Install & first run

Get Umbra running and past the licence gate.

What it's for

Umbra is licensed per machine, and nothing in the app opens until this computer is activated. First run is two short moments: unlock the app with a key (or a trial), then meet the four-step loop and launch your first Account. This page walks both.

Requirements

Windows 10 / 11, 64-bit — it installs for the current user. Get the installer from the download page, which also shows whether it's the beta or release channel. macOS follows once the build can be notarised (we're waiting on an Apple Developer ID). There is no Linux build.

Activate this machine

Enter your licence key

Paste the key — UMBRA-XXXXXX-… — and press Activate. The licence binds to this computer: one licence, one machine.

Or start a free trial

No key yet? Drop an email under Start free trial. It's one day, no card, and one trial per computer — all three said up front, so nothing turns into a surprise at the moment of refusal.

You're in

Once activated, Umbra keeps working offline for seven days before it needs to re-verify. A billing hiccup doesn't lock you out mid-week either: a failed payment drops you into a grace state where the app keeps running while the card is retried.

The four-step loop

Before any Session exists, Umbra shows the loop the whole app is built around. It's four moves, and you'll repeat them for every Account you make.

1 · Add a proxy
The exit each Account browses from. Optional to start; add one anytime in Proxies.
2 · Create an Account
Name, colour, proxy — Umbra builds the matching Fingerprint for you.
3 · Save a sign-in
Log in once; the Account stays logged in.
4 · Open & go
Browse as that Account in one click, in its own isolated Session.

Your first launch

The welcome screen gives you a name field and one button. Type a name, press Create & launch, and Umbra makes the Account and opens it as its own isolated browser in a single step — you land on a live page, browsing as someone new. A launch that fails keeps the welcome up with the error, rather than dropping you into an empty app.

Because this button opens the Account the moment it exists, it takes a free connection from your pool and gives it to that Account. Add at least one connection before you use it. If you have none free, the create is refused and nothing is written — rather than opening your first Account on your own home connection, which is the one thing this product exists to prevent. Press Get started instead, add a proxy under Proxies, and make the Account from the Accounts screen.

That is the difference between this button and the New account form: the form offers "No connection — uses your home internet" as a deliberate choice you can read and take. The welcome screen offers no such choice, so it may not make one on your behalf.

Keeping Umbra up to date

Umbra checks for a new version in the background and downloads it when no Session is holding a queue place or a cart. Once it has downloaded, it installs the next time you quit, and Umbra opens on the new version. Restart to update installs it straight away. Check for updates, beside the version under Settings → Plan & licence, asks on the spot; the background check can be switched off under Security & privacy.

On Windows and Linux, closing the window quits Umbra, so that counts as a quit too. If a Session is holding a queue place or a cart at that moment, the update waits for a later quit, so you can reopen Umbra straight away and carry on. If Umbra ever can't finish starting, see Support for the way back.