A countdown shouldn't cost you
a browser's worth of RAM.
high performance desktop overlays for PC

"Always on top" on Windows is a real window property. A normal application window participates in the standard z-order, so it gets covered when you switch focus. A topmost window is flagged to stay above non-topmost windows regardless of focus, which is exactly the behavior a timer HUD needs: visible over your editor or call without you having to keep raising it. The important detail is focus. A well-behaved overlay can stay on top without becoming the foreground window or stealing keyboard input — so your typing still goes to the app underneath. That's the difference between a HUD and a modal pop-up that hijacks your work: the HUD is visible but non-intrusive by design. Where many timers go wrong is the runtime. Shipping a desktop app inside Electron bundles an entire Chromium browser per app, with the memory footprint, slower startup, and background processes that come with it — a heavy price for a countdown. TimeFence instead uses Tauri, which renders its small UI through the operating system's existing webview and keeps the core logic in Rust. There's no bundled browser, so the footprint stays small and startup stays fast. The result is a true native topmost overlay that's light enough to leave running all day, local-first with no mandatory account and zero telemetry. The timer stays a timer instead of behaving like a second browser in your task manager.