobile should also work straight away once merged in the list of FIDO2 privileged browsers)

Build scripts are in the repo if you want to compile it yourself. You can find pre-built releases there too.

Would love any feedback/support!

For people looking for a more vanilla experience I'm publishing Google's official extension supporting Chromium builds for Android here https://github.com/andrewginns/chromium-browser-snapshots-An...

Combined Obtainium it's easy to keep it updated. https://github.com/ImranR98/Obtainium

7 hours agoby reckless

I've been digging into Vanadium's extension support implementation and this looks like a solid approach for Android. The key challenge we faced with WebExtensions on mobile was the memory footprint - each extension runs in its own process which can add 30-50MB of overhead per extension on resource-constrained devices.

Curious how you're handling the isolation/sandboxing model here? The standard Chrome approach of site isolation + process-per-extension becomes pretty heavy on mobile. Have you considered using a shared process model with context isolation instead? We found that careful use of V8 contexts could give similar security guarantees with ~70% less memory overhead, though it required some tricky IPC handling between the extensions and main browser process.

Also worth noting that the WebExtension manifest v3 transition adds some extra complexity for mobile browsers - particularly around the service worker lifecycle and background page limitations. Would love to hear how you're approaching that migration path.

11 hours agoby Lucian6

Do you have any plans to push it to F-Droid?

That would raise the value of that project quite a lot (at least for me, but I feel like there are others, thinking similarly).

Please, push it to F-Droid!

14 hours agoby imcritic

Ah thought I saw a Helium browser mentioned recently on HN[0] and thought this was the same thing. So this is not the same as this Helium browser [1]?

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45366867

[1]: https://helium.computer/

14 hours agoby sphars

I tried installing uBlock Origin but the web store says I have to sign in and enable sync to download it. I didn't want to do that so I tried unpacking the extension .zip from GitHub and loading unpacked, but then the app just crashed.

Is extension support only meant to work with a Google account signed in or am I missing something?

EDIT: I tried loading the store page in desktop mode but I can't install the non-Lite uBlock Origin, I guess because this Chromium version doesn't support Manifest V2 anymore. I'm still on Kiwi Browser which supports MV2.

3 hours agoby doright

This is really great work, but can you comment on whether or not any Google-based "safebrowsing", etc is still enabled in the code base?

Have you thought about merging your efforts with ungoogled-chromium (Android)?

There USED to be an ungoogled-chromium for Android (circa v88 chrome, the APK is still available for download) that also allowed extentions.

14 hours agoby vrinsd

Great job on this release! I've been waiting for something like it since my favorite browser, Kiwi, stopped getting updates.

Without updates, many sites will likely stop working with it soon.

Kiwi had some great features, like disabling AMP mode, rearranging the Chrome Store for mobile, and customizable tab layouts, etc. These features might interest others as well.

8 hours agoby superasn

Fascinating, I use Firefox because on Android I can use extensions (for this https://plzat.me). This is a great alternative.

Edit: hard to find where to get this browser. Do I need to build it myself?

14 hours agoby xrd

It would be really useful if we could sync bookmarks and history with Google's servers.

Some Chromium builds has that: https://chromium.woolyss.com/#google-api-keys

7 hours agoby maxloh

I've been looking for a Kiwi Browser replacement since it stopped updating. I'll check this out.

14 hours agoby xnx

Curious how it compares to Brave browser on Android

10 hours agoby mrbluecoat

this is great. I miss extensions in android browser. That existing extensions from web store would work out of the box is cherry on top.

8 hours agoby newusertoday

Excellent, please make sure you push for financial support in your project.

Kiwi was a great browser but has since shutdown. Android needs something like Kiwi that also has a steady income to support itself in future.

7 hours agoby CommanderData

Yet another Chromium clone, we should create a Distrowatch site for Chrome.

4 hours agoby pjmlp