Shipping a Chromium-based browser and its update infrastructure

Context

Kahf Yazılım needed a privacy-focused browser under its own control rather than a skin over someone else’s. That means working inside Chromium itself.

Constraint

Shipping a browser is mostly not about the browser. It is about everything surrounding it: builds that reproduce, updates that reach users safely, and a release process a team can run without a specialist present.

What we built

We built the browser on Chromium with privileged extensions integrated at a level ordinary extensions cannot reach.

Around it we built an Omaha update server for automatic distribution, and a CLI tool covering the development and release lifecycle so that cutting a release did not depend on institutional memory.

Outcome

Kahf Browser ships with working automatic updates and a release process the team runs themselves.