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Product requirements

What Petal is, who it is for and the platform constraints it is built around.

Mirrored from PRD.md in the Petal repository

1. Executive Summary & Product Positioning

Petal Browser is a fast, ultra-lightweight, and privacy-focused Android web browser built upon a modern architecture combining a Mozilla GeckoView engine core with a Material 3 Expressive Jetpack Compose user interface.

Petal Browser retains non-invasive, open-source privacy values while delivering modern Android design paradigms, predictive gesture motion, full WebExtension support, and advanced media playback capabilities.

2. Target Platform & Runtime Constraints

  • Operating System Baseline: Android 8.0 (API Level 26, Oreo) minimum.
  • Target SDK: Android 15 / 16 (API Level 36).
  • Target Architectures: arm64-v8a, armeabi-v7a, x86, x86_64 (Universal APK and ABI-split builds).
  • Hardware Integration:
    • Android 12+ (API 31+) Dynamic Wallpaper Color Extraction (Monet).
    • Android 10+ (API 29+) System Gesture Navigation & Gesture Exclusion APIs.
    • Android 8.0+ Picture-in-Picture (PiP) Windowing.
    • Hardware Biometrics (androidx.biometric:biometric:1.2.0-alpha05).
  • Telemetry & Tracking Policy: Strict Zero-Telemetry guarantee. No third-party analytical SDKs, advertising beacons, or background reporting services are bundled.

3. Core Differentiators & Product Features

As evidenced strictly by the current codebase implementation:

3.1 Mozilla GeckoView Standalone Browsing Core

  • Mozilla GeckoView Integration: Complete standalone engine providing modern web standard compliance, independent of system WebView bugs or manufacturer delays.
  • Strict Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP): Integrated content blocking configured to reject third-party tracking cookies, cryptominers, and malicious fingerprinting domains.
  • Total Cookie Protection & AMO Extensions: Isolated cookie jars per site, full support for Firefox WebExtensions (AMO) and native Petal built-in extensions.

3.2 Material 3 Expressive UI & Physics-Based Motion

  • 35 Dynamic Shapes: Interactive shortcuts and UI components adapt across 35 dynamic polygon geometries (PetalMaterialShapes.kt).
  • Living Ambient Mesh: Day/night dynamic backdrop responding smoothly to daylight and palette shifts.
  • AMOLED Pitch-Black Support: Genuine #000000 surface theming across all elevated containers.
  • Waveform Tactile Haptics: Rich micro-haptic ticks on scrolling, address bar tab swiping, and gesture triggers (PetalHapticEngine).

3.3 Advanced Native Media Player

  • mpvEx-Inspired Overlay: Native Compose video controls overlay featuring auto-hide, dual time readouts, speed selector, and brightness/volume vertical slide gestures.
  • Wavy Animated Seekbar: Dynamic sine-wave propagation with instant flattening during scrubbing and pause.
  • Dynamic Picture-in-Picture: Source aspect ratio calculation with playback skip/pause action triggers.
  • Smart YouTube Bypass: Gracefully avoids overlay collisions on native YouTube playback.

3.4 Predictive Back Gestures

  • Dual-surface depth blur and corner-radius morphing during back navigation swipes.
  • System edge-swipe touch protection ensuring browser gestures never interfere with Android system back.

3.5 Power Tools & Ecosystem Bridges

  • PWA Manager: First-class support for installing Progressive Web Apps directly to the home screen.
  • Passkey Support: Hardware-backed FIDO2 / Passkey authentication bridge (com.petal.browser.passkey).
  • Fetch2 Resumable Downloads: Robust multi-threaded file downloader with pause, resume, and real-time speed monitoring.
  • Torrent Subsystem: Package structure and contracts present (com.petal.browser.torrent); full UI availability needs developer confirmation.
  • Petal AI Hub: On-device AI research and summary bridges (com.petal.browser.lens).

4. Architectural Boundaries & Non-Functional Requirements

  1. Zero Data Loss Guarantee: Strict backward compatibility for bookmarks, session tabs, passwords, and user settings across all updates.
  2. Modular Compose Bridging: Seamless embedding of Compose screens into the Java Activity navigation shell without breaking lifecycle or ViewModel scoping.
  3. Open-Source Compliance: Fully licensed under GPL-3.0 with transparent attribution for all upstream libraries.