Beaker Browser

Beaker-ng is an experimental peer-to-peer Web browser based on Electron. It adds new APIs for building hostless applications while remaining compatible with the rest of the Web. It can use the dat:// and hyper:// URL schemes/protocols.
It is a continued fork of Beaker.

Visit the website.

Table of Contents

• Installing
  • Binaries
  • Building from source
• Documentation
  • Env Vars
• Vulnerability Disclosure
• Known Issues
  • tmux
• Contributors
• License

Installing

Binaries

Visit the Releases Page to find the installer you need.

Building from Source

Requires node 12, 14, or 16.

On Linux (and in some cases macOS) you need libtool, m4, autoconf, and automake:

sudo apt-get install libtool m4 make g++ autoconf # debian/ubuntu
sudo dnf install libtool m4 make gcc-c++ libXScrnSaver  # fedora
brew install libtool autoconf automake # macos

On Windows, you'll need to install Python 3.9, Visual Studio 2015 or 2017, and Git. (You might try windows-build-tools in place of MSVS.) Then run:

npm config set python C:\absolute\path\to\python.exe
npm config set msvs_version 2017
npm install -g gulp

To Build:

git clone https://github.com/Alex313031/beaker-ng.git
cd beaker/scripts
npm install # don't worry about v8 api errors building native modules - rebuild will fix
npm run rebuild # needed after each install for sqlite3. See https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/5851
npm start # for generating installation packages, see below

To Clean

npm run clean # cleans node_modules
npm run distclean # cleans 'dist' dir

To Build Installers

npm run dist # compiles beaker and places it in 'dist/platform-unpacked', where platform is i.e. linux, win, mac
npm run distclean # cleans 'dist'
npm run dist-linux # to make .deb, .appimage, and .zip
npm run dist-win # to make .exe and .zip
npm run dist-mac # to make .dmg and .app

If you pull latest from the repo and get weird module errors, do:

npm run burnthemall

This invokes the mad king, who will torch your node_modules/, and do the full install/rebuild process for you. (We chose that command name when GoT was still cool.) npm start should work afterward.

If you're doing development, npm run watch to have assets build automatically.

Documentation

Env Vars

• DEBUG: which log systems to output? A comma-separated string. Can be beaker, dat, bittorrent-dht, dns-discovery, hypercore-protocol. Specify * for all.
• BEAKER_OPEN_URL: open the given URL on load, rather than the previous session or default tab.
• BEAKER_USER_DATA_PATH: override the user-data path, therefore changing where data is read/written. Useful for testing. For default value see userData in the electron docs.
• BEAKER_DAT_QUOTA_DEFAULT_BYTES_ALLOWED: override the default max-quota for bytes allowed to be written by a dat site. Useful for testing. Default value is '500mb'. This can be a Number or a String. Check bytes.parse for supported units and abbreviations.

Vulnerability Disclosure

See SECURITY.md for reporting security issues and vulnerabilities.

Known Issues

tmux

Launching from tmux is known to cause issues with GUI apps in macOS. On Beaker, it may cause the application to hang during startup.

Contributors

This project exists thanks to all the people who contribute. [Contribute].

License

See LICENSE