Tacet 1.6.3

Bring your Arc sidebar. Arc stops working on December 22. Tacet now reads your Spaces, Favorites, pinned tabs and folders straight from Arc: Favorites become pinned tabs, and each Space and folder a tab group that loads only when you open it. Choose File › Import from Another Browser…, then Arc. More at Switch from Arc.

Tacet Shield

• Shows how many ads and trackers it blocked on the page, on the site and since you opened Tacet, and from which sites
• Rejects optional cookies for you on the consent banners sites use most, instead of only hiding them
• Fingerprinting protection: canvas, WebGL and audio readings change slightly for each site, and the exact graphics chip and core count are hidden
• New optional lists in Settings › Shield: AdGuard Base, Fanboy Annoyances, and AdGuard's hidden (CNAME) trackers

Tabs

• Hover over a tab for a preview with the page, its site and how much memory it uses
• Sleeping tabs show the page as you left it while they load, then scroll back to where you were: no white flash, no jump to the top
• Search your tabs with ⌥⌘F
• Tab groups fold and unfold on the click itself, without the short wait

Reading

• Translate pages on your Mac with Apple's translation (⌥⌘T, macOS 15 or later): nothing leaves your Mac
• Read pages aloud (⌥⌘A)
• Focus Mode (⇧⌘J): only the page, nothing else

Tacet Assistant (beta)

• Ask from the command bar: type a question, choose "Ask Tacet Assistant", and the answer appears right there, searching the web if needed. Close it with ✕ or open it in the full chat
• Says when it stops after too many steps, and marks chats you stopped

Passwords

• Password check in Settings › Passwords: passwords found in data breaches (via Have I Been Pwned, which only ever sees the first 5 characters of a password's SHA-1 hash), reused or easy to guess

Under the hood

• Tacet now has its own signing certificate. After this update macOS may ask once more to let Tacet use its Keychain items: choose Always Allow, and future updates won't ask again. Updates must now carry the same certificate
• Favicons are only fetched from the page itself or public addresses, never your local network
• The list of domain suffixes behind site grouping and passwords updates weekly
• Apps installed from sites move to ~/Applications/Tacet Apps and are rebuilt when Tacet updates
• Turning off an extension closes its pages
• Disk images are made and opened with diskutil

Install
Open the .dmg and drag Tacet to Applications. Tacet isn't notarized yet, so if macOS says it "is damaged and can't be opened", run this once in Terminal, then open it normally:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Tacet.app

If you already use Tacet or Lumen, it updates itself.

Tacet 1.6.2 (formerly Lumen)

Lumen is now Tacet. Same browser, new name: there were already other browsers called Lumen, and the name sounded too much like an AI product. Tacet is the mark in music for silence, where an instrument stays quiet, like the ads and trackers Tacet keeps out.

Updating from Lumen

• Your tabs, windows, passwords, AI key, settings, history, bookmarks and extensions all carry over
• Lumen updates itself to Tacet as usual. After you quit it once, Lumen.app in your Applications folder is renamed Tacet.app
• A short "Welcome to Tacet 1.6.2" screen explains the change the first time it opens
• The project now lives at github.com/scadavide55/Tacet, and the website at scadavide55.github.io/Tacet

New

• New icon, "Eclissi": a dark disc in front of the sun, leaving a crescent of light. The setup, the About window and the error page use it too
• About Tacet says "formerly Lumen"

Fixes

• The setup's "How Lumen works" and "Keyboard shortcuts" pages fit their window again instead of being cut off at the edges
• Removing an extension also deletes the data it stored
• Tabs sent to a new window come back to the window they came from if the new one doesn't open

Install
Open the .dmg and drag Tacet to Applications. Tacet isn't notarized yet, so if macOS says it "is damaged and can't be opened", run this once in Terminal, then open it normally:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Tacet.app

Lumen 1.6.1

Lumen 1.6.1 brings web extensions, an offline Reading List, Customize Site, much better tab organising and a more capable Lumen Assistant, plus fixes that make windows and tabs more reliable. When you open it for the first time, a short "Welcome to Lumen 1.6.1" tour shows what's new.

Tabs

• Choose when Lumen groups tabs from the same site (2, 3 or 5 tabs), exclude sites from grouping, or group by site right away from the Tab menu
• Save a group and close it, then open it again later with all its tabs; open a new tab inside a group
• Pick several tabs with ⌘-click and ⇧-click to group, move, pin or close them together
• Move tabs or whole groups to another window or profile (going to another profile, a tab leaves its page history behind)
• Sort tabs by site, title or last opened, and close duplicate tabs in one click
• Hibernated tabs are shown in grey
• New command bar commands for all of this

Lumen Assistant (beta)

• Apple's on-device model on macOS 26 with Apple Intelligence: free, offline and private, with no key. It's smaller than the others, so it's best for short tasks, and Lumen tells you so
• Reads your other tabs without switching to them, and groups tabs by topic when you ask
• Searches your history and bookmarks
• Gets the full transcript of a YouTube video, to summarise or ask about it
• Takes a screenshot of the page when the layout matters
• Select text and right-click for Lumen Assistant › Explain, Translate, Summarise or Ask About It
• Browser use now works with every provider, including Apple's model

Extensions (macOS 15.4 or later)

• Web extensions, the same kind Safari, Chrome and Firefox use
• Add the Safari extensions that come with apps on your Mac in one click from Settings › Extensions, or add a folder, .zip, .crx (Chrome) or .xpi (Firefox) file
• You see what an extension can do before adding it, and it only gets what you approved
• Toolbar buttons with badges and popups, right-click menu items and settings pages
• Extensions never run in private windows; removing one also deletes the data it stored

Reading List, offline

• Save an article for later from the Bookmarks menu or the button in Reader: Lumen keeps the Reader version with its images on your Mac, so it opens without a connection
• Saved pages can't load anything from the network

Customize Site

• A panel for each site (page menu › Customize Site): light or dark theme, font, page width, hide floating bars, hide images, reduce motion
• Pick elements to hide by clicking them on the page
• Your own CSS and JavaScript for the site; changes show up without reloading

Fixes

• Every window comes back at launch, opened one at a time, and a window that hasn't reopened yet is never dropped from the session
• Closed windows are no longer saved and reopened
• Links opened from other apps open as tabs in the front window instead of extra windows, also when Lumen isn't running, in every language
• ⌘-click and ⇧-click on tabs are read from the click itself
• Tabs sent to a new window come back if the window doesn't open
• Menus show how many duplicate tabs there are and name each window

Install
Open the .dmg and drag Lumen to Applications. Lumen isn't notarized yet, so if macOS says it "is damaged and can't be opened", run this once in Terminal, then open it normally:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Lumen.app

If you already use Lumen, it updates itself.

Lumen 1.6 Stable

Lumen 1.6 is the first stable release of Lumen. Lumen Assistant is still a beta, and it's off until you turn it on.

Lumen Assistant (beta)

• Web access, on by default: the assistant can search the web and read pages, and lists the sources under its answer. With Anthropic, searches run on Anthropic's servers; with other providers, Lumen searches DuckDuckGo and downloads pages from your Mac without cookies or logins. Local and private network addresses are never fetched
• Browser use, off by default: when you ask, the assistant can click, type, scroll and drag on the page in the current tab. It never fills in passwords or card numbers, and asks before sending, buying or deleting anything. Turn it on with the button below the chat box
• Tabs: it can open a page or a search in a new tab, open an empty tab, and switch between your tabs
• The assistant knows which of these are on, and tells you which button to press when something it needs is off
• Chat history, saved on your Mac only (never for private windows) and cleared together with your browsing history
• A full-window chat view with your past chats beside it, like a chat app
• The panel can be resized by dragging its edge, up to a little less than half the window
• Prompt injection: text in pages, search results and fetched pages is treated as content, never as instructions. The assistant can only fetch or open addresses that already appear in the conversation, or a site's home page, so a page can't make it send what it read to another site. No defence is perfect, so watch what it does with Browser use and press Stop if needed

Improvements

• Split view moved to ⌥⌘S, which every keyboard layout can type
• Reader mode skips language lists and other navigation on pages like Wikipedia
• Favorites on the start page show the first letter of their name
• Lumen Assistant is called Lumen Assistant in every language
• A test suite for Lumen's core logic, run with tools/test.sh

Install
Download Lumen-1.6.dmg, open it and drag Lumen to Applications, or update from inside Lumen with Lumen › Check for Updates…. This build is not notarized, so macOS may say Lumen "is damaged and can't be opened". The download is fine: run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Lumen.app once in Terminal, then open Lumen normally. Updating from inside Lumen doesn't need this.

Requires macOS 14 or later. Runs natively on Apple silicon and Intel.

Lumen 1.5.4 Beta

Lumen 1.5.4 introduces Lumen Assistant, an AI assistant in a panel beside the page. It's a beta, and it's off until you turn it on.

Lumen Assistant (beta)

• Ask about the page you're reading: summaries, key points, explanations of what you selected. The open page is attached automatically, and you can remove it
• Bring your own key: Anthropic, OpenAI, OpenRouter, DeepSeek, or any OpenAI-compatible server such as Ollama or LM Studio. Keys are stored in the macOS Keychain
• Pick the model from your provider's own list, in Settings › AI or for a single chat from the panel
• Attach images when the model can read them
• Open it with ⇧⌘A or the sparkles button. Turn it on in Settings › AI or during setup
• Tested against prompt injection: text hidden in web pages is treated as page content, never as instructions, and in our tests the assistant recognised injection attempts and ignored them. It can't click, type or open pages by itself; links it suggests open only when you click them. No defence against prompt injection is perfect, so stay careful with what you ask it to do on untrusted pages
• Nothing is sent until you ask something, and then only to the provider you chose

Fixes

• YouTube ads are skipped in videos embedded on other sites, like Reddit, too

Install
Download Lumen-1.5.4.dmg, open it and drag Lumen to Applications, or update from inside Lumen with Lumen › Check for Updates…. This build is not notarized, so macOS may say Lumen "is damaged and can't be opened". The download is fine: run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Lumen.app once in Terminal, then open Lumen normally. Updating from inside Lumen doesn't need this.

Requires macOS 14 or later. Runs natively on Apple silicon and Intel. This is a beta: expect some bugs.

Lumen 1.5.3 Beta

Lumen 1.5.3 is about security and speed: signed updates, passwords that stay on the right site, and fewer redraws everywhere.

Security

• Updates are now signed with Lumen's own key, and Lumen refuses any update that isn't. A checksum next to the download couldn't stop a swapped file; the signature can
• Saved passwords stay on their own site: sites that share a domain (like alice.github.io and bob.github.io) are kept apart, using the Public Suffix List
• File names suggested by a site can no longer point outside the Downloads folder, and two downloads with the same name no longer collide
• Only the page itself can talk to Lumen's password features, never an embedded frame

Faster

• Views only redraw for what they actually show: changing a setting or loading a page no longer redraws the whole window
• History has no 10,000 entry limit anymore, and its database is tidied up when Lumen quits
• Importing from another browser only writes what's new

New

• ⌘L and ⌘K close the command bar too
• Split view comes back after a restart
• The About window says Lumen is free software under the GNU GPL v3

Fixes

• Every tab gets its icon when several open the same site at once
• Hiding cookie banners, skipping YouTube ads and Global Privacy Control apply to the open page right away
• The command bar shows page and bookmark titles as they are, without translating them
• Importing passwords from a CSV file is much faster
• Passwords saved by an earlier build can be updated again
• Closing a window updates what Lumen restores next time
• The About window no longer has an empty bar at the bottom

Install
Download Lumen-1.5.3.dmg, open it and drag Lumen to Applications, or update from Lumen 1.5.1 or 1.5.2 with Lumen › Check for Updates…. This build is not notarized, so macOS may say Lumen "is damaged and can't be opened". The download is fine: run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Lumen.app once in Terminal, then open Lumen normally. Updating from inside Lumen doesn't need this.

Requires macOS 14 or later. Runs natively on Apple silicon and Intel. This is a beta: expect some bugs.

Lumen 1.5.2 Beta

Lumen 1.5.2 is about speed and polish: smoother scrolling and typing, less battery and memory, plus profiles and a few privacy additions.

Faster

• Smoother scrolling, a faster command bar and start page, and fewer redraws across tabs, toolbar and sidebar
• History is stored in a database, so a visit no longer rewrites the whole history file
• In Low Power Mode, start page backgrounds hold still and background tabs sleep sooner
• When the Mac runs short of memory, background tabs go to sleep automatically
• A page that keeps crashing shows an error instead of reloading forever

New

• Profiles: windows with their own cookies, sign-ins and site data (File › New Window in Profile)
• Pull down at the top of a page to reload it
• Lock any window with Touch ID (File › Lock Window, ⌃⌘L)
• Rename tab groups from the top tab bar too
• Resume failed or cancelled downloads
• Camera and microphone choices remembered per site, editable in Settings › Sites

Privacy and security

• More tracking parameters removed, click-tracking redirects (Google, Facebook, Bing, DuckDuckGo and others) skipped
• More fingerprinting and session-replay trackers blocked, and third-party pings and beacons too
• A warning for addresses written with look-alike letters from other alphabets
• Pop-up windows always show their address
• Updates are checked against their signature and a published SHA-256 before installing

Fixes

• Dragging a tab in the top bar moves the tab, not the window
• Bigger click area for the ✕ on tabs
• Reopened tabs return to their group

Install
Download Lumen-1.5.2.dmg, open it and drag Lumen to Applications, or update from Lumen 1.5.1 with Lumen › Check for Updates…. This build is not notarized, so the first time you open a downloaded copy, right-click the app and choose Open.

Requires macOS 14 or later. Runs natively on Apple silicon and Intel. This is a beta: expect some bugs.

Lumen 1.5.1 Beta

Lumen 1.5.1 is a big update: a guided setup, passwords with Touch ID, tab groups, sites as apps, and now Intel Macs too.

Getting started

• A guided setup on first launch: language, default browser, import, Google sign-in, passwords, theme, start page, tabs, search and Shield, plus a tour and every shortcut
• Import bookmarks, history and sign-ins from Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Brave, Edge, Arc and other Chromium browsers
• Lumen is now available in Italian and French

Passwords and security

• Passwords saved in the macOS Keychain and filled after Touch ID
• Optional strong password suggestions on sign-up pages
• CSV import and export for Apple Passwords; works alongside 1Password, KeePassXC and other managers
• HTTPS-only mode, confirmation before downloading apps and scripts, a warning for passwords on unencrypted pages, and Touch ID lock for private windows

Tabs

• Tab groups: drag a tab onto another, rename groups, and collapse them like folders
• Optional automatic grouping of tabs from the same site
• New Compact layout, auto-close for old tabs, and a choice of tabs or windows for pop-ups
• Install any site as an app with its own window and Dock icon

Everything else

• Start page backgrounds: animated gradients, your own photo, or a short muted video
• New update window with release notes and one-click install
• A redesigned About window
• Export pages as PDF, page screenshots, recently closed tabs, Paste and Go, autoplay blocking

Install
Download Lumen-1.5.1.dmg, open it and drag Lumen to Applications. This build is not notarized, so the first time you open it, right-click the app and choose Open.

Requires macOS 14 or later. Runs natively on Apple silicon and Intel. This is a beta: expect some bugs.

Lumen 1.5 Beta

Lumen rebuilt from the ground up into a full browser.

Lumen Shield

• Built-in ad and tracker blocking that works offline, toggled with ⇧⌘B
• Optional EasyList and EasyPrivacy lists, refreshed weekly
• Turn protection off for a single site
• Hides cookie banners, skips YouTube ads, blocks third-party cookies

Privacy

• Removes tracking parameters from links
• Automatic HTTPS upgrade, Global Privacy Control
• Private windows, optional clearing of data on quit

Tabs and browsing

• Command bar (⌘L / ⌘K) for addresses, search, tabs, bookmarks, history and commands
• Pinned tabs, split view, drag to reorder, reopen closed tabs
• Tab hibernation to save memory, session restore
• Reader mode, find on page, per-site zoom, downloads, bookmarks with import and export, history

Customisation

• Sidebar on the left or right, or tabs along the top
• Accent colour, window styles, site colour tint, start page backgrounds, custom CSS per site

Install
Download Lumen-1.5-beta.zip, unzip it, and move Lumen.app to Applications. This build is not notarized, so the first time you open it, right-click the app and choose Open.

Requires macOS 14 or later on Apple silicon. This is a beta: some features have had little testing, so expect bugs.

Lumen 1.0 Alpha

First working build of Lumen, a minimal WebKit browser for macOS.

Included

• Vertical tabs in a collapsible sidebar
• Built-in ad and tracker blocker with a one-click toggle (⇧⌘B)
• Address bar that accepts URLs or DuckDuckGo searches
• Keyboard shortcuts for tabs, navigation and the sidebar

Install
Download Lumen-1.0-alpha.zip, unzip it, and move Lumen.app to Applications. This build is not notarized, so the first time you open it, right-click the app and choose Open.

Requires macOS 14 or later on Apple silicon. This is an alpha: expect missing features and rough edges.