zen-desktop

README

Zen: Your Comprehensive Ad-Blocker and Privacy Guard

There is, simply, no way, to ignore privacy. Because a citizenry’s freedoms are interdependent, to surrender your own privacy is really to surrender everyone’s.

Edward Snowden, Permanent Record

Website • Mastodon • Bluesky • Discord • Documentation

Zen is an open-source system-wide ad-blocker and privacy guard for Windows, macOS, and Linux. It works by setting up a proxy that intercepts HTTP requests from all applications, and blocks those serving ads, tracking scripts that monitor your behavior, malware, and other unwanted content. By operating at the system level, Zen can protect against threats that browser extensions cannot, such as trackers embedded in desktop applications and operating system components. Zen comes with many pre-installed filters, but also allows you to easily add hosts files and EasyList-style filters, enabling you to tailor your protection to your specific needs.

Downloads

During the first run, Zen will prompt you to install a root certificate. This is required for Zen to be able to intercept and modify HTTPS requests. This certificate is generated locally and never leaves your device. For details on how this works and the steps we take to secure it, see our security architecture.

Windows

• x64: 💾 Installer | 📦 Portable
• ARM64: 💾 Installer | 📦 Portable

Unsure which version to download? Click on 'Start' and type 'View processor info'. The 'System type' field under 'Device specifications' will tell you which one you need.

Winget

Zen is available via Winget (Windows Package Manager). To install, run:

winget install ZenPrivacy.ZenDesktop

macOS

• x64 (Intel): 💾 Installer | 📦 Portable
• ARM64 (Apple Silicon): 💾 Installer | 📦 Portable

Unsure which version to download? Learn at Apple's website.

🍺 Homebrew

Zen is available via Homebrew for both Intel and Apple Silicon. To install it, run:

brew install --cask zen-privacy

Linux

• AUR: 👾 zen-adblocker-bin
• x64: 📦 Portable
• ARM64: 📦 Portable

On Linux, automatic proxy configuration is currently only supported on GNOME- and KDE-based desktop environments.

Screenshots

Request history	Filter list manager
Request history shows all requests blocked by Zen. Each request can be inspected to see which filter and rule blocked it.	Zen comes with many pre-installed filters. You can also add your own by providing a URL to a hosts file or an EasyList-style filter.

Development

Follow the getting started guide to begin working on Zen development. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the Discussions.

Contributing

Zen needs your help! You can report bugs, suggest and implement features, improve the codebase, or help translate Zen into your language. Please refer to the Contributing Guidelines for more information.

Special Thanks

Zen exists thanks to the support of many incredible people and organizations, including:

• Our contributors

• Our sponsors

• SignPath and SignPath Foundation, who generously provide a free Windows certificate and code signing

  

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. Some code and assets included with Zen are licensed under different terms. For more information, see the COPYING file.