> During the first run, Zen will prompt you to install a root certificate. This is required for Zen to be able to intercept and modify HTTPS requests.

That's a no from me.

Can it run locally with no outgoing internet access? Then maybe yes?

Zen's engineer here – yes, it does! All processing happens locally on your device. No traffic or telemetry is ever sent to our servers.

Why is the root certificage needed and how is this better than uBlock? There's next to no info on the page

> Why is the root certificage needed

Unfortunately, it's the only way to perform HTTPS inspection outside the browser. It's essentially required for any filtering beyond doing basic host-based matching.

> how is this better than uBlock

I wouldn't claim that Zen is strictly better than uBO. However, Zen works outside the browser (protecting against many desktop apps that have ads and tracking SDKs) and also supports any browser out of the box – including post-MV3 Chrome.