Khoj
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In the works since September 2026

The roadmap

Khoj started as a plan in early September: take the calm, sidebar way of browsing that Arc made popular, and build it for Nepal from the first line. Since then we have been building it one piece at a time. This is where it came from, what is built, and where it goes next.

Why

Nepal needs its own browser

Almost everything people in Nepal do online happens inside a browser, and none of the browsers they use were made with Nepal in mind. Typing Nepali still means installing a separate keyboard, learning a layout, or pasting text in from a converter site. Offices, schools and newspapers still publish in the old Preeti font, which turns into a jumble of Latin letters on any computer without it. Many people browse on older laptops and pay for every megabyte on their phone.

None of that is a hard problem. It is just nobody's priority. A browser built in Nepal, by people who type Nepali every day, can make it the default instead of a workaround.

And it has to be open. Khoj is open source so that anyone can check what it does, fix what it gets wrong, and help decide where it goes. The goal is not only a browser but a community of Nepali developers, testers, translators and typists who build it together.

September

The plan

  1. Inspired by Arc

    Arc showed that a browser can be calmer: tabs down the side where long titles stay readable, Spaces that keep home, work and study apart, and one bar for everything. We wanted that, open source and on Chromium, so the sites and extensions people already use keep working.

  2. Built around Nepali

    From the start the rule was that Nepali is a first language, not a font fallback: typing, reading and searching in Devanagari should be as easy as in English, on every platform.

  3. Light enough for real machines

    A browser for Nepal has to run well on the computers and phones people actually own, so tabs you are not using go to sleep and give their memory back.

Built so far

From plan to parts

  1. Nepali typing engine

    Roman to Nepali as you type (namaste becomes नमस्ते), the Preeti and traditional keyboard layouts, and a one-click converter that turns old Preeti font text on a page into proper Unicode Nepali. Tested, and working today.

  2. A working prototype

    A test browser that proved Nepali typing works inside the browser itself, and that putting unused tabs to sleep cut the memory ten tabs needed by about two thirds.

  3. The Chromium base

    Tabs in a sidebar, Spaces, the command bar and full Chrome extension support, in place from day one, so our work can go into what is missing for Nepal.

  4. Name, logo and website

    Khoj by Swadesh Nai Swarga, the knot window logo, and this site with the first designs for the desktop and phone apps.

Now

Making it Khoj

  1. The Khoj browser

    The name Khoj in every menu, window and setting, and the new logo on every icon, inside the real browser.

  2. Nepali typing built in

    The typing engine moving inside Khoj, ready from the first launch, with the ने button and Alt+N in every text box.

Next

A first build you can try

  1. Windows first

    The first Khoj you can install will be for Windows 10 and 11, released when it is built and tested.

  2. Linux

    Khoj is developed on Linux, so a Linux version follows. The build settings are written; next is getting every feature to work there.

  3. Early testers

    People who type Nepali every day, on the machines they really use, trying Khoj before anyone else and telling us what breaks.

Later

Everywhere else

  1. macOS

    A Mac version, signed and notarised under Swadesh Nai Swarga.

  2. Android

    Khoj for phones, with the address bar where your thumb is and a saver mode for mobile data.

  3. iPhone and iPad

    Apple requires every browser in Nepal to use its own WebKit engine, so this version is built separately.