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clark-labs-inc/clark-browser

clark-browser

clark-browser bot detection check

by Clark — open source; see License

Stealth Chromium for browser automation. Browser-level fingerprint fixes compiled into patched Chromium source, so Playwright/CDP clients do not have to rely on fragile JavaScript injections.

What this is

A fork of ungoogled-chromium 148.0.7778.96 with a patch series that moves common automation fingerprint values into the browser itself: navigator properties, UA Client Hints, WebGL GPU strings, screen dimensions, plugins, timezones, and related JS-visible surfaces.

Clark's Python wrapper and patch series are MIT-licensed. Redistributed Chromium/ungoogled-chromium components retain their upstream licenses. This is an open-source project, not a commercial-licensed stealth browser like CloakBrowser or Multilogin. Build it from source yourself, or use the prebuilt binaries from GitHub Releases.

Why

Stock chromium --headless is trivially detectable: navigator.webdriver = true, empty plugin list, HeadlessChrome in the User-Agent, software-renderer WebGL strings, and a dozen other signals that detection sites grep for. JS-level "stealth" shims (puppeteer-extra-plugin-stealth, playwright-stealth, undetected- chromedriver) only paper over the surface — sites like FingerprintJS, BrowserScan, and Cloudflare Turnstile catch them because the patches themselves are detectable.

clark-browser patches Chromium where the values come from, in browser and renderer source, so public detector pages see a coherent Chrome-like automation profile instead of Playwright/headless defaults.

Supported platforms

Platform Status
Linux x86_64 prebuilt binary in releases
macOS arm64 prebuilt binary in releases

Other targets (macOS x86_64, Windows) need a source build.

Usage

Install the Python wrapper from PyPI:

pip install clark-browser

Use it as a Playwright launcher. The wrapper downloads the matching patched Chromium build from GitHub Releases on first launch and caches it under ~/.clarkbrowser/.

from clarkbrowser import launch

browser = launch()
page = browser.new_page()
page.goto("https://bot.sannysoft.com")
print(page.title())
browser.close()

You can also prefetch or inspect the browser binary with the CLI:

clark-browser info
clark-browser fetch

For Vercel agent-browser usage, see examples/agent_browser.md.

Examples:

For direct CDP usage, download the tarball for your platform from the releases page, extract it, and run the binary directly. Drive it via any Chrome DevTools Protocol client (CDP over HTTP/WebSocket).

# Linux: extract and launch with CDP on port 9222
tar -xzf clark-browser-linux-x64.tar.gz
CLARK_UA="Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/148.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
./headless_shell \
  --headless=new \
  --no-sandbox \
  --remote-debugging-port=9222 \
  --remote-debugging-address=127.0.0.1 \
  --remote-allow-origins=* \
  --user-data-dir=/tmp/clark-browser-cdp-profile \
  --fingerprint=12345 \
  --fingerprint-platform=linux \
  --fingerprint-brand=Chrome \
  --fingerprint-brand-version=148.0.0.0 \
  --fingerprint-timezone=America/Los_Angeles \
  --fingerprint-locale=en-US \
  --fingerprint-network-profile=datacenter \
  --disable-features=WebGPU \
  --lang=en-US \
  --accept-lang=en-US,en \
  --user-agent="$CLARK_UA" \
  about:blank

The Linux tarball contains the headless_shell binary (~270 MB), a chrome compatibility launcher, headless resource packs, and runtime helper libraries. The macOS arm64 build produces a normal Chromium.app bundle.

Stealth surface

--fingerprint-* switches drive the patches. The Python launcher supplies a coherent default set, including a matched User-Agent and Accept-Language header. When running the raw binary, keep User-Agent, UA-CH brand/platform, locale, timezone, viewport, Network Information profile, and proxy geography consistent for the whole session.

Launcher defaults follow the host platform so font enumeration does not fight the claimed OS: Linux hosts default to a Linux profile, and macOS hosts default to macOS. To use a Windows profile from Linux, configure a Windows font pack with CLARK_WINDOWS_FONTS_DIR=/path/to/fonts; the launcher then adds both --fingerprint-platform=windows and --fingerprint-fonts-dir=.... Advanced callers can force a platform with CLARK_FINGERPRINT_PLATFORM=windows|macos|linux and pass a font directory with CLARK_FINGERPRINT_FONTS_DIR=/path/to/fonts. Windows profiles on non-Windows hosts require one of those font directory env vars.

All fingerprint switches have seed-derived defaults when omitted. Pass --fingerprint=<integer> for a deterministic identity, or let the binary pick a fresh seed at startup for per-launch variation.

Set CLARK_FINGERPRINT_NETWORK_PROFILE=desktop|datacenter|residential|mobile|slow or pass network_profile= to the Python launcher when the proxy/IP type is known. The profile drives navigator.connection.{rtt,downlink,effectiveType} with seed-stable values; direct CLI overrides are available for tight proxy pools.

For proxied sessions, WebRTC routing must be coherent with the HTTP route too. Pass webrtc_policy="proxy-coherent" to the Python launcher, or set CLARK_WEBRTC_POLICY=proxy-coherent, to add --force-webrtc-ip-handling-policy=disable_non_proxied_udp. This is opt-in because forcing WebRTC through the configured proxy can hurt or break real-time media, especially when the proxy only supports TCP.

WebGPU is treated as a profile choice instead of a surprise runtime leak. The headless launcher default adds --disable-features=WebGPU, matching the common headless/no-accelerated-adapter profile. Use webgpu_policy="coherent" or CLARK_WEBGPU_POLICY=coherent when deliberately enabling WebGPU; patch #49 then maps GPUAdapterInfo.{vendor,architecture,device,description} to the same GPU pool used by WebGL.

Operational hygiene matters too. Clark's launcher warns when caller-supplied options re-enable --enable-automation, auto-open DevTools, bind CDP outside loopback, or allow every CDP origin. Set CLARK_LAUNCH_HYGIENE=strict to fail fast in CI, or CLARK_LAUNCH_HYGIENE=off for local experiments. For agent code, use InteractionPacer to prevent accidental burst-clicks and repeated same-target clicks:

from clarkbrowser import InteractionPacer, launch_context

context = launch_context()
page = context.new_page()
pacer = InteractionPacer()

page.goto("https://example.com", wait_until="domcontentloaded")
pacer.click(page, "a")
--fingerprint=<int>              master RNG seed (10000..99999)
--fingerprint-platform=          windows | macos | linux
--fingerprint-platform-version=  client hints platform version
--fingerprint-brand=             Chrome | Edge | Opera | Vivaldi
--fingerprint-brand-version=
--fingerprint-gpu-vendor=        WebGL UNMASKED_VENDOR_WEBGL
--fingerprint-gpu-renderer=      WebGL UNMASKED_RENDERER_WEBGL
--fingerprint-hardware-concurrency=
--fingerprint-device-memory=     in GB
--fingerprint-screen-width=
--fingerprint-screen-height=
--fingerprint-taskbar-height=    Win=48, Mac=95, Linux=0
--fingerprint-storage-quota=     in MB
--fingerprint-timezone=          IANA tz, e.g. America/New_York
--fingerprint-locale=            BCP 47
--fingerprint-fonts-dir=         path to platform font directory
--fingerprint-location=          lat,lon for geolocation API
--fingerprint-webrtc-ip=         literal IPv4 to spoof in ICE candidates
--fingerprint-network-profile=   desktop | residential | datacenter | mobile | slow
--fingerprint-connection-type=   wifi | ethernet | cellular | ...
--fingerprint-effective-type=    slow-2g | 2g | 3g | 4g
--fingerprint-rtt=               navigator.connection.rtt in ms
--fingerprint-downlink=          navigator.connection.downlink in Mbps
--fingerprint-noise=             true | false  (canvas/audio noise on/off)
--force-webrtc-ip-handling-policy=disable_non_proxied_udp
--disable-features=WebGPU        default for headless launcher profiles

Verified-working patches

Confirmed firing in CDP-driven smoke tests against the built binary (tests/linux_smoke.py, tests/integration_smoke.py):

Detection vector Patched Verification
navigator.webdriver always false navigator.webdriver === false
navigator.plugins 5 PDF-viewer entries navigator.plugins.length === 5
window.chrome always an object typeof window.chrome === "object"
navigator.platform spoofed from --fingerprint-platform returns "Win32" under =windows
navigator.userAgentData brand/platform/version coherent with spoofed UA returns Windows + Google Chrome under =windows
navigator.hardwareConcurrency seed-derived from {4, 6, 8, 12, 16} deterministic per seed
navigator.maxTouchPoints matched to platform 0 on =windows
timezone / locale from --fingerprint-timezone / --fingerprint-locale plus --lang reaches Blink as set
navigator.connection seed/profile-derived network quality nonzero RTT, plausible downlink/effectiveType
WebGPU adapter info absent by headless policy, or GPUAdapterInfo matches WebGL pool vendor/device/description coherent when WebGPU is enabled
User-Agent no HeadlessChrome full Chrome UA under --user-agent=...
Audio fingerprint seed-derived deterministic noise two distinct seeds yield distinct audio FP

See PATCHES.md for the full patch catalog and specs/ for per-category implementation notes.

Live detector results

The latest saved live-detector snapshot was captured from chromium-v148.0.7778.96-stealth1 on 2026-05-20 inside an E2B Ubuntu 24.04 sandbox with the real agent-browser 0.27.0 CLI driving the released Linux binary. Newer releases must still pass the local smoke suites and release-artifact smoke before upload.

PASS means the captured page matched the specific evidence shown here. It is not a promise that every detector, challenge, proxy, or traffic pattern will pass. OBSERVED means the page loaded and was captured, but did not expose a stable passive pass/fail verdict.

Target Result Evidence
Cloudflare challenge smoke (nowsecure.nl) PASS Loaded target without visible challenge/block text
SannySoft PASS WebDriver missing, Chrome present, HEADCHR UA/permissions/plugins/iframe all ok
Antoine Vastel headless test PASS with --accept-lang=en-US,en The same released binary failed without an HTTP Accept-Language header and passed with one
BrowserLeaks Client Hints PASS Windows + Google Chrome UA-CH, no HeadlessChrome
BrowserLeaks WebGL PASS Google/NVIDIA ANGLE, WebGL/WebGL2 enabled, no SwiftShader/llvmpipe text
Incolumitas, Pixelscan, BotD demo, CreepJS OBSERVED Loaded and captured; no stable passive verdict for several pages; CreepJS still shows a Headless panel

Full table and raw captured output: docs/bot-detection-results.md.

Methodology

We build on ungoogled-chromium (BSD-3) and inherit its existing Brave-derived canvas/audio/clientRects noise infrastructure. Our patches are written from public sources only — W3C specs, Chromium upstream code, MDN bot-detection writeups, and curl-impersonate (MIT). We do not reverse-engineer or copy from any proprietary stealth-browser binary. See METHODOLOGY.md.

Building from source

# 1. Fetch tooling
git clone https://github.com/clark-labs-inc/clark-browser
cd clark-browser

# 2. Fetch Chromium 148 source (~17 GB, ~30 min)
./build/fetch-source.sh

# 3. Apply patches (instant)
./build/apply-patches.sh

# 4. Build (4–12 hours, ~80 GB disk, 32+ GB RAM recommended)
./build/build.sh

For a clean Linux x86_64 build that mirrors what ships in our releases, use ./build/build-linux.sh instead (runs the full clone → patch → ninja pipeline in a single script; designed for fresh Ubuntu hosts).

See build/README.md for detailed prerequisites.

License

Clark-authored wrapper code, specs, and patches are MIT. ungoogled-chromium, Chromium upstream components, and ported open-source code retain their respective BSD/MPL/other licenses; this project does not modify those upstream license terms.

Status

Alpha. Linux x86_64 and macOS arm64 builds are reproducible end-to-end and the patches above are runtime-confirmed against the built binary. Other documented surfaces are still backlog/spec work or need broader detection-site benchmarking. Contributions welcome — see specs/ for the patch backlog.