Netbird is the system’s browser and the default for links. It is a Nirvana applet like the rest, with one difference: its window holds web pages. It is also built on its own for Linux, Windows and macOS: see its page for downloads and the changelog for what changed.
What it looks like
Drawn to stay out of the page’s way:
- Tabs are a narrow rail on whichever side is chosen: marks alone, or with names. The wheel over the rail switches tabs.
- The address is a pill of glass floating over the page, at the lower or the upper edge, and comes when the pointer is at that edge; or a bar across the top.
- The start page has a sky, the hour, the weather and the sites one goes to.
- Settings, passwords and extensions are pages of its own, made of the same components as the rest of the system.
- A video is taken out into a small window of its own (picture in picture) with a button on the video itself.
What is inside
- The engine is Chromium.
- A shield blocks ads and trackers.
- Permissions (camera, microphone, notifications) are asked per site.
- Passwords are saved and filled in, and can be brought over from other Chromium browsers and from CSV.
- Extensions from the Chrome Web Store work as far as the library used for them supports.
- Reader view, search suggestions, import of bookmarks and history.
- Private windows, whose pages live in memory only.
Passwords and the keyring
Saved passwords and cookies are locked with a key kept in the system keyring, which opens with the login password. In a session without a keyring, the passwords page says that they are stored unencrypted.
What it does not do
Said plainly, so that nobody has to find out:
- No DRM video (Widevine).
- No sync between machines.
- No passkeys.
- No Safe Browsing lists.
- No native messaging for extensions, and extension support is what the library lists, not all of Chrome’s.
Reporting a problem with a site
In the tracker, choose “Netbird” and give the address of the page, what you did, and whether it happens in a private window too (which runs without your cookies).