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Theseus Navigator

A Chromium-based browser with native .bch / BCNR name resolution built in. No OS-level daemon, no DNS shim, no root-store install. Type hello.bch in the address bar and it just works.

Download for Windows How it works

Download v0.0.4

Windows builds for now. The installer wires shortcuts and file associations; the portable build is a single .exe that runs from anywhere. Ariadne Resolver is the older, lighter option for systems where you only need name resolution without the browser.

Theseus Navigator — Setup

Installs with shortcuts + Start menu entry. Recommended for most users.

Download Setup .exe (~97 MB)
SmartScreen may warn on first run — the binary is unsigned. Verify the SHA-256 against the checksum published on this page (below) before running.

Theseus Navigator — Portable

Single .exe. Nothing installed, nothing modified in the registry. Run and go.

Download Portable .exe (~97 MB)

Ariadne Resolver — Setup

The lighter option: a system-wide BCNR resolver (no browser). Works with any browser via the local trust anchor. Windows installer.

Download Ariadne (~25 MB)

Ariadne Resolver — Android

Android APK. Runs as a VPN service to intercept and resolve BCNR names on the device.

Download APK

How Theseus works

Theseus is a Chromium wrapper (Electron) with two things regular browsers don't have: in-process BCNR name resolution, and a certificate-verify hook that trusts on-chain TLS fingerprints instead of the OS root store for BCNR hostnames.

  1. Address bar accepts .bch / .x / any BCNR TLD. The URL parser is short-circuited: any hostname whose TLD is in the registry is resolved by walking the chain via the built-in bns.js — never through DNS.
  2. Records decide how the site is served. h renders inline HTML from the OP_RETURN payload itself. s3 serves from a Sia bucket via the in-app gateway. ip connects to a server by IP. u redirects. Priority is handled by the shared record-picker.
  3. TLS verifies against on-chain fingerprints. Electron's setCertificateVerifyProc is intercepted: for BCNR hostnames, instead of walking the OS trust chain, the leaf's SHA-256 fingerprint is compared to the tls record on chain. Matches → trusted. No tls record → the browser falls back to the local root CA.
  4. Provenance indicator in the URL bar. A tiny badge shows whether the page came from the chain, from Sia, or from an IP-configured server — with the NFT category shown on hover. The decentralized padlock.
What Theseus is NOT. Not a wallet — for that, use Deviant, Cashonize, Paytaca, or the built-in browser wallet at sirius/register.html. Not a hosting service — for that, register a name and point its records at any host (Sia, VPS, your own server). Theseus just makes those names openable in a normal-feeling browser.

Verify a download

The binaries are unsigned (Windows will show a SmartScreen warning). Before running, verify the SHA-256 against what the operator publishes on-chain and in the release notes:

PowerShell:
Get-FileHash TheseusNavigator-Setup-0.0.4.exe

Bash:
sha256sum TheseusNavigator-Setup-0.0.4.exe

Compare the digest to the release manifest at silentmode.st/releases/. For a stronger guarantee, sign in with the wallet and check that the release-signing key matches the on-chain identity for releases.silentmode.bch.