Brevier

io.github.gurov.brevier
by Zapstore Catalog

A reading browser: the web without JavaScript, set in your own type

Brevier opens a web page, reduces it to its text and structure — headings, paragraphs, lists, quotes, code, tables, images — and sets it in the reader's typography: a comfortable line length and leading, warm paper in light or dark, four ready-made styles or your own face, size and spacing. No JavaScript runs and no site styles apply. The type is the reader's, not the site's. What it does • Articles, blogs, documentation and long reads come out as clean text. The page's own contents, the feeds it offers and its navigation sit on a shelf at the side. • Long reads remember where you stopped and offer to continue from there. • Notes on a page: highlight a passage or write a few words beside it, with pictures of your own if you like; they stand under their paragraph and go out as Markdown. The marks come back when you open the page again, even after the site has changed around them. • Every article you read is kept on the phone as your copy: it opens after the site has changed or gone, and "Search what you've read" looks through all of them. • Search from the address bar: words that are not an address go to DuckDuckGo Lite, and the results come back as a list of links. • RSS, Atom and JSON feeds, including feed files and feed:// links. A feed of comments on one page reads as a thread, and so do Hacker News, Lobsters and Discourse forums. Habr articles come with their comments. • Documentation straight from GitHub and GitLab repositories: type gh:owner/repo. • Tabs, history, bookmarks, find on page, zoom, saving an article as Markdown (with its images, as a zip). • Pages read in the last week open without downloading. • Back and forward return to the place you were reading. • It can be your default browser: links from other apps open in new tabs, and what needs JavaScript or a login goes on to your other browser in one tap. • Check this page: a score from 0 to 100 for how well a page reads without JavaScript, with the reasons. What it does not do • Run JavaScript, apply site styles, keep cookies or log in. • Show ads, count its users or ask for an account. Brevier reports nothing to anyone: it fetches the pages you open and what it takes to read them, and your searches go to DuckDuckGo. Sites assembled entirely by JavaScript do not open. Brevier says so plainly and offers your other browser. Images are decoded by Brevier's own memory-safe decoders, not the system's. Certificates are checked by Android, and a site Android does not trust does not open. Brevier is free software, under MIT or Apache-2.0. The same core runs a GTK window on Linux and Windows.

First release: Nov 2, 2026, 2 total releases.

Most recent release: Nov 3, 2026.

Website Repo

Appears in 0 app stacks.

0 sats / 0 zaps received in the past year.

Sats Received

Underlying data available via MCP: app_zaps, app_releases.

Zap Count

Underlying data available via MCP: app_zaps, app_releases.

Releases

  • Nov 3, 2026 0.22.0
    Pictures no longer bring Brevier down on Android 9 and earlier, the phone turns the page with a tap, a swipe or the volume keys, and bookmarked pages keep their pictures. Most of it came from readers: a letter from a reader on F-Droid, the testers of the Google Play closed test (#48) and the comments on the Habr article. **Pictures on Android 9 and earlier (#58).** On an LG V30 with Android 9, any Ars Technica article with pictures closed Brevier, and every start after it too. Android 9 has a bug in the way it copies pixels into an image when they do not start at the beginning of their buffer, and Brevier's did not; newer versions fixed it, which is why the same pages were fine on Android 17. The pixels now start at the beginning. The crash also got past the guard of 0.21.0 (#57), because it happened inside Android rather than in Brevier; the guard now covers that too, so a page that brings Brevier down waits on the next start, whatever the cause. **Turning the page (#55).** In Settings, under Turning the page, each with its own switch and all off: a tap on the text turns forward, on the left third back (**Left hand** swaps the sides); a swipe sideways, right to left forward; the volume keys, down forward and up back, while a page is open. A turn moves by a screen less one line, so the last line stays in sight, and stops between lines. Links, pictures and notes work as before, and past the end of a page Brevier offers the next one rather than going there. **Pictures in the archive (#42).** A bookmarked page and a page with notes keep their pictures, next to their copy in the archive: the ones already downloaded to show the page, with no extra request, up to 32 MB a page. Brevier shows them from there before asking the site, so the pictures outlive it too. On the phone they stay out of the backup to Google, which stops backing an app up at all past 25 MB. **Search is easier to find (#50).** While what you type is not an address, the first line under the address bar reads **Search DuckDuckGo for "…"**, and the empty bar says what it is for. On the phone the suggestions no longer cover the address bar while the keyboard is up.
    More…
    **Front pages with regional versions (#49).** A front page such as `nsk.rbc.ru`, where a reader in Novosibirsk lands from rbc.ru, showed only its footer: Brevier took `rbc.ru` for a suffix like `co.uk` and counted the headlines on `www.rbc.ru` as another site's. Regional pages of aif.ru and mk.ru gain their headlines too. **Your own User-Agent, for developers.** At the very bottom of Settings, in the window and on the phone. Brevier says `Brevier` unless you switch this on, and the setting says why we recommend keeping it: sites may show pages wrongly or not at all with another name. **Windows (#61).** If the window closes before it appears — on some older laptops the graphics driver brings GTK down — the next start draws without the graphics card and says so at the bottom of the window. To try the graphics card again, delete `drawing.txt` in `%LOCALAPPDATA%\Brevier`. **Also:** the window no longer prints "Trying to measure BrevierArticle" warnings. Files: `brevier.flatpak` (any distribution, with Flatpak; updates from Brevier's repository), `brevier-0.22.0-x86_64-linux.tar.gz` (GTK 4 from the system), `brevier-0.22.0-arm64.apk` (Android 7 and later, 64-bit ARM, signed with the release key; it installs over earlier versions), `brevier-0.22.0-windows-x86_64-setup.exe` and `brevier-0.22.0-windows-x86_64.zip` (Windows 10 and 11, 64-bit), the command line alone: `brevier-cli-x86_64-linux.tar.gz`, `brevier-cli-aarch64-linux.tar.gz`, `brevier-cli-macos.tar.gz` and `brevier-cli-windows-x86_64.zip`, and `SHA256SUMS`.
  • Nov 2, 2026 0.20.0
    More of the page is set your way — the paper, the space between paragraphs, a larger zoom — and on the phone, full screen and tabs that are easier to clear. Most of it was asked for by readers: in the comments on the Habr article, in a letter, and by the testers of the Google Play release. **Choose the paper (#53).** Settings → **Paper**, in the window and on the phone. Light: Ivory (as before), White, Grey and Sepia. Dark: Warm (as before), Grey, and Black for OLED screens. Each tone comes with its own ink, links and muted text, and each keeps ordinary text at WCAG AA contrast — that is why it is a list and not a colour picker. The light theme and the dark one each keep their own paper; **High contrast** still sets its own over any of them. **Paragraph spacing (#59).** Under **Fine-tune**: a quarter of a line, half a line (the new default; it was about a quarter, and on the phone paragraphs ran together), three quarters, one, one and a half. Or no space and the book's way instead: a paragraph that follows another starts with a first-line indent, but not after a heading, a list, a quote, a picture or a poem. **Book** now indents its paragraphs, **Large print** takes three quarters of a line, **Compact** a quarter; a style you picked before stays lit. The sample in Settings shows two paragraphs. **Zoom up to 300% (#56).** Two more steps, 250% and 300%. On the phone they simply apply; the window takes a step only when the column fits the screen, and says that a shorter line length makes room when it does not. **On the phone.** **Full screen (#60)**, off by default: while you read, the status and navigation bars go away, and Brevier's own bar slides away with them; a swipe from the edge brings them back for a moment, over the page. They come back by themselves for the address, find, Settings, the tab list, the shelf and dialogs, and they stay with TalkBack or Switch Access on. The text keeps clear of the camera cutout. **Tabs (#52)**: a row of the tab list closes with a sideways swipe, and a closed tab comes back with **Undo** for six seconds, with its history and its place in the text. A tab opened by a link from another app closes when Back returns to that app; the page stays in the history and in your archive.
    More…
    **Sites behind a script check (#51).** Cloudflare's "Just a moment…" and Qrator answer 403 or 401 until the browser runs their script. Brevier used to say "the site would not let us in"; now it says that the site lets in only browsers that run JavaScript, and offers the Wayback Machine's copy — the site lets every reader in, so the copy goes around no one's decision. A plain 403 still offers your own copy and your browser, not Wayback. `brevier --check` reports such a page as `access-forbidden`. Files: `brevier.flatpak` (any distribution, with Flatpak; updates from Brevier's repository), `brevier-0.20.0-x86_64-linux.tar.gz` (GTK 4 from the system), `brevier-0.20.0-arm64.apk` (Android 7 and later, 64-bit ARM, signed with the release key; it installs over earlier versions), `brevier-0.20.0-windows-x86_64-setup.exe` and `brevier-0.20.0-windows-x86_64.zip` (Windows 10 and 11, 64-bit), the command line alone: `brevier-cli-x86_64-linux.tar.gz`, `brevier-cli-aarch64-linux.tar.gz`, `brevier-cli-macos.tar.gz` and `brevier-cli-windows-x86_64.zip`, and `SHA256SUMS`.