Helium Browser 0.13.2.1 Adds Custom Keyboard Shortcuts, Automatic Windows Updates and Frameless Mode

Helium Browser shipped version 0.13.2.1 Tuesday, bringing customizable keyboard shortcuts across all platforms, automatic updates for Windows users, and a stable release of its frameless browsing mode.

The company announced the changes June 10 via its official X account, @heliumbrowser, with co-founder and developer @uwukko separately highlighting the keyboard shortcut additions.

Keyboard Shortcuts and Automatic Updates

Users can now access shortcut customization under System → Keyboard Shortcuts, where they can add, modify, or reset key combinations. Default shortcuts remain protected and stay in place regardless of changes.

Windows users gained automatic background updates with this release. macOS had carried that capability for some time, but Windows users previously had to download and install each update manually.

Frameless Mode Exits Beta

Helium’s frameless mode — formerly called Zen mode — now ships as a standard toggle inside Settings, ending its beta period. The mode features a floating sidebar and strips away the conventional browser chrome for a cleaner visual layout.

Tab Management and UI Changes

Tab management received several upgrades. Users can now copy single or multiple tab URLs, format copied URLs as a list, and manually hibernate or mute specific tabs.

Toast notifications — the brief pop-up alerts that confirm actions inside the browser — received a visual redesign. Helium also rolled out smoother animations across the interface and refreshed various other UI elements.

Security and Search Improvements

Fingerprinting protection, which helps prevent websites from identifying users through device and browser characteristics, also improved. Developers fixed the underlying algorithm and added further safeguards.

QR code generation saw refinements as well. Kagi Search users can now trigger a reverse image search directly from the right-click context menu on any image.

Android Progress

On mobile, Helium’s Android build added full Manifest V2 extension support. That standard, an older Chrome extension framework that Google has been phasing out in its own browser, allows Android users to install Desktop Extensions directly from the Chrome Web Store.

Helium is an independent browser built on the Chromium engine, the open-source project that also underpins Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge.