Aph


Aph — Free Download. Workspaces-First Firefox

Aph is a web browser built on Mozilla Firefox that places workspace management at the center of daily browsing. It delivers native workspace switching across nine slots, a command palette for fast navigation, automatic tab archiving with staleness tracking, tree-style tabs, per-workspace container bindings, starred tabs, tab unloading, and hardened privacy defaults that disable telemetry, health reports, Normandy, and activity-stream data collection. The browser ships for Linux and Windows as unsigned beta builds.

★★★★★
5.0(1 ratings)
File size: 96 MB
The latest version of Aph is: 0.4.0
Operating system: Windows, Linux
Languages: English
Price: $0.00 USD (Open Source (MPL-2.0))
  • Workspaces 1–9. Aph divides browsing into nine dedicated workspaces accessible through Alt+Shift+1..9, bracket keys for cycling, and Tab for returning to the last-used one. The model is exclusive: a single workspace renders in at most one window at a time. Switching to a dormant workspace transfers its tabs into the current window, while a workspace already active elsewhere triggers a focus jump to that window instead of duplicating content.
  • Command Palette. A unified launcher triggered from the keyboard provides workspace actions, live tab search, bookmark and history lookup, and archive search. Commands execute without leaving the current context, which reduces mouse travel and keeps the hands on the keyboard during navigation, tab movement, and workspace reassignment.
  • Tab Archive. Tabs can be archived instead of closed, preserving their address, title, container assignment, workspace origin, and last-access timestamp. An auto-sweep routine moves stale tabs into the archive according to configured thresholds, and restoration returns a tab to its original container and workspace.
  • Tree Tabs. Opened links form an automatic two-level hierarchy where child tabs sit beneath the page that spawned them. The structure collapses and expands per branch, which keeps research sessions, documentation reading, and multi-step workflows visually grouped without manual ordering.
  • Native Tab Groups. Inside each workspace, tabs can be organized into groups that behave as native browser entities. Groups carry their own labels and colors, collapse as a unit, and move together when a workspace is transferred between windows or restored from an archive state.
  • Per-Workspace Container Bindings. Each workspace can be bound to a Firefox Multi-Account Container. Every tab opened inside that workspace inherits the container identity, which separates cookies, logins, and storage between work, personal, and testing contexts without extra manual steps.
  • Starred Tabs. Important tabs receive a star marker that protects them from bulk close operations and archive sweeps. Starred entries remain visible in the palette and survive workspace switches, which keeps persistent references such as dashboards, inboxes, and control panels within reach.
  • Tab Unloading. Inactive tabs release their memory footprint while keeping their position, title, and history entry. Selecting an unloaded tab reloads it on demand, which lowers overall memory pressure during long sessions with many open pages.
  • Privacy Defaults. Telemetry, health reports, Normandy experimentation, and activity-stream telemetry are disabled through a bundled user.js configuration. The file is seeded once on first launch, after which local edits persist across updates rather than being overwritten.
  • Seed-Once Configuration. Aph writes its defaults into the profile only during the initial run. Subsequent releases do not reset user changes to user.js, and menu accents follow the same rule through a one-time copy of the branding userChrome.css into the profile chrome directory.
  • Profile Isolation. Release builds store data under a dedicated path such as ~/.aph/profile on Linux or %APPDATA%\Aph\profile on Windows, with the APH_PROFILE variable available for relocation. Repository runs use separate development and daily-driver profiles, which keeps testing data apart from regular browsing.
  • Release Packaging. Distribution covers AppImage and Flatpak for Linux plus an Inno-based per-user installer and a portable ZIP for Windows. Checksums are published in SHA256SUMS for verification, and the codebase is mirrored to GitLab in code-only form.

Aph began development in 2026 as a project by the aph-browser organization, with early commits dated around September 2026 covering branding, packaging, tests, and configuration. The browser is written primarily in JavaScript and CSS for the browser chrome layer, with Python used for tooling and test scripts, alongside shell-based build automation. It is distributed under the Mozilla Public License 2.0, and the project remains in an unsigned 0.x beta stage without automatic updates, requiring manual downloads for each release.

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