Safaa Browser

Safaa (com.safaa.browser) is a privacy-focused, Muslim Android web browser built on Chromium and Brave Core, featuring built-in real-time background music removal (NoMusic), full built-in ad & tracker blocking (Shields), and always-on pornography & adult content blocking.

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Key Features

• Built-in NoMusic: Removes background music from web videos in real time while keeping voices clear, with a one-tap toggle in the toolbar.
• Built-in Shields Ad & Tracker Blocking: Blocks ads, popups, and trackers out of the box.
• Always-On Pornography & Adult Content Blocker: Built-in DNS filtering and SafeSearch enabled by default to block pornography and adult websites.

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System Requirements (Building for Android arm64)

Building Chromium + Safaa for Android requires a Linux environment (Ubuntu 22.04 / 24.04 LTS, or WSL2 on Windows):

• OS: Ubuntu 22.04+ (x86_64) or Windows 11 with WSL2 (Ubuntu)
• RAM: 16 GB+ recommended (12 GB minimum with 16 GB swap and JOBS=6)
• Disk Space: ~120 GB free ext4 disk space
• Tools:
  • Node.js 20+ / 24+ and pnpm
  • Python 3, Git, Curl, Zstandard (zstd), Ninja, and standard Chromium Linux/Android build dependencies

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1. Initial Checkout & Setup

In your Linux / WSL2 terminal, create the workspace directory and clone this repository into src/brave (Chromium's build files reference //brave/... paths relative to src/):

mkdir -p ~/Safaa/src
cd ~/Safaa/src
git clone https://github.com/mohamedsadiqaguenaou/Safaa.git brave
cd ~/Safaa/src/brave

Environment Setup (~/Safaa/env.sh)

If building inside WSL2, ensure Windows PATH entries (/mnt/...) are excluded so Windows node.exe or python.exe do not interfere with the Linux build:

cat << 'EOF' > ~/Safaa/env.sh
# Keep Windows programs out of the Linux build in WSL2
PATH="$(printf '%s' "$PATH" | tr ':' '\n' | grep -v '^/mnt/' | paste -sd: -)"
PATH="$HOME/.local/node/bin:$PATH"
export PATH
EOF
source ~/Safaa/env.sh

Fetch Chromium & Android Dependencies

Install Node dependencies and run init to fetch the matching Chromium tree, Android SDK/NDK, and apply all patches in patches/:

source ~/Safaa/env.sh
cd ~/Safaa/src/brave
pnpm install
pnpm run init --target_os=android --target_arch=arm64 --no-history

Note: pnpm run init is safe to re-run if interrupted; gclient will resume downloading where it left off. After pulling new changes to patches/, re-apply them with:

pnpm run apply_patches

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2. Building the Android APK (Safaa-arm64.apk)

Option A: Optimized Official Release Build (32 GB+ RAM)

Builds the full official Release configuration (is_official_build = true, ThinLTO, R8/ProGuard optimization, release channel):

source ~/Safaa/env.sh
cd ~/Safaa/src/brave

JOBS="$(nproc)"
export SISO_LIMITS="local=$JOBS"
export JAVA_OPTS="-Xmx16G -Xms4G"
export NODE_OPTIONS="--max-old-space-size=16384"

pnpm run build Release \
  --channel=release \
  --target_os=android \
  --target_arch=arm64 \
  --target_android_output_format=apk \
  --gn=symbol_level:0 \
  --ninja=j:"$JOBS"

Output APK:

~/Safaa/src/out/android_Release_arm64/apks/Safaa-arm64.apk

Option B: Low-Memory Static Build (12–16 GB RAM)

Builds an optimized APK without ThinLTO so linking fits comfortably in 12–16 GB RAM:

source ~/Safaa/env.sh
cd ~/Safaa/src/brave

JOBS="${JOBS:-6}"
export SISO_LIMITS="local=$JOBS"
export JAVA_OPTS="-Xmx4G -Xms1G"
export NODE_OPTIONS="--max-old-space-size=8192"

pnpm run build Static \
  --target_os=android \
  --target_arch=arm64 \
  --target_android_output_format=apk \
  --gn=symbol_level:0 \
  --gn=dcheck_always_on:false \
  --ninja=j:"$JOBS"

Output APK:

~/Safaa/src/out/android_Static_arm64/apks/Safaa-arm64.apk

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3. Useful Development Commands

• Regenerate & verify GN build files without a full build:

  source ~/Safaa/env.sh
  cd ~/Safaa/src/brave
  pnpm run gn gen -C gncheck --target_os=android --target_arch=arm64
  pnpm run gn check -C gncheck '//brave/*'
  

• Regenerate Chromium rewrite patches (rewrite/**/*.yaml):

  PATH=~/Safaa/src/brave/vendor/depot_tools:$PATH vpython3 tools/cr/plaster.py apply <path-to-yaml>
  

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License

This project is licensed under the Mozilla Public License 2.0.