Chervil has always been the AI-first browser: you talk to Sprig, and the web composes itself into a page built for your question. That's the reason to want it. But there's a difference between an app you love to open and the browser you actually live in — and that difference is a hundred small, boring things. Zoom. Printing. A downloads list. A bookmarks bar. Blocking ads. Opening a link from your email in the right app.
0.11.0 is those hundred things. It's the least glamorous release we've shipped and maybe the most important one, because every item on the list is a reason someone couldn't switch — and now can.
The everyday furniture
- Page zoom —
Ctrl +/Ctrl −/Ctrl 0, on composed pages and real sites, with a− 100% +cluster in the toolbar. It sticks between sessions. - A downloads shelf — files you grab from a site now land in a real Downloads list in the Library, with Open, Show in folder, and Remove.
- Printing —
Ctrl+Pprints the current page or site through the normal system dialog. - Reader view — one click on any article strips the ads and chrome down to clean, readable text. It becomes a normal Chervil page, so you can go Back, listen to it, export it, or bookmark it. It runs entirely on your machine — no model call, no cost.
- Favicons — real site icons on your tabs and throughout your Library, so everything looks like the web you know.
- A bookmarks bar with folders — organize bookmarks into folders and turn on a bar under the address bar (Ctrl+Shift+B) where folders become dropdowns and favorites are one click away.
- Picture-in-picture — pop a video out of a site into a floating window and keep working.
- Mute a noisy tab — a speaker badge appears on any tab that's making sound; click to silence it.
Private, and ad-free
- Ad & tracker blocking — one toggle blocks the usual ad and tracking hosts on embedded sites, with a running "blocked this session" count. Off by default; on when you want a calmer web.
- Private tabs — Ctrl+Shift+N opens a tab that leaves no trace in your history or Library and doesn't come back after a restart.
- Clear browsing data — wipe cookies, cache, and site data (plus your Sites history and Downloads list) whenever you like. Your bookmarks and saved logins stay put.
The address bar got smarter
Chervil's omnibox still does the thing that makes it Chervil — type a question and Sprig composes a page. But now:
- It suggests as you type. Start typing and a dropdown offers matching sites from your history and bookmarks (with favicons), plus quick "Search the web" and "Ask Sprig" actions.
- Bangs do a plain web search. Want the old-fashioned list of links? Prefix with
g!(Google),ddg!(DuckDuckGo),b!(Bing), ors!for your default.g! best hiking bootsgoes straight to results.
Make Chervil your default
The biggest one is the quietest: in Settings → General → Browsing & privacy, "Make default…" registers Chervil as your http/https handler and opens the system picker. Once you confirm, links you click in Slack, Mail, or a document open right here — the last real barrier to using Chervil as your only browser.
More windows, and more control
- Multiple windows — Ctrl+N, File → New Window, or the tab right-click menu opens another window. Great across monitors.
- Show the menu bar — prefer a visible File/Edit/View bar to the Alt-to-reveal one? There's a toggle in Settings → Appearance.
- Library, not just History — the toolbar button that opens your History, Bookmarks, Sites, Downloads, and Trash is now honestly named Library, with a search box that filters whatever list you're looking at.
Oh, and Ollama
Small one for the local-model crowd: the Ollama provider now takes an optional API key, sent as a bearer token, for remote or password-protected Ollama servers. Local Ollama still needs nothing.
None of this changes what Chervil is. Sprig is still the point. But a browser you live in has to sweat the small stuff too — and now it does. Download 0.11.0, and if links from your other apps start opening in Chervil, that's rather the idea.