Aephoron

Appearance

Privacy & Security ​

Aephoron is built with privacy by design. This guide covers the browser's actual, shipped privacy and security features — not a hypothetical SDK.

Shields ​

Aephoron's built-in "Shields" run on by default:

  • Ad blocking — real, shipped (~486 lines in the shields component)
  • Tracker blocking — blocks known trackers before they load
  • Fingerprint resistance — reduces the entropy sites can read from your browser
  • HTTPS upgrade — automatically upgrades navigable HTTP requests to HTTPS

Shields can be toggled per-site from the browser UI.

DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) ​

Aephoron resolves DNS over HTTPS by default (RFC 8484), so your DNS lookups aren't visible in plaintext to your network operator or ISP. Provider selection is built in:

  • Empoorio (default)
  • Cloudflare
  • Quad9
  • Custom — point DoH at any RFC 8484-compliant resolver

Phishing protection ​

Aephoron shows a warning banner when navigating to a site flagged as a known phishing target, backed by EmpoorioChain's phishing-registry pallet — a real, wired integration, not a static local blocklist alone.

Permission overlay ​

Site permission requests (camera, microphone, location, notifications, and similar) surface through a native egui overlay rather than a browser-chrome popup — consistent with how wallet signing requests are presented (see below), and not DOM-rendered, so a malicious page can't spoof it.

Save-password prompt ​

Aephoron offers to save credentials you enter on login forms, backed by the same OS-level secure storage used for wallet keys (Keychain on macOS, Credential Guard on Windows).

What's on-chain vs. off-chain ​

On-chain (public, via EmpoorioChain testnet):

  • .empoorio domain registrations
  • Ad settlement commitments (skoopos-pov)
  • Phishing registry and web-reputation entries
  • Identity commitments where DID registration is used

Off-chain (private, stays on your device):

  • Wallet private keys — never leave the OS secure enclave
  • did:emp credential contents — stored and viewed locally today
  • Browsing history and local profile data

Current DID/VC status

Local credential storage and display work today. On-chain did:emp registration and full cryptographic VC/signature verification are open, in-progress work — not yet shipped. See Web3 & Wallet for the current state.

Wallet key isolation ​

Eoonia Wallet keys, embedded in Aephoron, never enter the JavaScript heap:

  • Keys are generated and stored in the OS secure enclave (Keychain / Credential Guard)
  • Signing requests cross a secure IPC bridge to a native egui popup — not a DOM-rendered dialog a page script could spoof
  • EVM (EIP-6963, SIWE, eth_sendTransaction) and Substrate signing are both real, with 55 passing tests across ~1,893 lines

Post-quantum TLS ​

The network stack uses Rustls 0.23 with the prefer-post-quantum feature:

  • ML-KEM hybrid key exchange, available when peers negotiate PQ cipher suites
  • Backed by a real Rustls feature, not homegrown cryptography

EmpoorioChain integration status ​

8 of 9 EmpoorioChain pallets are wired via real SCALE-encoded extrinsics: balances, identity-ssi (DID registration), .empoorio domains, ai-serving, skoopos-pov (ad settlement), phishing-registry, and web-reputation. The EVM/Frontier compatibility bridge (eth_getBalance, eth_blockNumber) currently returns static stub data — full live EVM RPC support is coming, not yet live.

Security best practices for developers ​

  1. Use HTTPS/WSS — always use encrypted connections when integrating with window.aephoron or EmpoorioChain RPC
  2. Validate inputs — sanitize all user inputs in dApp UIs
  3. Never request keys — the browser never exposes private keys to page scripts; don't build flows that try to work around that
  4. Keep dependencies updated — track Aephoron releases for security fixes

Next Steps ​

Need help? Use the official security contact published by the Empoorio/Aephoron team for the current release.