In today's fast-paced world, it's important to delve into the tapestry of productivity. Here are 10 game-changing tips that will unlock your potential.
Grown, not generated.
A fast Chromium browser for Mac that peels AI Overviews, chatbots and "help me write" buttons off the sites you use, and lets people flag AI-generated posts for each other. The web, with no artificial ingredients.
Free, like dirt. For Apple Silicon and Intel Macs running macOS 13 Ventura or later.
how do potatoes grow
AI Overview
Potatoes grow from tubers, which are swollen underground stems. Each tuber has eyes that, in today's fast-paced world, invite us to delve into the rich tapestry of...
Ask a follow upDive deeper in AI Mode
- extension.example.eduGrowing potatoes, from a soil scientistPlant seed potatoes in spring, two weeks after the last frost, with the eyes facing up...
- garden.example.orgWhy are my potatoes turning green?A page from the community garden, with a photo guide to hilling your rows.
- forum.example.netFirst year growing spuds, what went wrong?Answers from gardeners, written by people with dirt under their nails.
Nothing artificial under the skin
Chrome now ships language models inside the browser and lets websites use them. Potato Browser grows from the same Chromium engine with all of that switched off: no Gemini Nano, no model downloads in the background, and none of the built-in AI interfaces a page could call. Just a plain, honest spud.
- Prompt API
- Summarizer
- Writer and Rewriter
- Proofreader
- Translator and Language Detector
- Speech recognition
- WebNN
Keep your eyes peeled. Flag the AI posts.
A potato has plenty of eyes, and so does this browser. Every post on Reddit, X, Instagram, Facebook, Threads, LinkedIn, YouTube, Bluesky and TikTok gets a small "AI?" button. When enough people flag a post, your browser does what you chose:
Flagged posts stay in your feed with an AI label, like a sticker on the sack.
Flags are anonymous. No account, no email. When your browser checks a page, it sends only the first five characters of a fingerprint of each post, so the flag service never learns what you read. Your own flag is stored as a scrambled id that cannot be traced back to you. Hashed, like the browns.
Plus all the meat and potatoes
- Replant your stuff. Import bookmarks and history from Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Arc, Edge, Brave, Vivaldi and Opera.
- Private windows. Nothing is saved, and everything is peeled away when the last one closes.
- Tabs, history, bookmarks, downloads. Search your history, pin sites to the bookmarks bar, pick up where you left off.
- Fast. No couch potato here. The current Chromium engine, so sites work the way they do in Chrome.
- No telemetry. The browser does not report what you do. This website has no trackers and no cookies either. We prefer chips.
Plant one on your Mac
Free. macOS 13 Ventura or later. Not sure which Mac you have? Apple menu, About This Mac: "Apple M" means Apple Silicon.
- Open the downloaded file and drag the potato into Applications.
- Open the app. macOS is wary of unfamiliar potatoes and says it can't verify the developer, because the app isn't notarized by Apple yet.
- Allow it once: open System Settings, go to Privacy & Security, scroll down and click Open Anyway. From then on it opens like any app.
Questions
Why a potato?
Potatoes are about as un-artificial as it gets. They grow in dirt, they don't write your emails, and nobody has ever asked one to summarize a meeting. That's the browser we wanted.
Is it free?
Yes. No account, no subscription, no ads. Cheaper than a sack of spuds.
Can I see the AI on a site when I actually want it?
Yes, and we won't judge. Click the shield in the toolbar and switch it off for that site. Everything comes back right away, on that site only. Settings has the full list of covered sites and features if you'd like to keep a few of them.
Can't people just flag everything?
Not easily. Each install counts once per post, and so does each network: flags coming from one home or office connection count once, however many installs they claim to be. There is also a daily limit per install. You choose how many flags it takes before a post counts as AI-generated, and a buried post is always one click away.
What exactly does the flag service store?
For each flagged post: a one-way fingerprint of the post's id, the platform name, and a count. For each flag: a scrambled version of your browser's random id, so you can undo it, and a network bucket, a number from 0 to 65,535 derived from the first part of your IP address. Hundreds of networks share every bucket, so it identifies no one; it only stops one connection from flagging a post twice. No IP addresses, no URLs, no accounts.
Why does macOS warn me the first time?
Apple asks developers to send apps through its notarization service. This spud hasn't been through that yet, so macOS asks you to confirm once in System Settings. Notarized builds are planned.
Does it support extensions and saved passwords?
Not yet, they're still sprouting. Your password manager's own app works alongside it in the meantime.
Windows or Linux?
Mac only for now. Other soils, maybe later.