Surf like it's 1999.

← Back▲ NEW ▼ REFRAME BROWSER

Surf like it's 1999.

Reframe is an open-source desktop browser that brings back the look & feel of the late-90s and early-2000s browsers, built on modern Chromium.

View on GitHubDownload for macOS (Apple Silicon)

Open Source · macOS only · v1.1.0 · .dmg shipped inside a .zip, just unzip it

ebay.com

2003

▶ Reframe running the Safari 1.0 theme, real website, real Chromium.

Screens

Here's how the first three themes look on modern macOS, with a real website loaded.

ebay.com

2003

Safari 1.0

2003

amazon.com

1999

Internet Explorer 5.0

1999

yahoo.com

2002

Netscape 4.8

2002

mozilla.org

2004

Firefox 1.0

2004

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What is Reframe?

Reframe is a desktop browser for macOS that looks exactly like Netscape, Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari did back then: including toolbar icons, status bar and the spinning “throbber” in the top right. Under the hood it runs a modern browser engine, so you can actually browse the real web.

\~/about/tech

How does it work?

#### Electron

Electron is a framework for building desktop apps out of web technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript). Apps like VS Code, Slack and Discord are built with Electron.

#### Chromium

Chromium is the open-source browser engine behind Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and many others. It renders the web. Reframe uses it to display web pages, then wraps a classic UI around it.

Four classic themes

Pick your favorite era. Switch any time with one click.

• Safari 1.0
2003 Brushed metal, blue Aqua buttons, Apple at its finest.
• Netscape 4.8
2002 Bookmarks, “What's Related”, the famous N logo.
• Firefox 1.0
2004 The underdog that changed everything. Classic toolbar.
• Internet Explorer 5.0
1999 Grey Windows chrome, Favorites star, the gateway to the web.

What Reframe does

• 01Full browsing

Full browsing

Modern Chromium under the hood. JavaScript, video, web apps, all work.
• 02Realistic design

Realistic design

Pixel-accurate reproductions of the original browser chrome, down to the throbber.
• 03Wayback Mode

Wayback Mode

Built-in Wayback mode: visit websites the way they looked back then.
• 04Open Source

Open Source

Reframe ❤️ RetroMac

Reframe is the perfect companion to RetroMac. You can absolutely browse with it normally, but it's not meant to replace your daily driver. Reframe is for the moments when you want to bring the good old days back to your desktop.

Open Source

Reframe is fully open source. Find the code, issues and releases on GitHub.

Open repository

https://github.com/klotzbrocken/Reframe

Legal & trademarks

Reframe is an independent, non-commercial open-source project and is not affiliated with the trademark holders. All rights to the recreated designs, logos and trademarks belong to their respective owners: Microsoft (Internet Explorer), Apple (Safari), Mozilla (Firefox) and Netscape/Verizon (Netscape Navigator/Communicator). The themes are intended as an aesthetic tribute.