Most privacy browsers allow the user to opt in to protection. There’s a setting somewhere to block trackers, a toggle for fingerprinting defense, an extension to install for ad blocking. There is protection, but the user must discover it and activate it. Helium is the one that turns it over. It is not a hidden feature in a menu, it is the default. The browser does not make any web requests on first launch, blocks ads and trackers by default (via built-in uBlock Origin), and does not include any ads, telemetry or analytics of its own, and refuses third-party cookies by default. The user doesn’t select their route to privacy. They are born there and they live there.
Helium is from a group called Imput and is based on ungoogled-chromium, a version of Chromium that removes Google’s proprietary services and tracking from the source code. This means that Helium renders pages in the same way as Chrome, and supports the same extensions, but without the background data collection and “smart” features that are built into mainstream Chromium browsers. The build pipeline is 100% open source, and anyone can check that the browser you receive is the same code that is published.
No Telemetry
Unlike browsers that phone home to update services, sync accounts and recommendation engines the moment they’re opened, helium never makes web requests without your explicit permission, and makes none on first launch. No analytics, no usage tracking and no data sync quietly in the background of the browser itself. The difference for users who wish to use a browser that does not do anything they did not instruct it to do is the default of zero-telemetry.
Native uBlock Origin
Helium includes uBlock Origin by default, so you don’t need to enable ad blocking or install an extension. It automatically blocks ads, trackers and phishing sites with community-maintained filter lists. It matters because it reduces the time between installation of the browser and protection; no first session of loading pages full of trackers before the user gets around to adding a blocker. For more aggressive filtering you can add your own uBlock Origin filter lists to the defaults.
Cookie Blocking & Anti-Fingerprinting
Helium blocks all third-party cookies and tries to prevent browser fingerprinting – the technique that identifies a browser by the combination of its attributes, rather than by cookies. Unlike some privacy browsers, the browser does not have “biased exceptions” for specific partners or advertisers. No quiet allow-listing of some trackers, it’s all or nothing blocking.
Anonymisation of Web Store
Helium anonymizes the internal requests when a user downloads or updates an extension from the Chrome Web Store, so Google can’t tie the extension activity back to the user or create an advertising profile from the tools the user installs. This resolves a tracking vector that was present even in privacy-focused versions of Chromium browsers, where the extension store connection is still linked to Google’s infrastructure.
Complete Chrome Extension Support
Helium is built on Chromium, so it supports the entire Chrome Web Store library of extensions. Users bring their existing password managers, productivity tools, and developer extensions without looking for alternatives and the extension requests go through the anonymization layer described above.
Split-View Mode
The Split View feature opens web pages side by side in a single window. This is not a part of the regular Chromium builds. A user reads documentation alongside a project, compares two pages or maintains a reference page while working in another tab, without additional windows.
Minimalist UI
Helium’s interface is kept to a minimum to not distract you and to provide more vertical space for web content. Masks parts of the toolbar that the user doesn’t want to see. The design is focused on the page rather than the browser chrome, which is the browser’s aim of a “no-noise” workspace.
Vertical Tabs
In 2026, an update added experimental vertical tabs, providing users the choice of classic horizontal, a compact layout, or the vertical arrangement. To change layouts, right click on the window frame. Vertical tabs are best for users with numerous tabs open, on wide screens, where a vertical list is more readable than a crowded horizontal row.
Web Applications
Helium allows you to install web services as standalone desktop applications, without copying the entire Chromium engine for each one, so that web services you use frequently can run in their own windows, away from your main browsing window.
