Just A Browser Mod

This project is experimental and still in active development.

Just A Browser Mod (JAB) adds live web screens to Minecraft. Build a wall of screen blocks, run a command, and the wall becomes a real browser panel powered by an embedded Chromium instance (Rinku).

Server stores screen data (URL, resolution, audio mode) in a ScreenBlockEntity on the origin block of each wall. Commands (/jab create, /jab url, /jab audio) run server-side and broadcast state to clients. The server never renders anything.

Client receives screen state over the network, creates Chromium browser instances via Rinku, and renders their textures onto the wall blocks. Right-clicking with an empty hand opens a browser GUI with a URL bar and full mouse/keyboard forwarding — edits round-trip back to the server so all players see the same page in real-time. Browsing is session-only: no cache, cookies wiped on every browser destroy.

Multiplayer — the wall display is shared. When any player navigates, the URL change is broadcast to all tracking clients, who load the same page. Everyone sees the same content simultaneously.

Lifecycle is distance-gated: browsers are created within loadDistance and destroyed past unloadDistance, with a concurrent cap (maxBrowsers). Breaking any block destroys the whole display. Browsers unload when chunks unload and recreate on reload. No idle Chromium instances are preloaded.

• Multiblock screen walls — any rectangle of screen blocks (2x2 minimum) becomes a display, on any face of any side (walls, floors, ceilings).
• Real browser rendering — pages render onto blocks in-game with texture quality tied to GUI scale.
• Interactive browser view — right-click with an empty hand to open the browser GUI with a URL bar (Ctrl+L to focus) and full mouse/keyboard forwarding. In-page navigation (links, back/forward) works natively and stays in sync with the wall.
• Shared displays — all players on a server see the same page on a wall simultaneously.
• Audio modes — screens can be set to global (page audio plays normally) or dynamic (volume driven by your distance from the wall, 64-block falloff).
• Per-face displays — one wall can show a different page on each of its six faces.
• Craftable — 4 screen blocks per craft (iron nuggets + redstone). Breaks into an item without requiring a specific tool.

JAB in-game

JAB in-game 2

Crafting recipe

1 Redstone dust and 4 Iron nuggets

• Minecraft 1.21.11 (Fabric)
• Fabric API
• Rinku (rinku-fabric, 3.0.4-1.21.11)

On first launch Rinku downloads its Chromium native binaries — this may take a few minutes.

1. Craft screen blocks and build a flat wall (minimum 2x2).
2. Look at the wall and run:

/jab create # create a display on the face you're looking at
/jab create https://youtube.com # create and load a URL immediately
/jab url <url> # change the page on the wall you're looking at
/jab audio global|dynamic # switch audio mode for the wall
/jab remove # remove the display
/jab debug # print server-side wall info for debugging

3. Right-click the wall with an empty hand to open the interactive browser view.

Breaking any block of a wall removes its display. Browsers are only active near the player and automatically unload at a distance.

A config/jab.properties file is generated on first run:

Good:

• Distance-gated lifecycle — browsers are only active near players and destroyed at a distance, keeping idle resource usage low.
• Max browser cap — maxBrowsers prevents runaway memory usage; excess screens park and resume when a slot opens.
• No idle preload — no Chromium instances exist until a screen is actually created.
• Chunk-aware — browsers unload when chunks unload and recreate on reload, avoiding wasted work in unloaded areas.
• Staggered creation — browsers spawn 2 per tick to avoid lag spikes when many screens load at once.
• Frustum-culled rendering — off-screen walls skip the render pass entirely.

Not so good:

• Each screen is a real Chromium instance — large walls or many simultaneous displays consume significant CPU and memory.
• First launch downloads Chromium binaries over the network, which may take several minutes.
• Chromium subprocesses persist until the JVM exits (they are not killed on disconnect or world change).
• Browser creation is async — after /jab create, there is a brief delay before the page appears on the wall.
• Dynamic audio mode injects JavaScript every 5 seconds for each audio screen, which adds minor per-tick overhead.

Just A Browser Mod is developed with significant AI assistance. The majority of the codebase was generated through AI-assisted development workflows, with human oversight for code review, verification, and build processes. All code is reviewed, tested, and maintained by the project author.

./gradlew build

The built jar lands in build/libs/. Drop it (plus the requirements above) into your mods/ folder.

• Just A Browser Mod by Renderham — the original mod (this project)
• Rinku by Keksuccino — the embedded Chromium framework that powers the browser rendering
• BrowserMod by Mcjunky33 — the original in-game browser concept for Minecraft
• WebDisplays by CinemaMod — multiblock screen walls in Minecraft
• Fabric API by FabricMC — the modding framework this mod is built on
• Minecraft by Mojang Studios — the base game

This project is released under the CC0 1.0 Universal license.