Feedback: New NetBird GUI - RC

[braginini]

Before posting

• I searched existing discussions and issues for similar requests.
• I checked the documentation to confirm this is not already supported.
• This is a product idea or enhancement request, not a support question.
• I removed or anonymized sensitive details from examples and screenshots.

Product area

Desktop UI

Problem or use case

Feedback for the new GUI RC

Proposed solution

Feedback for the new GUI RC

Alternatives or workarounds considered

No response

Community impact and priority

Feedback for the new GUI RC

Examples from other tools or products

No response

Security, privacy, and compatibility considerations

No response

Implementation ideas

No response

Are you willing to help?

Yes, I can submit a PR if the approach is accepted.

Additional context

No response

[mlsmaycon]

Installer / wasm downloads (302 → GitHub asset):

• https://pkgs.netbird.io/windows/x64/rc
• https://pkgs.netbird.io/windows/msi/x64/rc
• https://pkgs.netbird.io/windows/arm64/rc
• https://pkgs.netbird.io/windows/msi/arm64/rc
• https://pkgs.netbird.io/macos/arm64/rc
• https://pkgs.netbird.io/macos/amd64/rc
• https://pkgs.netbird.io/macos/universal/rc
• https://pkgs.netbird.io/wasm/client/rc

Release metadata:

• https://pkgs.netbird.io/releases/rc → 302 to GitHub release page (e.g. releases/tag/v0.75.0-rc.1)
• https://pkgs.netbird.io/releases/rc/version → plain text version (e.g. 0.75.0-rc.1)

[YouKyi]

INSANE INTERFACE, thanks!!

[sOliverBa]

Running the macOS version – and i must say: beautiful & fantastic!

The new Client GUI lets me search for names, but the actual implementation is very limited in it's use.
The only searchable criterias are: initial provided fqdn (by Netbird Management) and the actual overlay IP. Both are not "speaking" and the first can be outdated, when changed.

I think this is because the transmitted informations to the client only contain the fqdn and it's IP, but no other informations.

Feature Request: "Speaking" names for Peers
Example: nrp.company.netbird (which means: Netbird Relay Peer @ Company using Netbird)
Real world: nrp-11-231.netbird

In this example, that peer was setup using a setup key (because there's no way, of providing another DNS name when using regular User setups) with extra dns labels. The original given fqdn "nrp-11-231.netbird" isn't "speaking" but is the only one ever shown, except in the management dashboard.

Maybe there could be a checkbox in the management dashboard for every peer, which allows to select the preferred (domain) name which then is used (exclusively if necessary) to be shown? And if it could be also possible, to change/add (as admin only) this name at any stage (even after setup) it would be perfect.

Thanks for this great product! Thanks for being that open and a real Open Source/Selfhosted solution.

[sam9032]

The new GUI is a great improvement and works great with MDM. The notifications are helpful and the reminder to relogin is pretty important for us.
It would be great, if we could configure the NetBird Cloud SSO URL with a preselected provider. For example when the user clicks on Renew Session, the NetBird Login opens with Microsoft Login..

The contrast of the green hook on the new icon isn't great and difficult to see:

[stratacast]

I am running DankLinux with a dark theme, but the application does not properly detect the theme. This makes the icon black on a dark background

5:55PM INF AssetServer Info: middleware=true handler=true
5:55PM INF Build Info: Wails=v3.0.0-alpha.102 Compiler=go1.25.11 -buildmode=exe CGO_CXXFLAGS= CGO_LDFLAGS= GOOS=linux GOAMD64=v1 CGO_CPPFLAGS= vcs=git -ldflags=-s -w -X github.com/netbirdio/netbird/version.version=0.75.0-rc.1 -X main.commit=8b7ce337d86ea5f01ebcf4c62a565ecfa9e7018c -X main.date=2026-06-19T07:59:28Z -X main.builtBy=goreleaser CGO_CFLAGS= vcs.modified=false -compiler=gc CGO_ENABLED=1 GOARCH=amd64 vcs.revision=8b7ce337d86ea5f01ebcf4c62a565ecfa9e7018c vcs.time=2026-06-19T07:59:28Z
5:55PM INF Platform Info: ID=artix Name=Artix Linux Version=20260407 Branding= GTK=4.14.5 WebKitGTK=2.52.3
2026-06-23T17:55:10.367-07:00 INFO client/ui/tray_theme_watcher_linux.go:74: tray theme: panel dark mode = false
2026-06-23T17:55:10.367-07:00 INFO client/ui/tray_icon.go:24: tray applyIcon: connected=false hasUpdate=false status="" goos=linux

[sahps]

GUI looks good, but we don't want users messing with settings and now its front-and-center every startup.
Can we please have the option to disable the "Connected" popup. See issue #5744
Same with the "Welcome to Netbird" popup.

[pappz]

@sahps thank you for the feedback. We are working on the fix. It will be part of the next release.

[Alex-BSD]

What a nice and clean UI! 🥹🤌 (MacOS version)
Everything I usually need to change or check is a 1 clicker for me.
I like that it shows the latency for my "servers" and the fact that I can copy the URLs from my self hosted things very quick.
And I can even search in here!
Probably my use case is simple, but I have nothing to complain about it.

[Reaper90]

Beautiful UI with nice Features and overview over peers and resources! 👍
I especially love the session renewal reminder, but it would be nice to have another earlier reminder (like 30 minutes or 1 hour) or maybe even be able to set custom reminder time. The default 2 minutes seem ab bit too short, if you just occasionally leave your computer for some minutes and the session timeout happens.

[mfuezesi]

Amazing!

[fuad00]

can someone please provide some screenshots?
I can’t really find it

[WarmWelcome]

https://netbird.io/knowledge-hub/new-desktop-app-release-candidate

[tgf9]

Linux Flatpak when?

[Mntz]

Amazing work. Love that it still has a very small installation footprint.

I think the right-click menu could be a bit simplified though:
Hide the profile selection option when only one profile has been configured. Same with exit nodes, if the feature is not enabled.
Remove Help & Support since it's probably not relevant for most end-users and we have Settings > About available.

[KiskaLE]

I am getting this error when I change any setting. There I try to turn on lazy connections.

[sOliverBa]

Is your machine serviced by any management solution (the error message lists an MDM issue)?

[sahps]

@KiskaLE you should censor your mgmt url

[KiskaLE]

Yes, my machine (windows 11) is enrolled in Intune. This is script I use to install netbird:

<#
.SYNOPSIS
Installs NetBird client via Intune using the EXE installer and enforces the Management URL.

.DESCRIPTION
This script is designed to run as an Intune Win32 app installation (runs as SYSTEM).
It downloads the latest NetBird Windows EXE installer, installs it silently, writes
the official NetBird Windows policy registry values, and reconfigures the NetBird
service to use the self-hosted Management URL.

Exit codes: 0 = success, 3010 = success (reboot needed), 1 = failure.
#>

$ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop'

# --- Configuration ---
$ManagementUrl = "https://netbird.xxxx.xxx"
$MaxRetries = 3
$RetryDelaySec = 5

# --- Paths ---
$LogDir = "C:\ProgramData\NetBird_Install"
$TempDir = $LogDir
$TranscriptFile = "$LogDir\NetBird_Install_Transcript.log"
$InstallerPath = $null
$InstallDir = "C:\Program Files\Netbird"
$NetBirdExe = "$InstallDir\netbird.exe"
$NetBirdUiExe = "$InstallDir\netbird-ui.exe"
$ConfigDir = "C:\ProgramData\Netbird"
$ConfigPath = "$ConfigDir\config.json"
$PolicyRegPath = "HKLM:\Software\Policies\NetBird"

if (-not (Test-Path -Path $LogDir)) {
    New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path $LogDir | Out-Null
}

Start-Transcript -Path $TranscriptFile -Append -Force | Out-Null

[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12

function Invoke-WithRetry {
    param(
        [scriptblock]$ScriptBlock,
        [string]$OperationName,
        [int]$MaxAttempts = $MaxRetries,
        [int]$DelaySeconds = $RetryDelaySec
    )
    for ($attempt = 1; $attempt -le $MaxAttempts; $attempt++) {
        try {
            return & $ScriptBlock
        } catch {
            Write-Output "[$OperationName] Attempt $attempt/$MaxAttempts failed: $_"
            if ($attempt -eq $MaxAttempts) { throw }
            Start-Sleep -Seconds $DelaySeconds
        }
    }
}

function Set-NetBirdPolicy {
    if (-not (Test-Path $PolicyRegPath)) {
        New-Item -Path $PolicyRegPath -Force | Out-Null
    }

    New-ItemProperty -Path $PolicyRegPath -Name "ManagementURL" -Value $ManagementUrl -PropertyType String -Force | Out-Null
    New-ItemProperty -Path $PolicyRegPath -Name "DisableProfiles" -Value 1 -PropertyType DWord -Force | Out-Null

    [Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("NB_MANAGEMENT_URL", $ManagementUrl, "Machine")

    Write-Output "NetBird policy applied: ManagementURL=$ManagementUrl, DisableProfiles=1."
}

function Remove-NetBirdInvalidBootstrapConfig {
    if (-not (Test-Path $ConfigDir)) {
        New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path $ConfigDir -Force | Out-Null
    }

    if (-not (Test-Path $ConfigPath)) {
        return
    }

    try {
        $Config = Get-Content -Path $ConfigPath -Raw | ConvertFrom-Json
        $PropertyNames = @($Config.PSObject.Properties.Name)
        $OnlyBootstrapValues = ($PropertyNames.Count -le 2) -and -not ($PropertyNames | Where-Object { $_ -notin @("ManagementURL", "AdminURL") })
        $HasStringManagementUrl = ($Config.PSObject.Properties.Name -contains "ManagementURL") -and ($Config.ManagementURL -is [string])

        if ($OnlyBootstrapValues -and $HasStringManagementUrl) {
            Remove-Item -Path $ConfigPath -Force
            Write-Output "Removed invalid NetBird bootstrap config that prevents daemon startup: $ConfigPath"
        }
    } catch {
        Write-Output "Leaving existing config untouched because it could not be parsed safely: $ConfigPath"
    }
}

function Remove-NetBirdLegacyProfileStubs {
    $StubFiles = @(
        "$ConfigDir\default.json",
        "$ConfigDir\profiles\default.json"
    )

    foreach ($StubFile in $StubFiles) {
        if (-not (Test-Path $StubFile)) {
            continue
        }

        try {
            $Stub = Get-Content -Path $StubFile -Raw | ConvertFrom-Json
            $PropertyNames = @($Stub.PSObject.Properties.Name)
            $OnlyBootstrapValues = ($PropertyNames.Count -le 2) -and -not ($PropertyNames | Where-Object { $_ -notin @("ManagementURL", "AdminURL") })

            if ($OnlyBootstrapValues) {
                Remove-Item -Path $StubFile -Force
                Write-Output "Removed legacy bootstrap profile stub: $StubFile"
            }
        } catch {
            Write-Output "Leaving existing profile file untouched because it could not be parsed safely: $StubFile"
        }
    }
}

function Invoke-NetBird {
    param(
        [string[]]$Arguments,
        [string]$OperationName,
        [switch]$AllowFailure
    )

    Write-Output "${OperationName}: netbird $($Arguments -join ' ')"
    $Process = Start-Process -FilePath $NetBirdExe -ArgumentList $Arguments -Wait -PassThru -NoNewWindow

    if ($Process.ExitCode -ne 0) {
        $Message = "$OperationName failed with exit code $($Process.ExitCode)."
        if ($AllowFailure) {
            Write-Output $Message
        } else {
            throw $Message
        }
    }

    return $Process.ExitCode
}

function Reset-NetBirdService {
    Write-Output "Reconfiguring NetBird service for managed self-hosted deployment..."

    Invoke-NetBird -OperationName "Stop service" -Arguments @("service", "stop") -AllowFailure | Out-Null
    Invoke-NetBird -OperationName "Uninstall service" -Arguments @("service", "uninstall") -AllowFailure | Out-Null

    Invoke-NetBird -OperationName "Install service" -Arguments @(
        "--management-url", $ManagementUrl,
        "--config", $ConfigPath,
        "service", "install",
        "--disable-profiles"
    ) | Out-Null

    Invoke-NetBird -OperationName "Start service" -Arguments @("service", "start") | Out-Null
}

function Start-NetBirdUiForLoggedOnUser {
    if (-not (Test-Path $NetBirdUiExe)) {
        Write-Output "NetBird UI was not found at $NetBirdUiExe."
        return
    }

    $Explorer = Get-Process -Name explorer -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Select-Object -First 1
    if (-not $Explorer) {
        Write-Output "No interactive user session detected. Skipping immediate UI launch."
        return
    }

    $TaskName = "LaunchNetBirdUI_Intune"
    if (Get-ScheduledTask -TaskName $TaskName -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue) {
        Unregister-ScheduledTask -TaskName $TaskName -Confirm:$false | Out-Null
    }

    $Action = New-ScheduledTaskAction -Execute $NetBirdUiExe
    $Principal = New-ScheduledTaskPrincipal -GroupId "BUILTIN\Users"
    Register-ScheduledTask -TaskName $TaskName -Action $Action -Principal $Principal -Force | Out-Null
    Start-ScheduledTask -TaskName $TaskName
    Start-Sleep -Seconds 3
    Unregister-ScheduledTask -TaskName $TaskName -Confirm:$false
}

try {
    Set-NetBirdPolicy
    Remove-NetBirdInvalidBootstrapConfig
    Remove-NetBirdLegacyProfileStubs

    $InstalledVersion = $null
    if (Test-Path $NetBirdExe) {
        try {
            $VersionOutput = & $NetBirdExe version 2>$null
            if ($VersionOutput -match '(\d+\.\d+\.\d+)') {
                $InstalledVersion = $Matches[1]
                Write-Output "NetBird already installed: v$InstalledVersion"
            }
        } catch {
            Write-Output "Could not determine installed NetBird version."
        }
    }

    Write-Output "Fetching latest NetBird release info..."
    $ReleaseApiUrl = "https://api.github.com/repos/netbirdio/netbird/releases/latest"
    $Release = Invoke-WithRetry -OperationName "GitHub API" -ScriptBlock {
        Invoke-RestMethod -Uri $ReleaseApiUrl -UseBasicParsing
    }

    $Version = $Release.tag_name.TrimStart('v')
    Write-Output "Latest available version: v$Version"

    if ($InstalledVersion -eq $Version) {
        Write-Output "NetBird v$Version is already installed. Skipping installer download."
    } else {
        $InstallerAsset = $Release.assets | Where-Object {
            $_.name -eq "netbird_installer_$($Version)_windows_amd64.exe"
        } | Select-Object -First 1

        if (-not $InstallerAsset) {
            throw "Could not find Windows amd64 EXE installer asset for NetBird v$Version."
        }

        $InstallerPath = "$TempDir\netbird_installer_$($Version)_windows_amd64.exe"

        Write-Output "Downloading NetBird EXE installer v$Version..."
        Invoke-WithRetry -OperationName "Download EXE" -ScriptBlock {
            Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $InstallerAsset.browser_download_url -OutFile $InstallerPath -UseBasicParsing
        }

        if (-not (Test-Path $InstallerPath)) {
            throw "EXE installer was not downloaded to $InstallerPath"
        }

        $FileSize = (Get-Item $InstallerPath).Length
        if ($FileSize -lt 1MB) {
            throw "Downloaded EXE installer is suspiciously small ($FileSize bytes). Aborting."
        }
        Write-Output "Downloaded EXE installer: $([math]::Round($FileSize / 1MB, 1)) MB"

        Write-Output "Installing NetBird v$Version with EXE installer..."
        $Process = Start-Process -FilePath $InstallerPath -ArgumentList @("/S") -Wait -PassThru -NoNewWindow

        if ($Process.ExitCode -eq 3010) {
            Write-Output "Installation succeeded (reboot required)."
        } elseif ($Process.ExitCode -ne 0) {
            throw "Installation failed with exit code $($Process.ExitCode). Check transcript at $TranscriptFile"
        } else {
            Write-Output "NetBird v$Version installed successfully."
        }
    }

    if (-not (Test-Path $NetBirdExe)) {
        throw "NetBird executable was not found at $NetBirdExe after installation."
    }

    Set-NetBirdPolicy
    Remove-NetBirdInvalidBootstrapConfig
    Remove-NetBirdLegacyProfileStubs
    Reset-NetBirdService
    Start-NetBirdUiForLoggedOnUser
} catch {
    Write-Error "NetBird installation failed: $_"
    Stop-Transcript | Out-Null
    exit 1
} finally {
    if ($InstallerPath -and (Test-Path $InstallerPath)) {
        Remove-Item -Path $InstallerPath -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
    }
}

Stop-Transcript | Out-Null
exit 0

[riccardomanfrin]

Hi @KiskaLE, thanks for the report — root cause is a missing management-URL
normalization on the MDM side. The daemon auto-appends :443 (https) /
:80 (http) to the URL on disk, but the raw MDM registry value is
compared byte-exact, so the UI echo fires a false conflict on every save.

Workaround: add the explicit port to HKLM:\Software\Policies\NetBird\ManagementURL
(e.g. https://netbird.xxxx.xxx:443) so both sides match. Fix on the way -> #6672

[AndreaF17]

Nice, i think the only thing is missing is having the on-demand vpn activation

[sOliverBa]

Hmm… wouldn't that bei the lazy connection option?

[AndreaF17]

Nope, because the on-demand feature works a bit differently. Imagine you’re at home, inside your own infrastructure: You don’t really need to stay connected to the VPN all the time since you’re already on your trusted network. With the wireguard client, you can exclude specific SSIDs so the VPN knows when you’re connected to your home Wi-Fi and can automatically disable or bypass the tunnel. This kind of behavior is already implemented in the netbird Android and iOS apps

[hyllm]

macOS client.. RC3.. setup key always visible

[heisbrot]

Hey @hyllm,

Can you elaborate what you mean exactly? Screenshots would also help.
Do you mean the pre-shared key placeholder?

[iForged]

Small nitpick regarding flag icon display. They render correctly in the stable version, but don't display in the RC version.

Release version (flags display correctly)

RC version (flags don't display)

[iForged]

Yesterday I got hold of a Mac, and this problem doesn't exist there. It's only relevant for the Windows client.

[heisbrot]

Looks like Windows doesn't support flag emojis.
While adding a fallback font for Windows would help in the GUI, it would still not be displayed in the tray.
A better solution would be to resolve the country based on geolocation, but that information is currently missing from the client.

I will add it as an internal ticket but can not guarantee when / if we will add support for that.

[nickygerritsen]

A minor nitpick: at least on Linux (GNOME), if you click the tray icon, it opens the menu but also opens the GUI (or brings it to the front). I think it would be better if it only opened the menu and you can trigger the GUI by selecting an item in the menu? Now if I just want to quick connect I have to dismiss the GUI after clicking the tray icon and menu item for connecting.

[heisbrot]

That should not happen. Seems like a bug. Do you have the specific operating system and Gnome version you are running?

[stratacast]

I also have this on CachyOS with Niri and the Dank Linux shell, but it only seems to happen the first time after opening, not every time

[nickygerritsen]

GNOME 50 on Fedora 44

[theogravity]

How are you installing the package on Linux? WASM?

[xd003]

Wondering if the new version also fixes #2250

[flotpg]

Love the new UI (macOS)

[aclemens185]

The peers list looks really good, however; now that we have this new fancy GUI, it would be nice to be able to have a compact view to tighten up the list a bit. (Maybe support for ctr + - to increment the spacing while the mouse is hovering over that list? I know managing UI preferences can be a pain. Just a thought.

Thank you for the hard work!

[dhmoore]

After installing netbird_0.75.0-rc.6_darwin.pkg on macOS, a window appears directing the user to "Look for NetBird in your tray". "Tray" should be changed to "menu bar" in English. See https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/whats-in-the-menu-bar-mchlp1446/mac. At the bottom right of that page, you can select other languages/countries that NetBird has localizations for to see how Apple localizes "menu bar".

[heisbrot]

Fixed 3cda14d

[dhmoore]

Another note - users who are updating from previous versions presumably already know where NetBird lives, so it's not necessary to tell them to look for NetBird in the tray. But perhaps it would be helpful to offer existing users a quick tour of the new GUI instead?

[dhmoore]

Our NetBird config keeps sessions active for 36 hours, but the GUI reports that my session expires in "1 day". Could you report a blue like "1.5 days"? Or "1 day, x hours"?

[pappz]

Thank you for the feedback. The fix is on its way
link

[robrecord]

Can't test this version because it breaks on macOS when installed over existing netbird installation. Additionally the installation cant be removed (to downgrade) without surgery.

[pavelcdn]

This version not only looks better, but it's also much more stable. I previously complained about switching tunnels/accounts/sessions in the classic client, but these problems are completely gone here; this client is perfect!

[tomashora]

UI content scaling issue here (Win11, client 0.75.0-rc6).
Hard to reproduce as it does not happen frequently, but it may come from resolution change when connecting to different displays

[rthill]

I am having the same issue on my Windows 11 laptop connected to a 4k external display. The issue seems to happen once the client window is on the external screen with a higher resolution. In that case it does not scale according to the Windows display settings and when moving the client window back to the laptop the scaling remains like this and the text is no longer readable.

[heisbrot]

This should be fixed with the latest 0.75.0 release. Can you try again and see if this works for you?

[q16marvin]

is there a way to disable settings and advance view? we rollout client as msi and user should not be able to play arround in settings. thx!

[YouKyi]

Hello, https://docs.netbird.io/client/mdm-integration ;)

[seba-gamedev]

New UI is using ~400MB even when idling in tray. Old version used ~50MB.
This is excessive for an app that will be idle in the tray for 99% of the time.

Another case of of using web tech for basic UI's.

Basically for showing a connect button and a list of peers.

[pappz]

@Gombek7 and @seba-gamedev, could you generate debug bundles and send the IDs here?

[seba-gamedev]

845dfba6ccaecac5076f83a7ba3d36d8c065375c7b84f1ee1f70f1f2f2f6118a/3e05bbb4-0f22-4386-a0bc-d5ccdf69ba3f

[pappz]

Could you take a test with this?
Please scroll to the bottom of the page and download release-ui. It is a zip file that contains the RPM/DEB packages.
link

[seba-gamedev]

Tried the version you linked but that didn't change anything.
Did some investigation on the numbers between linux and windows. Disclaimer, it was AI assisted since I am a developer but not a linux specific expert.

I profiled it properly on both platforms. Part of what I said was wrong, and part of it still stands.

Setup: NetBird 0.75.1 (UI and daemon) on Fedora 44 / KDE, webkitgtk6.0 2.52.5, gtk4 4.22.4, mesa 26.1.5, AMD GPU. Windows 11 for comparison. All Linux figures below are from a cold start with the app idle in the tray, main window never opened.

What I got wrong: this isn't a Linux regression

The Linux-vs-Windows gap is a measurement artifact. Task Manager shows netbird-ui.exe alone, 39 MB private / 78 MB working set, and never attributes its seven msedgewebview2.exe children to it. Walking the actual process tree from the netbird-ui PID:

	Working set	Private commit
7× msedgewebview2.exe	453 MB	188 MB
netbird-ui.exe	78 MB	39 MB
Total	531 MB	227 MB

Against the full Linux tree:

Process	RSS	PSS	Private_Dirty
netbird-ui	178.9 MB	92.1 MB	50.7 MB
WebKitNetworkProcess	55.3 MB	17.8 MB	11.0 MB
WebKitWebProcess #1	190.5 MB	88.3 MB	55.6 MB
WebKitWebProcess #2	193.5 MB	90.5 MB	57.0 MB
4× bwrap sandbox wrappers	7.6 MB	0.6 MB	0.3 MB
Total	626 MB	289 MB	175 MB

175 MB private on Linux vs. 227 MB private commit on Windows. Linux isn't worse, it's slightly better.

What still stands

The figure for the new GUI is ~289 MB PSS on Linux and ~531 MB working set on Windows, not the ~50 MB people keep quoting. Windows was never 50 MB; it was just spread across seven processes that nothing attributes back to NetBird.

And this is the idle number, tray icon only, window never opened. For a connect button, a status line, and a peer list. I don't think the old UI had this cost. "It's the same on Windows" isn't reassurance; it means the cost is inherent to the webview approach on every platform, which is exactly the concern.

Some of this is inherent to the webview approach. But not all of it: two WebKitWebProcess instances spawn at cold start before the window is ever opened, carrying 55.6 MB and 57.0 MB Private_Dirty, ~113 MB, about 65% of total private footprint, for views that have never displayed anything. Reproduce with ps -eo comm | grep -c '^WebKitWebProces$' after a fresh launch (note comm truncates at 15 chars). If one of those is a pre-created hidden window or tray popover, deferring it until first use would cut idle footprint by a third.

Happy to test patches or provide more information.

[Gombek7]

@pappz
af7afbaa25eaebab437e4164aa959987fa9b8e53541bee251537d45e4d143bfb/583f9649-5ba6-4961-954a-59948bf47edf

[graphixillusion]

I'm using the final 0.75.0 client under Windows 11 25H2 and i've found and unexpected behaviour:

1. After an OS restart, the tray icon doesn't show the green "V": the client is connected successfully but there is no green tick on the systray icon and the right click menu says disconnected. I've found out that this is happening only with non english language.
2. In this state if i open the settings and change the ui language to english, now the right click menu shows connected (as expected). It keeps showing "connected" when i revert back to non-english language so changing the language apparently fix the right click menu bad status. But this is still not enough for the green tick to appears on the systray's icon.
3. The only way to make the green tick to appears again is to restart the netbird service. Now the ui works ok as it should.

[graphixillusion]

This issue still persist with just released 0.76.0. Another little cosmetic detail: when the client is in non english language this infos is broken too:

right click menu on systray's icon --> Help and Support --> Daemon show as empty (----)

[nulluserid]

Following up on @perillamint's report — confirming this still reproduces on the 0.76.0 stable RPM on Fedora 44, so it's not RC-only:

$ netbird-ui
netbird-ui: error while loading shared libraries: libwebkitgtk-6.0.so.4: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
$ rpm -qR netbird-ui
netbird

The published netbird-ui-0.76.0-1.x86_64.rpm lists only netbird as a Requires, so dnf has nothing to pull in and the app exits 127 before any window appears (reads to end users as "spins then disappears"). dnf install webkitgtk6.0 fixes it.

On the "distros name dependencies differently" concern

For RPM this is fully solvable by depending on the soname instead of the package name. The soname string is identical everywhere and is resolved via Provides, so it doesn't matter what each distro calls the provider package. I checked the two distros whose names actually differ:

Distro	Provider package	Provides
Fedora / RHEL+EPEL	webkitgtk6.0	libwebkitgtk-6.0.so.4()(64bit)
openSUSE	libwebkitgtk-6_0-4	libwebkitgtk-6.0.so.4()(64bit)

Verified locally on Fedora:

$ dnf repoquery --whatprovides 'libwebkitgtk-6.0.so.4()(64bit)'
webkitgtk6.0-0:2.52.5-1.fc44.x86_64

and the openSUSE package metadata lists the same Provides: libwebkitgtk-6.0.so.4()(64bit). So a single Requires: libwebkitgtk-6.0.so.4()(64bit) covers all RPM distros that ship the library. javascriptcoregtk comes in transitively (webkitgtk6.0 Requires it), so it doesn't need listing.

Notably, the existing client/ui/build/linux/nfpm/nfpm.yaml already hardcodes webkitgtk6.0 for rpm — which works on Fedora/RHEL but would not resolve on openSUSE. The soname fixes both in one entry.

Suggested nfpm config

depends:                # deb — names are stable on Debian 13+ / Ubuntu 24.04+
  - libgtk-4-1
  - libwebkitgtk-6.0-4
  - xdg-utils

overrides:
  rpm:                  # Fedora / RHEL+EPEL / openSUSE — sonames are provider-name-independent
    depends:
      - "libwebkitgtk-6.0.so.4()(64bit)"
      - "libgtk-4.so.1()(64bit)"
      - xdg-utils
  archlinux:            # single distro, stable names
    depends:
      - gtk4
      - webkitgtk-6.0
      - xdg-utils

(Longer term, rpmbuild's dependency generator would emit these soname Requires automatically from the binary's DT_NEEDED; since nfpm/goreleaser bypass rpmbuild, listing them explicitly is the minimal sure fix — or run rpmdeps/find-requires over the binary in CI.)

One thing that looks off

The dependency is already present in client/ui/build/linux/nfpm/nfpm.yaml, but it's absent from the published RPM, and the published metadata doesn't match that file (shipped: BSD-3-Clause / netbird.io / binary at /usr/bin; template: MIT / wails.io / /usr/local/bin). .goreleaser.yaml's nfpms: only builds the daemon (builds: [netbird]) with no depends. So the UI release package appears to be built by a separate path that isn't carrying the dependency the template already declares — worth confirming whether the release build is actually consuming that nfpm config.

Honest caveat

Distros that don't ship WebKitGTK 6.0 at all (RHEL 9, Debian 12, Ubuntu ≤ 22.04) can't run the client regardless. A hard Requires would (correctly) make the package uninstallable there; if keeping it installable-but-non-functional matters, Recommends is an option — but that brings back the silent launch failure. I'd lean toward Requires since a clear install error beats a window that vanishes.

Happy to test a candidate RPM on Fedora if that helps.