macsurf v2.3

The modern web, on a 25-year-old Mac.

A native browser for the Carbon era, Mac OS 8.6 through Mac OS X 10.6: real CSS, modern JavaScript, and HTTPS on the Mac itself. No proxy, no second machine.

MacSurf 2.0.5 on a Power Mac G3 iMac, rendering hackaday.com at full desktop width over native HTTPS.

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_{Every project stays free as source. Build it yourself and you never need Beta-Box. You are paying for the build and the cadence, not for access.}

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Thanks to our supporters:
Ko-Fi: Chris Marks, Rogue, Turuun, kilgeist
Patreon: Mack Chamberlain, Lucas, Joseph Mulvaney, Shlooom

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[!NOTE] 2.3 "OPEN TABS" is the largest MacSurf release since 2.0. Tabs are finally enabled, with independent page, scroll, history, rendering and JavaScript state inside one native Mac window. Underneath that is a major dynamic-page/lifecycle rewrite, a much larger browser API surface, more CSS and image/SVG support, rebuilt native managers, stronger networking and security, and a long hardware-driven stability campaign. MacSurf remains honest, in-progress software; some very heavy modern applications still expose layout and API gaps. See the 2.3 release notes and docs/status.md for details.

Why this exists

The web outgrew Classic Mac OS twenty years ago, and modern HTTPS finished the job around 2016. Pull a G3 or G4 out of the closet today and it can barely reach a single live site.

MacSurf fixes that on the machine itself, with no screenshot proxy and no remote-terminal trick. It is a native browser built with the tools that shipped on the platform: CodeWarrior, Carbon, QuickDraw, Open Transport. It speaks TLS 1.3 straight to the modern web through macTLS, a BearSSL-based stack baked into the binary with the full Mozilla CA bundle, and runs modern JavaScript through macQJS, a QuickJS port for Mac OS 9.

As far as we can tell, it is the first serious NetSurf port to Classic Mac OS, and the first Mac OS 9 browser with native CSS Grid, CSS custom properties, and an on-device modern JavaScript engine.

Real sites, on real hardware

Every shot below is a live site, captured on a Power Mac G3 running Mac OS 9.2.2 with MacSurf 2.0.5. They are kept here as a hardware baseline; MacSurf 2.3 has moved substantially beyond the browser shown in these images.

New in 2.3

Tabs. One native Mac window can now host multiple independent browser pages. Command-T opens a tab; Command-W closes the current tab. Background tabs retain their own JavaScript realm, title, URL, content and scroll state without taking over the foreground chrome.

The release also brings a major dynamic-page and JavaScript compatibility pass; deeper DOM reconstruction safety; CSS math, sizing, Grid, variables and paint improvements; native WebP and stronger SVG; a rebuilt Downloads window; improved Preferences, Bookmarks and History; tighter HTTPS/security behavior; and a large body of crash- and lifetime fixes.

MacSurf 2.3 supports Mac OS 8.6 through Mac OS X 10.6. On Intel Macs, the PowerPC build runs under Rosetta where available.

Full 2.3 notes →

New in 2.0.5

The headline is hackaday.com rendering at full desktop width (shown above): correct type, article cards, and images in place.

Under it: text is measured in real device pixels (author font-size no longer draws 25% too small), a large modern-CSS pass (justified text, soft hyphens, logical properties, box-alignment shorthands, grid auto-sizing), a more capable JavaScript engine (real fetch/XHR, resolving Promise chains, DOM traversal, document.cookie), and tracker/ad-network blocking. Full 2.0.5 notes →

New in 2.0

Earlier shots: the same sites on previous builds

68kmla.org	macintoshgarden.org
macintoshrepository.org	machut.net
lobste.rs	DuckDuckGo

How it got here: a couple of early milestones

v0.2: JavaScript on Mac OS 9 The first JS-bearing page evaluating live, on-device.

CSS Grid Real Grid layout: spans, full-row heroes, auto-wrap.

The pieces

What works today

Supported systems

MacSurf 2.3 supports Mac OS 8.6 through Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

• PowerPC Macs run MacSurf directly.
• Intel Macs can run the PowerPC build through Rosetta where available.
• Mac OS 9 remains the primary target and the environment most heavily tested on original hardware.
• Recommended memory: 128 MB minimum, 256 MB recommended, 384 MB for the heaviest JavaScript sites.

Stability and diagnostics

A large part of 2.3 is work you should not have to notice: stronger page/runtime ownership, safer DOM reconstruction, guarded late callbacks, cache/content lifetime fixes, image reuse across reconvert, TLS bounds checks, and tab isolation.

MacSurf also now has a much deeper built-in diagnostic system for correlating navigation, documents, frames, network requests, JavaScript tasks, timers, mutations, XHR/fetch, Promise rejections, layout, paint and compatibility gaps. The final Tiger multi-tab stress campaign completed 20/20 cycles with zero crashes and zero hangs, followed by testing on Mac OS 9.2.2 hardware.

Download

MacSurf 2.3 "OPEN TABS" (2026-09-19). See what changed in the full 2.3 release notes →.

• Download MacSurf →: expand with StuffIt Expander and double-click. MacSurf supports Mac OS 8.6 through Mac OS X 10.6; on Intel Macs the PowerPC build runs under Rosetta where available. No installer.
• Already on a Mac OS 9 machine? Grab it from the plain-HTTP macsurf.org, since GitHub does not render on-device yet.
• All releases →

Want the builds between releases? Weekly in-progress builds land in Beta-Box for supporters, ahead of every stable release.

Building

MacSurf builds on Mac OS 9 with CodeWarrior 8 Pro (8.3 update). The source is cross-compile-clean against Retro68 PowerPC GCC, which we use for fast Linux-side syntax checks.

• Mac-side build guide
• Linux cross-dev workflow

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_{Native HTTPS via macTLS · JavaScript via macQJS · built on NetSurf · intro video}

For Gary & Kaija