RedBrowser

Censorship-resistant browser with built-in Instagram, Telegram, and WhatsApp — all tunneled through DNS queries.

How it works

RedBrowser is not a VPN. It's a browser where the DNS tunnel IS the internet connection.

RedBrowser App (your phone)              RedBrowser Server (Frankfurt)

  You type a URL or                      Server fetches the real page
  open Instagram feed                    (2.4 MB of JS, ads, trackers)
       |                                        |
       | DNS queries                            v
       | (looks like normal DNS)         Strips everything:
       |                                 - JavaScript
       +=============================>  - Ads and trackers
       <=============================+  - Web bugs and pixels
       |                                 - Fonts and bloat
       | Clean content                          |
       | (15 KB instead of 2.4 MB)              v
       v                                 Returns clean, fast HTML
  Renders instantly                      with optimized images

What the user sees: A fast browser. Pages load in 2-3 seconds.

What the censor sees: Normal DNS TXT queries. No VPN. No HTTPS to blocked sites.

What the ISP sees: Nothing suspicious. DNS traffic is ubiquitous.

Features

Web Browsing (LiteWeb)

• Server-side rendering strips ads, trackers, scripts, web bugs
• 100x bandwidth reduction (2.4 MB page → 15 KB)
• Images auto-optimized to WebP thumbnails
• Dark mode support
• Built-in DuckDuckGo search

Instagram Lite (coming soon)

• View feed, stories, profiles
• Like and comment
• Direct messages
• Search users and tags
• No Reels video (bandwidth) — thumbnails only

Telegram Lite (coming soon)

• Chat list and conversations
• Send and receive text messages
• Photo messages (thumbnails, tap for full)
• Channels and groups
• Powered by TDLib

WhatsApp Lite (coming soon)

• Link via QR code
• Chat list and conversations
• Send and receive text messages
• Photo messages
• Powered by WhatsApp Web bridge

Architecture

red-browser/
├── protocol/    # Shared wire protocol (CBOR over smux streams)
├── server/      # Content proxy server
│   └── liteweb/ # Web rendering engine (fetch → extract → sanitize → optimize)
├── android/     # Android app (Kotlin + Compose) — coming soon
└── ios/         # iOS app (Swift + SwiftUI) — coming soon

Protocol

Binary CBOR messages over length-prefixed frames:

Client → Server:
  Browse { url }              Fetch and render a web page
  Search { query }            DuckDuckGo search
  IgFeed { cursor }           Instagram feed
  TgGetChats { offset }       Telegram chat list
  WaGetChats                  WhatsApp chat list
  Ping { ts }                 Latency check

Server → Client:
  Page { html, title }        Rendered page (gzip compressed)
  SearchResults { html }      Search results
  IgFeedResult { posts }      Instagram posts with thumbnails
  TgChatsResult { chats }     Telegram chats
  Error { code, message }     Error response

LiteWeb Pipeline

URL → Fetch (Chrome UA, 15s timeout)
    → Readability extraction (title, byline, main content)
    → Sanitize (strip scripts, ads, trackers, event handlers, data-* attrs)
    → Image optimization (resize, WebP, inline as data URIs)
    → Template (minimal HTML, ~500 bytes CSS, dark mode)
    → Gzip compress
    → Return through DNS tunnel

Tracker/Ad Blocking

100+ tracker domains blocked at the server level:

• Google Analytics, Tag Manager, Ads
• Facebook Pixel, Meta tracking
• Twitter/X analytics
• Adobe, Yandex, Hotjar, Segment, Mixpanel
• All major ad networks (DoubleClick, AdRoll, Criteo, Taboola, Outbrain)
• Cookie consent popups (OneTrust, Cookiebot)
• Chat widgets (Intercom, Drift, Crisp)

Plus URL tracking parameter stripping (utm_*, fbclid, gclid, etc.)

Building

# Server
cargo build --release -p red-server
# Binary: target/release/red-server

# Run
./target/release/red-server --listen 127.0.0.1:8400

# Test with curl (length-prefixed CBOR — use the test client)
cargo test

Cross-compilation (Linux server)

rustup target add x86_64-unknown-linux-musl
cargo build --release -p red-server --target x86_64-unknown-linux-musl

Bandwidth Budget

Action	Original	RedBrowser	Time @ 50KB/s
News article	2.4 MB	15-50 KB	1-2s
Instagram feed (20 posts)	8 MB	80 KB	2s
Telegram chat list	N/A	5 KB	0.1s
Send text message	N/A	0.2 KB	instant
DuckDuckGo search	500 KB	10 KB	0.2s

Security

• No JavaScript ever executes on the client
• No tracking scripts, pixels, or beacons
• No fingerprinting (canvas, WebRTC, font enumeration)
• All content sanitized server-side before delivery
• DNS tunnel encrypted with Noise_NK (forward secrecy)
• Server identity verified via pre-shared public key

DNS Tunnel

RedBrowser uses Nooshdaroo as the transport layer — a Rust DNS tunnel that encodes traffic in DNS TXT queries, indistinguishable from normal DNS lookups.

License

MIT

Copyright (c) 2026 Internet Mastering & Company, Inc.