Zen Zero

This is a guide to install the Zen Internet Addon and make your Zen browser transparent. This is a work in progress and I will be adding more features and fixes as I go. If you have any issues, please reach out to me on any of my social media or community groups.

Install the Transparent Zen mod

Install the Transparent Zen mod open_in_new from the mod store.
Go to mod settings

Once you have installed the mod, Go into Zen Browser settings > Mods > Transparent Zen and click on the Settings button.
Configure the mod settings

Then make sure the Allow zen browser to be transparent option is checked. (And if you are on Linux, you may see another toggle to be turned on as well). Enable other options if you like and then quit and re-open the zen browser to apply the changes.
Install Zen Internet Addon

Go to the firefox addons page and install the Zen Internet Addon open_in_new.
Sync and Fetch the latest themes

Open the addon pop-up and click on the Refetch latest styles button to fetch the initial styles and keep the auto update toggle on to keep them up to date as I make changes.

Congratulations
Your browser is now transparent
At least I hope so

You can now enjoy the zen browser with a transparent background. You can also change adjust various features provided for each website when you opent he pop-up in that webpage.

Troubleshooting

At the moment, only some of the operating systems are known to support transparency. Here are some:
- macOS
- Windows 11 - native mica and acrylic
- Windows 11 - With mods like mica for everyone open_in_new or DWM blur glass open_in_new
- Windows 10 - With DWM blur glass open_in_new
- Wayland on KDE with Kvin blur open_in_new
- Hyperland - missing instructions, but possible
- GTK Gnome DE - experimental with blur my shell open_in_new
  Enable blur my shell, go into settings and select zen, set opacity to 100, then open zen → enable transparency
If you are using a different OS, please let me know if it works or not. I will add it to the list. But currently some OSs are not supported with transparency and blur.
Make sure your OS already have transparency before we start the process on the sidebar(not compact) and window borders. If not, something else is causing the transparency to now work that you have to figure out.
Check your power saving settings and make sure that’s off on Windows.
Make sure your Windows color settings are not affecting transparency.
Check what mods are you using, mods like better letterboxing, custom themes can affect transparency.
Your zen theme might be overriding transparency. Adjust the contrast slider to gain enough transparency.
Still having issues? reach me out on any social or in any of my community groups for support 🙂

Site specific features

Once you start browsing, Check the add-on pop-up on each website and you will see a list of features along with transparency. If you don’t like anything, You can toggle it… Keep in mind that disabling any feature or entire theming may need a reload at the current state. I am working on to improve this behavior.

Theme request and issues

Don’t see transparency for your favorite website? Request a theme and when I get some free time and if I have access tot hat website, I will manually write and add a css style for that website. Use the built-in button to create a theme request in GitHub for the active website.
You can report bugs and theme issues from the addon as well.
Restricted websites and pages can not be themed and your requests will be closed. Use userContent.css modifications to apply themes for them. Here are some unsupported websites and urls.
- Mozilla addons store
- Settings
- New tab page
- Addon generated pages
- PDF viewer
Theme contributions are welcome, check the readme in the themes repository for a guide.

Force theming

This is for websites that does not have a theme built to get transparency. In that case, you can use the force theming option to apply a wildcard theme trying to achieve transparency for the website. This will also include darkreader support by default to add transparency for websites without a native dark theme. But this also means some elements may break and overlays can have transparent bg but this is out of my control and I don’t wanna write entire new dark themes for the website when the website owners doesn’t even care.
You can force theming in two modes.
- Blacklist mode - all the unsupported websites will get applied and you can manually skip each site.
- Whitelist mode - only selected websites will get applied and switching between modes will invert the selection.

Sometimes you may find websites with no background set for the html or the body so turning off transparency will take no effect for them. In this case, use the fallback background option to add a default background for the html element.