What is Plain?
Plain is a native macOS browser for readable pages.
It opens URLs, follows links, searches the web, keeps local history, and supports back/forward navigation. The important difference is what happens after a page is fetched: Plain removes the active web runtime, extracts the useful text and images, and renders the result as a native SwiftUI document.
Plain is built for the quieter case: you found something worth reading or following, and you want the page without the machinery around it.
Plain also includes Plain News, a source-based digest for intentional catch-up reading. Plain News collects RSS and web sources you choose, applies a time window, ranks articles locally, and opens selected items in the normal Plain reader.
Good Fit
Section titled “Good Fit”Plain is a good fit for:
- articles
- documentation
- essays
- blogs
- recipes
- reference pages
- research material
- mostly textual sites
- search-result browsing and link-following workflows
- source-based daily or weekly reading digests
Wrong Fit
Section titled “Wrong Fit”Plain is intentionally narrow. Use your regular browser for:
- banking
- shopping carts
- rich editors
- SaaS dashboards
- social feeds
- complex login flows
- video apps
- pages that only exist after JavaScript runs
Plain makes this product boundary visible. When a page needs a full browser runtime, use Open in Default Browser.
Search
Section titled “Search”When address-bar input is not a URL, Plain searches with Mojeek rather than Google or another big-tech default. Plain also cleans Mojeek search result pages into native search results when possible.
Plain News
Section titled “Plain News”Plain News is for curated reading rather than endless feeds. You choose sources, pick a rolling or calendar time window, optionally add interests, and run a local reading pass.
When available, Plain News uses Apple Foundation Models locally for article selection and summaries. Otherwise it uses local heuristic ranking. Plain does not send articles or interests to a remote AI service.
What Plain Does Not Do
Section titled “What Plain Does Not Do”Plain does not run page JavaScript, keep a persistent cookie jar, support browser extensions, preserve full CSS layout, or try to become a general-purpose browser.
That limitation is the point. Plain treats HTML as source material for a readable native document, not as an app to execute.