Midori

Midori is a lightweight web browser from Astian, built on a Mozilla Firefox base and aimed squarely at people who want less of everything: less memory use, less clutter, and far less tracking. It is free and open source under the MPL-2.0 license, with desktop builds for Windows and Linux and a separate Android app.

Midori has an unusual history: the name belonged to a much-loved lightweight Linux browser from the WebKitGTK era. Astian took over the brand and rebuilt the browser on Firefox, so today's Midori shares little code with the original, but keeps the same goal of staying small and fast.

Privacy is the headline feature and the default, not a setting. Astian ships Midori with zero telemetry, no account requirement, and an ad and tracker blocker integrated into the engine rather than bolted on as an extension. The privacy panel on the new tab page shows blocked trackers and requests as they happen. Private search is built in through AstianGO, the company's own search engine, though you can switch providers. Around the browser, Astian also offers paid extras such as the MidoriVPN service (WireGuard-based) and an AI shield; those are add-ons, not core browser features.

Day to day, Midori feels like a slimmed-down Firefox with a custom skin: vertical workspace sidebar, tab groups, split view, a customizable new tab page with widgets and shortcuts, and access to Firefox add-ons. Reader mode, screenshot tools and a download manager round out the basics. Because it is Firefox underneath, site compatibility is solid and web standards behave the way you would expect.

The trade-offs are the usual ones for a small vendor. The extension situation is fine if your favorites live on Firefox's add-on store, but Chrome-only extensions are out. Sync between devices runs through Midori's own young service, less proven than Firefox Sync or Chrome sync. Release cadence is decent on GitHub, but the project is maintained by a small company, and some bundled extras push you toward Astian's paid services. Mac users should note that current GitHub releases ship Windows and Linux installers.

Midori suits anyone who likes the idea of Firefox but wants a lighter, more privacy-aggressive default setup without hand-tuning anything. If you already run a carefully configured Firefox with uBlock Origin, the gain is smaller, but as an out-of-the-box private browser it asks very little of you.

A note on the numbers: this figure covers GitHub release downloads only; it does not include downloads from other channels or represent unique users.