The beginning of ROOTWIN search engine and Chromium browser development

In spring 2022 ROOTWIN started experimenting with its own web infrastructure: a private search engine at rootwin.ga and a Chromium-based browser.

The search engine

The first search prototype was more of a research project than a finished product. The team explored how search, indexing, query privacy, and the user interface for a self-hosted web service should work.

The core idea was simple: build search without storing history or unnecessary tracking, then eventually connect it to future ROOTWIN services.

The Chromium browser

The next step was a custom browser client built on Chromium. The first public beta appeared in April 2022, and a later build — ROOTWIN.zip — was published along with its source materials.

This stage never grew into a major commercial product, but it gave the team valuable experience: building desktop applications, packaging releases, testing web interfaces, and understanding how to build an independent ecosystem around ROOTWIN.