Vigil Browser

A lean, privacy-respecting Chromium browser with sensible defaults -- like Brave, without the bloat. Built on ungoogled-chromium.

What's Different From Upstream

Pre-configured Defaults

• Google as default search engine with search suggestions enabled
• Bookmark bar always visible
• uBlock Origin pre-installed (downloaded from GitHub releases at build time)
• Chrome Web Store access restored for easy extension management
• Privacy-focused defaults: Do Not Track enabled, Safe Browsing disabled, autofill disabled, translation disabled, network prediction disabled
• Skip first-run UI and default browser prompts

Architecture (Brave-Inspired)

• chromium_src/ overlay system -- Drop-in file replacements that mirror the Chromium source tree. Preferred over patches for file-level changes since they don't break on rebase.
• initial_preferences -- Single JSON file controlling all first-run defaults (like Brave's brave_profile_prefs.cc)
• branding.json -- Central configuration for browser name, company, and URLs
• setup_extensions.py -- Automated extension bundler that downloads and packages uBlock Origin
• apply_overlays.py -- Applies chromium_src overlays, custom NTP, and branding at build time
• Custom New Tab Page -- Dark-themed NTP with clock, search bar, and configurable shortcuts

File Structure

ungoogled-chromium-windows/
  branding.json              # Browser name, company, URLs
  initial_preferences        # First-run browser settings
  setup_extensions.py        # Downloads and bundles uBlock Origin
  apply_overlays.py          # Applies overlays + NTP + branding
  chromium_src/              # Brave-style file replacements
  ntp/
    newtab.html              # Custom dark New Tab Page
  patches/
    series                   # Patch order (includes CWS restore + Google search)
    ungoogled-chromium/windows/
      windows-restore-google-search-engine.patch
      windows-restore-webstore.patch
      ...

Downloads

Check the Releases page for pre-built binaries (x64, x86, arm64).

Building

Prerequisites

Google only supports Windows 10 x64 or newer.

IMPORTANT: Only set up what's listed below. Do NOT install depot_tools -- this fork has a custom build process that avoids Google's pre-built binaries.

Visual Studio

Follow the "Visual Studio" section of the official Windows build instructions.

Other Requirements

• Python 3.12+
• 7-Zip or WinRAR (for extracting build dependencies)
• ~100 GB free disk space
• ~16 GB RAM recommended

Build Steps

# Clone with submodules
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/SysAdminDoc/Vigil.git
cd ungoogled-chromium-windows

# Build (downloads sources, applies patches + overlays, compiles)
python build.py

# Package (bundles uBlock Origin, creates installer + zip)
python package.py

Build Options

Flag	Description
--x86	Build 32-bit binaries
--arm	Build ARM64 binaries
-j N	Use N CPU threads for compilation
--ci	CI mode (incremental, with timeout)
--tarball	Use source tarball instead of git clone

Output

Build artifacts are placed in build/:

• ungoogled-chromium_*_installer_*.exe -- Windows installer
• ungoogled-chromium_*_windows_*.zip -- Portable zip (includes uBlock Origin + initial_preferences)

Customization

Changing the Browser Name

Edit branding.json:

{
  "browser_name": "MyBrowser",
  "company_name": "MyCompany",
  "homepage_url": "https://example.com"
}

Adding More Pre-installed Extensions

Edit setup_extensions.py to add additional extensions, or add JSON files to a default_extensions/ directory following Chromium's external extensions format.

Adding File Overlays

Place files in chromium_src/ mirroring the Chromium source tree structure:

chromium_src/chrome/browser/some_file.cc
-> replaces build/src/chrome/browser/some_file.cc

Modifying Default Settings

Edit initial_preferences -- this is a standard Chromium initial preferences file.

CI/CD

The GitHub Actions workflow builds x64, x86, and arm64 binaries on every tag push or manual dispatch. Builds are split across multiple stages due to the 6-hour GitHub Actions timeout limit.

Trigger a manual build: Actions > CI > Run workflow

Credits

• ungoogled-chromium by Eloston
• ungoogled-chromium-windows by the ungoogled-software team
• uBlock Origin by Raymond Hill

License

BSD-3-Clause