Setup Guide

Play W.E.B. Full Screen

Get rid of the tabs, the address bar and the bookmarks strip, and put a Warp Empire Battles icon on your desktop that you double-click to play — exactly like an installed game. Takes about a minute, and you never have to hunt for the tab again.

Nothing is downloaded and nothing is installed on your computer. W.E.B. still runs in your browser — you are just telling the browser to give it its own clean window instead of a tab. Your saved games, your login and your orders are all unaffected, and you can undo any of this in seconds.

1What changes

A normal browser window spends the top 100–150 pixels of your screen on things W.E.B. does not need: the tab strip, the address bar, the bookmarks bar, the extension icons. On a laptop that is a real chunk of your galaxy map. Installing W.E.B. as an app removes all of it and gives the game its own window in the taskbar, its own desktop icon, and its own Alt+Tab entry.

W.E.B. running in an ordinary Chrome tab, with the tab strip, address bar and bookmarks bar stacked above the game. — BeforeThe tab strip, the address bar and the bookmarks row — about 130 pixels of window spent before the galaxy even starts.

The same game installed as an app: one slim title bar and nothing else above the galaxy map. — AfterOne slim title bar. Nothing between you and the galaxy — and it opens from a desktop icon.

2The one-minute way — install W.E.B. as an app

Recommended — Chrome & Edge, Windows and Mac

This is the whole guide in one step. It gives you the clean window and the desktop shortcut and the W.E.B. logo icon, all at once, with nothing to type.

Google Chrome

Go to webofstars.com/portal and log in, so the shortcut opens on your games list.
Click the ⋮ three-dot menu at the top-right of Chrome.
Choose Cast, save and share → Install page as app…
On older versions of Chrome this is More tools → Create shortcut… instead — and if you get that one, be sure to tick Open as window.
A small dialog appears showing the W.E.B. logo and the name. Leave the name as W.E.B. (or type whatever you like) and click Install.
W.E.B. reopens instantly in its own bare window, and a shortcut with the W.E.B. logo lands on your desktop. That is it — double-click it any time.

Do not see “Install page as app”? Chrome only offers it on a normal window — not in Incognito, and not while the page is still loading. Make sure the address bar reads https://webofstars.com and try again. If it is still missing, use the manual Windows method below, which always works.

Microsoft Edge

Open webofstars.com/portal and log in.
Click the … three-dot menu at the top-right.
Choose Apps → Install this site as an app.
Name it W.E.B. and click Install.
Edge then asks where to put it. Tick Create Desktop shortcut — and Pin to taskbar too, if you want it one click away — then click Allow.

The finished article, sitting on the desktop with your other apps — double-click and you are in the galaxy.

3Windows — build the shortcut by hand

Use this if your browser will not offer “Install”

Same end result, five more clicks. You create an ordinary Windows shortcut that launches Chrome or Edge in app mode — a window with no tabs and no address bar — and then you swap the icon for the W.E.B. logo yourself.

Right-click an empty patch of your desktop and choose New → Shortcut.
Paste this into the location box — use the line that matches the browser you want it to open in:
Google Chrome
```
"C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --app=https://webofstars.com/portal
```
Microsoft Edge
```
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe" --app=https://webofstars.com/portal
```
Keep the quotation marks around the program path, and make sure there is a space before --app= but none anywhere inside it.
Click Next, name it W.E.B., and click Finish. You now have a working shortcut with a plain browser icon.
Download the W.E.B. icon file and save it somewhere permanent — your Pictures folder is fine, but not your Downloads folder, because Windows reads this file every time it draws the icon and the shortcut goes blank if you delete it later. Download webofstars.ico Windows icon file — all sizes from 16×16 to 256×256
Right-click your new shortcut → Properties → Change Icon… → Browse…, pick the webofstars.ico file you just saved, then OK → Apply.
Optional, but worth it: right-click the shortcut once more and choose Pin to Start or Pin to taskbar.

4Mac — Safari and Chrome

Safari (macOS Sonoma and later)

Open webofstars.com/portal in Safari and log in.
Click the Share button in the toolbar — the square with the arrow.
Choose Add to Dock….
Name it W.E.B. and click Add. It appears in your Dock with the W.E.B. logo and opens in its own toolbar-free window.
Want it on the desktop as well? Open Finder → Applications, find W.E.B., and drag it to your desktop while holding ⌘+⌥ to leave an alias there.

Chrome or Edge on a Mac

Identical to the Windows instructions in section 2 — the menus are in the same place. The finished app lands in your Applications folder and in Launchpad rather than on the desktop; drag it out of Applications to the desktop or the Dock if you want it there.

5No shortcut needed — just press F11

If you only want the extra screen space for a single session, skip all of the above. With W.E.B. open in a normal tab:

Platform	Full screen	Also worth knowing
Windows	`F11` — press it again to come back	`Ctrl`+`Shift`+`B` hides the bookmarks bar permanently
Mac	`⌃`+`⌘`+`F`	`⌘`+`⇧`+`B` hides the bookmarks bar
Chromebook	The full-screen key above the number row	Same Install page as app menu as desktop Chrome

Full screen hides the clock and the taskbar too. That is lovely for playing and less lovely when you are trying to beat a turn deadline — the installed-app method in section 2 gives you the clean window while leaving your taskbar and clock visible, which is why it is the one we recommend.

6iPad, iPhone and Android

The same trick works on a tablet or phone, and it matters more there: it removes the browser's address bar, which on a phone eats a surprising amount of a portrait screen.

iPad and iPhone (Safari)

Open webofstars.com/portal in Safari — this does not work from Chrome on iOS.
Tap the Share button (the square with the up arrow).
Scroll down and tap Add to Home Screen.
Tap Add. The W.E.B. logo appears on your home screen and opens full-screen with no browser bars at all.

Android (Chrome)

Open webofstars.com/portal in Chrome.
Tap the ⋮ menu → Add to Home screen (some versions say Install app).
Confirm with Add or Install.

7Making it look right — zoom and window size

If text looks too big or too small, your browser zoom is not at 100%. Press Ctrl+0 (Windows) or ⌘+0 (Mac) inside the W.E.B. window to reset it. The game already applies its own scaling, so stacking browser zoom on top of it is what makes panels overlap.
The app window remembers its size and position. Drag it to the size you like once and it will come back that way. Double-click its title bar, or press ⎕+↑ on Windows, to maximise it.
You can go one step further and press F11 inside the installed app window too — that removes the last thin title bar for a completely edge-to-edge galaxy.
Notifications keep working. If you have turned on browser notifications for turn reminders, they behave from the app window exactly as they did from the tab.

8Removing it again

Installed app (Chrome): open the W.E.B. window, click the ⋮ menu in its corner, and choose Uninstall W.E.B. Or visit chrome://apps, right-click the W.E.B. tile and choose Remove from Chrome.
Installed app (Edge): go to edge://apps, then use the … next to W.E.B. → Uninstall.
Hand-made shortcut: just delete it from the desktop like any other file.
Mac Dock app: Finder → Applications, drag W.E.B. to the Bin.
iPad / iPhone: press and hold the home-screen icon → Delete Bookmark.

None of these touch your account, your games or your submitted orders — the tab at webofstars.com/portal works exactly as before.

9Troubleshooting

Problem	Fix
The shortcut asks me to log in every time	You created it from an Incognito or Private window, or you are blocking cookies for webofstars.com. Delete it, open a normal window, log in, tick Remember me, and create the shortcut again.
The icon is a plain browser logo	Windows caches shortcut icons. Follow step 5 of section 3 to point it at `webofstars.ico`; if it still will not change, sign out of Windows and back in to clear the icon cache.
The icon went blank later on	The `.ico` file was moved or deleted. Windows reads it every time it draws the icon, so keep it somewhere permanent and re-point the shortcut at it.
“Install page as app” is greyed out or missing	You are in Incognito, on a work-managed browser that blocks installs, or on Firefox — which does not support app install at all. Use the manual shortcut or F11 instead.
The window opens far too small	Resize it once by dragging a corner; the browser stores that size for next time.
It opens the wrong page	The shortcut should point at `https://webofstars.com/portal`. Right-click it → Properties and check the end of the target line.

Still stuck? Ask in the W.E.B. Discord — tell us which browser and which operating system you are on and somebody will walk you through it.