anfragment

I'm working on a system-wide desktop ad-blocker and privacy guard called Zen (for almost 2.5 years now): https://github.com/irbis-sh/zen-desktop

Working on it has been a joy as ad-blocking tech touches so many aspects of software engineering - from systems and security to the intricacies of JS environments in browsers.

Benefits-wise, system-wide filtering disables ads and tracking not just in browsers, but desktop apps as well (which you'll be amazed how much they do). It's especially relevant now as Google is re-activating their efforts to hinder ad-blockers by killing Manifest V2 in Chrome. So much of tech is actively bleeding cash on AI right now, which means the efforts to screw over users will only accelerate. This makes something that sits at the network level indispensable imo.

Have you tried code-signing with an EV certificate? If so, did it help? Asking for a friend.

Happy New Year from Almaty, Kazakhstan!

Nefarious actions by others shouldn't justify your own. We can do better.

I use duckduckgo and live in a neighboring country, so I know Russian well (thanks, imperialism) and have to search things in it from time to time. It's still good at those queries, so this is just an excuse.

Just be aware that a small percentage of your money would be going to the Russian government: https://ounapuu.ee/posts/2025/07/17/kagi/

> Why is the root certificage needed

Unfortunately, it's the only way to perform HTTPS inspection outside the browser. It's essentially required for any filtering beyond doing basic host-based matching.

> how is this better than uBlock

I wouldn't claim that Zen is strictly better than uBO. However, Zen works outside the browser (protecting against many desktop apps that have ads and tracking SDKs) and also supports any browser out of the box – including post-MV3 Chrome.

Zen's engineer here – yes, it does! All processing happens locally on your device. No traffic or telemetry is ever sent to our servers.

The project I'm working on (https://zenprivacy.net) currently has an active application with NLNet. Everyone's situation is different, but let me share ours. We had a source of funding that allowed us to work on the project full-time, but it unfortunately ran out a few months ago. We're now in the exact same position @JimDabell described - trying to decide what to do with an unclear timeline ahead. I'm of course hugely grateful to everyone behind the foundation, but it would've been nice if there were a separate "fast track" for established projects.

Just got it fixed, thank you!

Definitely feels like it. I frequently see people here complaining about how everything has the same boring, homogenous corporate look now, but anything interesting and original gets critiqued for lacking "visual clarity". These might be two different camps, sure, but it's sometimes sad to see the quality of discussion here.

What’s up with HN these days? The cursors are awesome! Don’t like them? Just quit reading the article…

Hello HN!

Having just posted the app to a couple of small subreddits before sleep and then waking up to being on the front page over here is quite an experience :) I was hoping to make a Show HN post after giving Zen a bit more polish, but I guess here we are.

Thanks for all the constructive feedback. I totally share your concerns about its security and likewise wouldn't use some unverified application trying to install a root CA on my system. For those wanting to audit the certificate generation and installation code, feel free to take a look at certmanager/get.go and certmanager/install_{platformname}.go. It is mostly self-contained and, I hope, easy to understand. The lack of any instructions on how to delete the certificate is an oversight on my part, and I'll be working on this. Regarding the binaries: all of them are built on GitHub's CI. I wish there was a way for users to verify this fact, but to my knowledge, there is no way to do that currently. You can run and build the app yourself using Wails (https://wails.io/docs/gettingstarted/installation). I'll be sure to add more instructions to the repo in the coming days.

As always, any feedback, help, and suggestions are much welcome.