Kiwi Browser - Android Chrome based browser with extensions support

Welcome to Kiwi Browser

Kiwi Browser is a fully open-source web browser for Android.

Kiwi is based on Chromium, the engine that powers the most popular browser in the world so you won't loose your habits.

Among other functionalities, Kiwi Browser supports:

• Night Mode (another implementation than Chromium)
• Support for Chrome Extensions
• Bottom address bar It also includes performance improvements (partial rasterisation of tiles, etc)

The browser is licensed under the same licence as Chromium, which means that you are allowed to create derivatives of the browser.

Timeline

15 April 2018 - First Kiwi Browser release.

15 April 2019 - Kiwi Browser gets support for Chrome Extensions.

17 April 2020 - Kiwi Browser goes fully open-source.

This code is up-to-date and is matching the build on the Play Store.

The new builds are done from the open-source edition directly to the Play Store.

There are thousands of hours of work in this repository and thousands of files changed.

Contributors

Contributions are welcome and encouraged.

If you want your code to be integrated into Kiwi, open a merge request, I (and/or a member of the community) can review the code with you and push it to the Play Store.

Modifications

If you create your own browser or a mod, make sure to change the browser name and icon in chrome/android/java/res_chromium/values/channel_constants.xml and translation strings (search and replace Kiwi in all *.xtb, all *.grd and all *.grdp files)

How to build

The reference build machine is using Ubuntu 19.04 (tested also using Ubuntu 19.10).

Minimum system requirements is 2 vCPUs, 7.5 GB Memory.

You can use a virtual machine, or a Google Cloud VM.

Getting the source-code and environment

To build Kiwi Browser you can directly clone the repository, as we have packed all dependencies already:

1. In ~ (your home directory) run:

   git clone https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/tools/depot_tools.git

and edit the file ~/.bashrc to add at the very end

export PATH=$HOME/depot_tools:$PATH

Run:

source ~/.bashrc

This will give you access to one utility called gclient (as in "Google client")

2. Create a directory called ~/chromium/

In the chromium directory run:

git clone https://github.com/kiwibrowser/dependencies.git .cipd
cp ~/chromium/.cipd/.gclient ~/chromium/
cp ~/chromium/.cipd/.gclient_entries ~/chromium/

3. Enter ~/chromium/ and run:

   git clone https://github.com/kiwibrowser/src.git

At this stage, in ~/chromium/ you will have the .cipd folder, and a folder with the Kiwi Browser source-code called src.

Setting-up dependencies

4. Run:

   sudo apt-get install python

5. In ~/chromium/src/ run install-build-deps.sh using:

   bash install-build-deps.sh --no-chromeos-fonts build/linux/sysroot_scripts/install-sysroot.py --arch=i386 build/linux/sysroot_scripts/install-sysroot.py --arch=amd64

This script will install all necessary system packages using apt-get and gather a minimal build filesystem.

Configuring the build type and platform

5. In ~/chromium/src/, create a folder named "android_arm" and in this folder create a file called args.gn with this content:

args.gn:

target_os = "android"
target_cpu = "arm" # <---- can be arm, arm64, x86 or x64
is_debug = false
is_java_debug = false

android_channel = "stable"
is_official_build = true
is_component_build = false
is_chrome_branded = false
is_clang = true
symbol_level = 1
use_unofficial_version_number = false
android_default_version_code = "158"
android_keystore_name = "production"
android_keystore_password = "HERE_YOUR_ANDROID_KEYSTORE_PASSWORD"
android_keystore_path = "keystore.jks"
android_default_version_name = "Quadea"
fieldtrial_testing_like_official_build = true
icu_use_data_file = false
enable_iterator_debugging = false

google_api_key = "KIWIBROWSER"
google_default_client_id = "42.apps.kiwibrowser.com"
google_default_client_secret = "KIWIBROWSER_NOT_SO_SECRET"
use_official_google_api_keys = true

ffmpeg_branding = "Chrome"
proprietary_codecs = true
enable_hevc_demuxing = true
enable_nacl = false
enable_wifi_display = false
enable_widevine = false
enable_google_now = true
enable_ac3_eac3_audio_demuxing = true
enable_iterator_debugging = false
enable_mse_mpeg2ts_stream_parser = true
enable_remoting = false
rtc_use_h264 = false
rtc_use_lto = false
use_openh264 = false

v8_use_external_startup_data = true
update_android_aar_prebuilts = true

use_thin_lto = true

enable_extensions = true
enable_plugins = true

Replace Android keystore password and Android keystore keypath with the data for your Android keystore (or you can generate a new key)

To prepare initial setup run:

gclient runhooks

then generate the build files:

~/chromium/src$ gn gen out/android_arm # (you can also use 'gn args out/android_arm')
Writing build/secondary/third_party/android_tools/google_play_services_basement_java.info
Writing build/secondary/third_party/android_tools/google_play_services_tasks_java.info
Writing third_party/android_support_test_runner/rules_java.info
Writing build/secondary/third_party/android_tools/google_play_services_base_java.info
Writing     build/secondary/third_party/android_tools/google_play_services_auth_base_java.info
[...]
Done. Made 19910 targets from 1626 files in 21974ms

===

To compile, use the command: ninja -C out/android_arm chrome_public_apk

you'll have the output APK in ./out/android_arm/apks/ChromePublic.apk

then you can run the APK on your phone.

To investigate crashes

components/crash/content/tools/generate_breakpad_symbols.py --build-dir=out/lnx64 --symbols-dir=/tmp/my_symbols/ --binary=out/android_arm/lib.unstripped/libchrome.so --clear --verbose

or from a tombstone:

~/chromium/src$ ./third_party/android_ndk/ndk-stack -sym out/android_x86/lib.unstripped -dump /home/raven/tombstone_06

==

Remote debugging

You can use Google Chrome to debug using the devtools console.

In case the devtools console doesn't work (error 404), the solution is to use chrome://inspect (Inspect fallback) or change SHA1 in build/util/LASTCHANGE

LASTCHANGE=8920e690dd011895672947112477d10d5c8afb09-refs/branch-heads/3497@{#948}

and confirm the change using:

rm out/android_arm/gen/components/version_info/version_info_values.h out/android_x86/gen/components/version_info/version_info_values.h out/android_arm/gen/build/util/webkit_version.h out/android_x86/gen/build/util/webkit_version.h out/android_arm/gen/chrome/common/chrome_version.h out/android_x86/gen/chrome/common/chrome_version.h

Binary size optimization

If you want to optimize of the final APK, you can look at the size of each individual component using command:

./tools/binary_size/supersize archive chrome.size --apk-file out/android_arm/apks/ChromePublic.apk -v
./tools/binary_size/supersize html_report chrome.size --report-dir size-report -v

==

If you need any assistance with building Kiwi, feel free to ask. To do so, please open a GitHub issue so answers will benefit to everyone.

You can also reach out on Discord https://discord.gg/XyMppQq

Have fun with Kiwi!

Arnaud.