Chord

The browser that closes the arc.

Arc's sidebar, Spaces and command bar, rebuilt natively for the Mac on Chromium. Open source, so it can never disappear.

Website · Download · Changelog · Build from source

Try the interactive version on kevbesset.github.io/Chord.

[!NOTE] Preview. Chord is used every day by its author, but anything can still change. It runs on Macs with Apple silicon (M1 or later), macOS 14 or later.

Install

Download Chord-<version>.dmg from the latest release (or from the website), open the image and drag Chord into Applications. Chord then updates itself: it checks once a day and installs at the next launch; "Check for Updates…" in the Chord menu checks right away.

Everything you loved in Arc, where you left it

Same model, same shortcuts. Coming from Arc, there is nothing to relearn.

And the rest: automatic picture in picture, discreet permission requests, site settings, find in page, zoom per site, saved passwords and autofill, private browsing, multiple windows, light and dark mode, remappable shortcuts. In English, French and Spanish, following the Mac's language.

Built for the people who build the web

localhost, staging, production, docs, dashboards, pull requests: Chord keeps them all in reach, on the engine you already test against.

🧩 Chrome extensions	From the Chrome Web Store, pinnable in the address bar.
🛠️ Docked DevTools	Chrome's DevTools on the right, left, bottom or in their own window (⌥⌘I).
🍎 Native to the Mac	The interface is written in Swift and AppKit, with real macOS glass. No Electron.
🛡️ Chromium, ungoogled	Built on ungoogled-chromium: Chromium's engine without Google's services. No account required.

Every interaction has a budget

Smoothness isn't a promise, it's a rule: each interaction has a latency budget (docs/PERFORMANCE.md), and a feature that goes over it doesn't ship.

Command bar	Switching Spaces	Cold start	Scrolling and animations
< 50 ms	< 100 ms	< 1 s to a usable window	120 fps on ProMotion

Support

Chord is free and made by one person. If it is useful to you, you can support its development on Ko-fi. Bugs are welcome in the issues, ideas and questions in the discussions.

Contributing

Fixes, translations and performance work are welcome; a new feature starts with an issue. Working on the interface doesn't require building Chromium: engine/scripts/run.sh puts your build of it into the latest release. Everything is in CONTRIBUTING.md; security issues go through SECURITY.md.

Build

Requirements: Apple Silicon Mac, Xcode 16 or later, Homebrew, about 100 GB of free space. The first Chromium build takes several hours.

brew install xcodegen
engine/scripts/bootstrap.sh && engine/scripts/prepare.sh
engine/scripts/build.sh          # Chromium and ChordUI: out/Chord/Chord.app
engine/scripts/run.sh            # day to day: the interface alone, in a few seconds

Details in engine/README.md. Publishing a version: docs/RELEASING.md.

app/                Native interface (Swift, AppKit)
  ChordUI/          framework: window, sidebar, Spaces, command bar.
                    Knows no engine, only the ChordWebEngine protocol.
  scripts/          checks run by CI (every string in French and Spanish)
  project.yml       Xcode project definition (XcodeGen)
engine/             Chromium: pinned version, //chord, patches, brand, scripts
docs/               Product vision, architecture, performance budgets, decisions
design/             Reference mockups and brand (logo, icon)
site/               Presentation page (en/fr/es), published on GitHub Pages;
                    ?mock in its address shows controls to try each platform
CLAUDE.md           Project context for Claude Code

To go further: vision, architecture, decisions.

License

Chord is distributed under the GNU General Public License, version 3 (LICENSE). Chromium and ungoogled-chromium, which it builds on, keep their own licenses (mostly BSD); Chord lists them in chord://credits. Sparkle (updates) is under the MIT license.