48 million lines of code vs one JSON file.
The Just the Browser project offers a simple and unique way to bring a modern browser back to life. Instead of another fork with stripped features, the developer offers a small script that disables all unnecessary features directly in an existing browser. No rebuilding, no separate distribution, and no need to migrate to another product.
The project's creator is developer Corbin Davenport. His idea relies on enterprise-grade controls already built into major browsers. These tools were originally intended for corporate administrators, but in practice, they allow for a fairly fine-grained customization of browser behavior for the average user. Just the Browser uses them to disable telemetry, advertising elements, features based on large language models , and other capabilities that are increasingly appearing under the label of "AI."
This approach seems particularly appropriate given the growing number of alternative browsers. Several Firefox forks have emerged in recent years—Waterfox, Zen, LibreWolf, and Floorp —as well as projects based on older versions of the engine, such as Pale Moon. The Chromium ecosystem is similar: in addition to Chrome itself, Microsoft's Edge, Chinese-owned Opera, and Vivaldi, created by the former developers of the classic Norwegian Opera, are actively used.
Davenport himself is already well-known in the community. In 2023, he published a detailed analysis of the reasons for abandoning Brave Browser , which was widely discussed in industry circles. Even earlier, in 2014, his name surfaced in the news for an experiment running Windows 95 on a smartwatch.
Maintaining native browser forks remains an extremely labor-intensive task. Modern browsers have long since evolved into massive software systems. For example, Chromium's codebase numbers approximately 48.5 million lines, while Mozilla's Firefox is only slightly smaller, at approximately 44.75 million. Even a small fork must constantly keep up with updates, bug fixes, and security patches.
Therefore, the idea of simply disabling unnecessary features through built-in policies seems much more practical. These settings were created for people, not machines, and are therefore relatively easy to read. In the case of Firefox, the entire set of changes applied by Just the Browser fits into a single, compact JSON file.
Once such policies are applied, the browser automatically displays which restrictions are active. In Firefox, simply open the about policies page. In Chromium-based browsers, use the address chrome://policy/. Chrome, for example, additionally displays a notification that the browser is managed by an organization.
If the browser is already under corporate management, the user's capabilities are subject to the company's internal rules. In such cases, bypassing restrictions without administrator approval is impossible, and the project's author is open about this.
Just the Browser supports Windows, macOS, and Linux. Installation involves running commands in a terminal, which may be intimidating for those unfamiliar with the command line. Alternatively, you can download pre-built configuration files, examine them manually, and apply them yourself. All project code is open source and available on GitHub .
As long as browsers continue to support corporate policies and actually follow them, it's hard to find any obvious downsides to this approach.
The Just the Browser project offers a simple and unique way to bring a modern browser back to life. Instead of another fork with stripped features, the developer offers a small script that disables all unnecessary features directly in an existing browser. No rebuilding, no separate distribution, and no need to migrate to another product.
The project's creator is developer Corbin Davenport. His idea relies on enterprise-grade controls already built into major browsers. These tools were originally intended for corporate administrators, but in practice, they allow for a fairly fine-grained customization of browser behavior for the average user. Just the Browser uses them to disable telemetry, advertising elements, features based on large language models , and other capabilities that are increasingly appearing under the label of "AI."
This approach seems particularly appropriate given the growing number of alternative browsers. Several Firefox forks have emerged in recent years—Waterfox, Zen, LibreWolf, and Floorp —as well as projects based on older versions of the engine, such as Pale Moon. The Chromium ecosystem is similar: in addition to Chrome itself, Microsoft's Edge, Chinese-owned Opera, and Vivaldi, created by the former developers of the classic Norwegian Opera, are actively used.
Davenport himself is already well-known in the community. In 2023, he published a detailed analysis of the reasons for abandoning Brave Browser , which was widely discussed in industry circles. Even earlier, in 2014, his name surfaced in the news for an experiment running Windows 95 on a smartwatch.
Maintaining native browser forks remains an extremely labor-intensive task. Modern browsers have long since evolved into massive software systems. For example, Chromium's codebase numbers approximately 48.5 million lines, while Mozilla's Firefox is only slightly smaller, at approximately 44.75 million. Even a small fork must constantly keep up with updates, bug fixes, and security patches.
Therefore, the idea of simply disabling unnecessary features through built-in policies seems much more practical. These settings were created for people, not machines, and are therefore relatively easy to read. In the case of Firefox, the entire set of changes applied by Just the Browser fits into a single, compact JSON file.
Once such policies are applied, the browser automatically displays which restrictions are active. In Firefox, simply open the about policies page. In Chromium-based browsers, use the address chrome://policy/. Chrome, for example, additionally displays a notification that the browser is managed by an organization.
If the browser is already under corporate management, the user's capabilities are subject to the company's internal rules. In such cases, bypassing restrictions without administrator approval is impossible, and the project's author is open about this.
Just the Browser supports Windows, macOS, and Linux. Installation involves running commands in a terminal, which may be intimidating for those unfamiliar with the command line. Alternatively, you can download pre-built configuration files, examine them manually, and apply them yourself. All project code is open source and available on GitHub .
As long as browsers continue to support corporate policies and actually follow them, it's hard to find any obvious downsides to this approach.
