Leech

A small, fast, quiet web browser for Linux, on its own Chromium build.

A row of tabs across the top or down the left, and the page. No toolbar, no start page, no account.

Roadmap · Documents · Report an issue

Note

Leech is early. There is no release or package yet, you build Chromium yourself.

Features

• Tabs across the top or down the left, folded away with one key
• A switcher on Ctrl+K and an address field with inline completion
• Spaces, each with its own tabs and, if you want, its own sign-ins
• Essentials shared by every space, folders of tabs, and Clear for every tab that isn't pinned
• Split view: two tabs side by side, kept across a restart
• Tabs sleep after 30 minutes away and wake where they were, with their history
• An archive for tabs left alone for a day or a week, off unless you turn it on
• A media bar at the foot of the sidebar for the last tab that played
• Private tabs that never reach the session, history or zoom memory
• A shield that blocks a built-in list of trackers, paused per site
• Hide any element on a page and keep it hidden
• Passwords sealed in the desktop keyring through libsecret
• Bookmarks and history imported from Chrome, Chromium, Brave, Vivaldi, Edge, Zen, Firefox and LibreWolf
• Reading mode, picture-in-picture and link peek
• Chrome extensions from the Web Store, behind one door
• Your own colours: the window as one colour or a smooth gradient, an accent and the new tab's picture
• Chromium's settings (sites, languages, passwords, downloads) inside Leech's own
• Chromium 154 underneath, so Google, DRM and sign-ins behave like in Chrome

Install

Arch / CachyOS: tested on Hyprland. Build Chromium first (see Building), then install the launcher, the desktop entry and the icon for your user:

install -Dm755 data/leech ~/.local/bin/leech
install -Dm644 data/dev.mikaeww.Leech.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/dev.mikaeww.Leech.desktop
install -Dm644 assets/leech-light.png ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor/256x256/apps/dev.mikaeww.Leech.png

The launcher expects the checkout in ~/Projekte/Apps/leech and the Chromium build in ~/Projekte/Apps/leech-chromium/src/out/Leech. Set LEECH_HOME and LEECH_CHROMIUM if yours live elsewhere.

From a release build (chromium/args-release.gn in out/Release), node tools/stage.mjs <src>/out/Release <prefix> lays out an installed copy that needs no checkout: <prefix>/bin/leech starts <prefix>/lib/leech/chrome with the UI beside it.

Shortcuts

Key	Action
Ctrl+L	Address
Ctrl+K	Switch tab
Ctrl+T / Ctrl+W	New tab / close tab
Ctrl+Shift+T	Reopen closed tab
Ctrl+Tab, Ctrl+1 to Ctrl+9	Next tab, jump to tab
Ctrl+[ / Ctrl+]	Back / forward
Alt+1 to Alt+9	Switch space
Ctrl+Shift+S	Tabs across the top or down the left
Ctrl+S	Fold the tabs away
Ctrl+Shift+N	Private tab
Ctrl+F	Find
Ctrl+D	Duplicate tab
Ctrl+Alt+C	Copy address
Ctrl+Shift+V	Paste and go
Ctrl+Shift+R	Reading mode
Ctrl+Shift+H	Hide an element
Ctrl+,	Settings

Click the active tab to edit its address in place. Right-click a tab to pin, rename or mute it.

Building

Leech is a WebUI (ui/) on a patched Chromium 154.0.8037.57. You need depot_tools, about 40 GB of disk and a few hours.

mkdir leech-chromium && cd leech-chromium
git clone https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/tools/depot_tools.git
export PATH="$PWD/depot_tools:$PATH"
gclient config --unmanaged --name src https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git
gclient sync --revision src@refs/tags/154.0.8037.57 --no-history --nohooks && gclient runhooks

cd src
git apply ~/Projekte/Apps/leech/chromium/patches/*.patch
ln -s ~/Projekte/Apps/leech/chromium/leech chrome/browser/ui/leech
mkdir -p out/Leech && cp ~/Projekte/Apps/leech/chromium/args.gn out/Leech/
gn gen out/Leech
autoninja -C out/Leech chrome

For working on the UI alone there is the older Electron shell. Needs Node.js 22 or newer:

npm install
npm start          # the UI in the Electron shell
npm run check      # lint, structure check, unit tests: must pass before a commit

How the code is laid out and the rules it follows: docs/, starting with conventions and the architecture overview.

License

MIT, see LICENSE.

Thanks

The design, behaviour and injected scripts come from Search by Office Commun (MIT). Leech is not affiliated with Office Commun.