Announcing the Consulate Browser!

Today we are excited to announce the Consulate Browser for iOS: a bare bones, bookmark-centric browser for visiting .onion and .local URLs. You can download the app here.

While the Consulate is capable of resolving any .onion or .local URL, the intended, recommended, and supported use case of the Consulate is to bookmark the .onion and .local URLs of services running on your Embassy, including Ambassador.

You can visit your Embassy’s .onion URL from any Tor-enabled browser and its .local URL from any browser at all (while connected to the same LAN). For desktop, we recommend Firefox (with socks5 proxy enabled). There is also the official Tor Browser for desktop and Android, but due to strict JavaScript prohibition and lack of caching, it can produce a clunky experience if not configured properly. For iOS, there simply isn’t a good Tor browser…Until now!

Start9’s own Consulate for iOS is specially designed to bookmark and resolve .onion and .local URLs, especially those served up by your Embassy. And with smart caching and a minimal UI footprint, it’s snappy and clean. The Consulate is still in beta, so please report any bugs or quirks to the team so we can improve the experience, but we think you are going to like it already.

Enjoy!