Reader mode auto-saves bandwidth on slow connections. Built on Cloudflare's African edge. Open in Yoruba, Swahili, Hausa.
Latest: desktop-v0.1.0-r30 · Linux AppImage + .deb also available
Why
The dominant browsers assume gigabit fibre, infinite RAM, and that the nearest CDN is less than ten milliseconds away. None of those things are reliably true on the African web. Baobab starts from where the connection actually is: a metered 4G handset, an MTN data bundle, a 2G corner of a rural network. The product is designed around that constraint, not in spite of it.
Sovereignty isn't a feature here, it's the spine. Your browsing stays local by default. Optional sync stores bookmarks, history and chats on Cloudflare's edge — with the explicit goal of African regions when they ship (D1 and R2 sit in the EU region today as a pragmatic stopgap). We never sell your data, share it with third parties, or train models on it. Settings → Sovereignty shows you exactly where each read came from.
A browser is the right shape for this. Cookies, navigation guards, ad-block scope, data-residency commitments — they all live at the browser layer. Apps inherit from it. If we want a different default, the browser is where it has to start.
The Sahel palette, the baobab tree, the Adinkra motifs — these aren't decoration. They're the visual reminder of who the product is for. We built it to be ours.
What's inside
On slow connections a 3-second countdown intercepts heavy pages and renders a clean text version instead — typically 80–95% lighter on news sites. The tab never fetches the heavy page when Reader is chosen.
Chrome-style profile windows with real per-profile cookie isolation (each profile gets its own WebView2 data directory). Optional 4-digit PIN per profile for shared computers, with progressive lockout on wrong attempts.
Type without a '.' and Baobab searches with Workers AI on Cloudflare's African edge. Sources are reranked to lift African voices to the top of the result list.
TranslatePad opens with one shortcut and translates between English, Yoruba, Swahili, Hausa, Amharic, Wolof, Zulu, French and Arabic — m2m100-1.2b on the worker, Llama fallback.
103-hostname starter list from EasyList + EasyPrivacy. YouTube ads auto-skip via DOM fast-forward (the player jumps to the end of the ad whenever one's detected). Per-profile, default ON.
Set a daily byte cap. Toasts warn at 80% and again at 100% (auto-enables slow-mode at 100%). Reader savings count alongside ad-block savings. Wi-Fi-only sync (default ON) defers history and bookmarks pushes to Wi-Fi-class connections.
Sovereignty
Your bookmarks, history, and chats sync to Cloudflare D1 (structured data) and R2 (content). Both are in the EU region today; we're moving to African regions when Cloudflare ships them. Auth tokens live in the OS keyring, encrypted at rest.
No third-party analytics. No model training on your data. No data sales. No tracking beacons embedded by us. Local mode disables sync entirely if you'd rather keep everything on this machine.
Settings → Sovereignty shows which Cloudflare colo served your last reads, and which regions hold your persisted data. Toggle sync off at any time; the local profile keeps working without it.
Try it
The same AI search that powers Baobab in-browser. Rate-limited for the demo; install the desktop app for unlimited use.
Powered by Workers AI on Cloudflare's African edge. Rate-limited; install Baobab for the full experience.
For you if
Baobab was built for you. The byte gauge, Reader mode, and Wi-Fi-only sync work together so 100 MB of mobile data goes further. Slow mode kicks in automatically; the daily budget is yours to set.
See Reader Mode →The worker is Hono on Cloudflare. The desktop is Tauri 2 + React 18. Most routes are public. The design specs live in the repo. Read the notes, fork what you want, file what doesn't work.
View the repo →The manifesto above is the short version. The longer story is in the design docs and the source. Read about the choices we made and why — the why matters more than the what.
Read the manifesto →Multi-profile windows with real cookie isolation per profile. Sovereignty Dashboard surfaces your data residency for compliance review. Volume install via MSI is on the roadmap (Q3 2026).
Talk to us →1.9 MB · Windows · Linux (AppImage, .deb) · macOS coming back · Android in roadmap
Download for Windows · 1.9 MB