Nicol Browser

A minimal web browser based on Qt.

Features

• Tabbed browsing with multiple window support
• Incognito mode with isolated session data
• Smart address bar with DuckDuckGo search fallback
• Full keyboard navigation (Ctrl+T, Ctrl+W, Ctrl+L, F11, etc.)
• Page zoom with visual indicator
• Background tab freezing for reduced resource usage
• Built-in PDF viewer

Installation

Install Nicol Browser from AUR

yay -S nicol

Building from Source

Requirements

• Qt 6.8 or later
• CMake 3.16 or later
• C++17 compatible compiler

Arch Linux

sudo pacman -S base-devel cmake qt6-base qt6-webengine qt6-declarative hicolor-icon-theme

Debian/Ubuntu

Note: Ubuntu's official repositories only provide Qt 6.4, which is below the required 6.8. You'll need to install Qt 6.8 manually using the Qt Online Installer or aqtinstall.

sudo apt install build-essential cmake
# Then install Qt 6.8+ via Qt Online Installer or aqtinstall

Fedora

sudo dnf install cmake qt6-qtwebengine-devel qt6-qtdeclarative-devel

macOS

brew install qt@6 cmake

Windows

Install Qt 6.8 with MSVC 2022 components via the Qt Online Installer. Ensure CMake and MSVC build tools are available.

Building

cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build --parallel

The executable will be at build/appnicol (Linux/macOS) or build/Release/appnicol.exe (Windows).

Running

./build/appnicol

Project Structure

nicol/
├── main.cpp              # application entry point
├── Main.qml              # root QML component
├── config.ini            # browser configuration
├── ui/                   # UI components
│   ├── BrowserWindow.qml
│   ├── ToolbarButton.qml
│   ├── AppMenuItem.qml
│   ├── ZoomOverlay.qml
│   └── FullScreenNotification.qml
├── chrome/               # internal pages (new tab, incognito, error)
└── assets/               # icons and resources

License

This project is licensed under the AGPL-3.0 License.