buffr

Vim-modal browser. Native shell, GPU-accelerated compositing via CEF. Keyboard first. No Electron. No web UI for chrome.

This site is the user-facing docs surface. The chapter list on the left covers:

  • Getting started — build from source, run the dev tree.
  • Running on macOS — Homebrew prerequisites, CEF vendoring, and direct cargo run behavior for local Mac development.
  • Configuration — every section of config.toml: [general], [startup], [search], [theme], [privacy], [downloads], [hint], [crash_reporter], [updates], [accessibility], [idle_inhibit], [engines], [keymap].
  • Keymap — every default page-mode binding, with a reference for the vim-flavoured action grammar.
  • Multi-tab — multi-tab BrowserHost, session restore, pinned tabs.
  • Hint mode — f/F follow-by-letter overlay.
  • Context menu — buffr's own right-click menu, and buffr-src: view-source.
  • Updates — the once-a-day GitHub release check, opt-out, and the manual --check-for-updates CLI.
  • Privacy — what buffr stores, what it never does, and the one network request it makes by default. Telemetry is opt-in and local-only; there is no collector to send it to.
  • Accessibility — CEF renderer accessibility, keyboard-first chrome, high-contrast theme.
  • Packaging — Linux .deb / .rpm / .tar.gz / AUR / Flatpak / Snap; macOS .app + .dmg; Windows MSI.
  • macOS signing — Developer-ID + notarization plan (not yet implemented).
  • Windows packaging — the WiX 3 MSI layout.
  • UI stack ADR — why CEF off-screen rendering composited with wgpu in one winit window, instead of a separate chrome window or a CPU-blitted strip.

Source repo: https://github.com/kryptic-sh/buffr.

Install

macOS (Homebrew)

brew install --cask kryptic-sh/tap/buffr

Arch Linux (AUR)

paru -S buffr-bin

Pre-built binaries for Windows (MSI), Debian/Ubuntu (deb), Fedora/RHEL (rpm), Snap, and Flatpak are available on the releases page.