Shariah-compliant web browser launched in Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR — Muslims anxious to safeguard their faith online now have the option of a “Shariah-compliant” web browser that aims to steer them away from the sins and temptations of the Internet.

Dubbed the “Salam Browser”, the free-to-download programme claims to filter out websites with content incompatible with the Muslim religion.

According to SBRO Online Security Solutions, the local firm offering the browser, it “enables web browsing that helps maintain purity of your heart and benefits your values”.

“Avoid Haram. Salam alerts on >1.4m webpages with pornography, gambling, offense to religion and other harmful content,” the firm said on its webpage.

Aside from displaying a warning when arriving at any offensive website, the browser also blocks out adult content and violent images and videos.

More conventionally, Salam Browser also filters spam and obnoxious online advertisements.

According to SBRO, the browser also speeds up the downloading of videos and music from YouTube and cuts page load times with a data compression function, although these are features included in the Chromium project that the browser is built on.

Chromium is the open-source version of Google’s proprietary Chrome browser.

The browser “adhering to Islamic adab” is currently in beta release, while its functions are also available as standalone extensions from Chrome Web Store.

The browser extensions are rated 4.47 out of five stars by some 685 reviewers and have over 250,000 users so far, based on statistics from the Chrome Web Store. THE MALAY MAIL ONLINE