Architecture

Architecture

Overview

Marshall follows a multi-process architecture inspired by Chromium but implemented in Rust for memory safety.

┌─────────────────────────────────┐
│          Main Process           │
│  ┌──────┐ ┌────────┐ ┌──────┐  │
│  │ UI   │ │ Router │ │Config│  │
│  │Engine│ │        │ │      │  │
│  └──┬───┘ └───┬────┘ └──────┘  │
│     │         │                 │
├─────┼─────────┼─────────────────┤
│     │    IPC  │                 │
├─────┼─────────┼─────────────────┤
│  ┌──┴───┐ ┌───┴────┐ ┌──────┐  │
│  │Tab 1 │ │ Tab 2  │ │Tab N │  │
│  │WebKit│ │ WebKit │ │WebKit│  │
│  └──────┘ └────────┘ └──────┘  │
│        Renderer Processes       │
└─────────────────────────────────┘

Core Components

UI Engine (GTK3)

• Tab bar with drag-and-drop
• URL bar with autocomplete
• Sidebar panels (bookmarks, history, AI)
• Settings dialog

Content Blocker

• EasyList/EasyPrivacy filter parsing
• WebKit content rule compilation
• Real-time request interception
• ~70,000 rules loaded at startup

Tor Integration

• SOCKS5 proxy to local Tor daemon
• Circuit display in toolbar
• New identity per-tab option
• .onion address support

Tab Isolation

• Separate WebKit process per tab
• No shared cookies between tabs
• Independent JavaScript contexts
• Memory limit per renderer

Data Flow

User Input → URL Bar → Router → Content Blocker → WebKit Renderer → Display
                                      ↓
                               Block/Allow Decision
                                      ↓
                              Privacy Dashboard Update