Web is a native macOS browser that puts a local model next to the page

A browser shell with two ideas layered on WebKit

Web is a native macOS browser with local AI, and the README calls the current release an experimental preview. The stack is stated plainly at the end of the document: SwiftUI, WebKit and MLX, with the MLX link pointing at ml-explore/mlx-swift.

Those three names tell you what kind of project this is. It is not a rendering engine of its own, so it inherits WebKit's compatibility and its behaviour. The native part is the shell around it, written in SwiftUI, and the AI part is MLX, the machine learning framework that runs models on Apple Silicon hardware.

The platform requirement is strict and stated at the top: Apple Silicon and macOS 26.5 or later. That is not a casual constraint. It excludes Intel Macs, it excludes a large part of the installed base, and it means the project is competing in a narrow band of hardware where the local model story is genuinely strong.

The distribution story is equally specific. There is a download for Mac on the releases page, and separately a build path for people who want to compile it. The release notes for the current version live in the repository at docs/releases/0.1.3.md, and the changes for a version are read there rather than guessed from a tag name.

For the user, the pitch is a browser whose chrome is native macOS software and whose assistant is optional, local and private by default, rather than a data collection point.

Glance for a corner of the screen, Focus Mode for just the page

Two window behaviours define the shape of the browser, and both are keyboard driven.

Glance is the quick lookup feature. The shortcut is a control, option and space combination, and it opens a small lookup in the corner of the screen. It can be pinned there or opened as a tab instead, so the same feature serves as a scratchpad and as a browsing mode. The README notes the shortcut can be changed in Settings, which is a small thing that matters when a global hotkey conflicts with something else.

Focus Mode is the other one. A shift, command and B combination reduces the window to just the page, and command L brings the address field back. In other words, Focus Mode is not a separate window type, it is the same window with the interface hidden, and the address bar is reachable on demand.

The general tab model follows the same philosophy of getting the interface out of the way. Tabs can be kept on the side, on top, or hidden. The command and K shortcut finds tabs and commands, which is a palette rather than a menu tree. The README also mentions pinning what you need and turning on session restore to pick up where you left off.

The screenshots in the README are captured app states over a macOS wallpaper, and the capture details are documented in docs/demo-plan.md, which is a pointer to how the project presents itself. The visual language is the liquid glass look that macOS itself has adopted, and the topic list on the repository names liquid-glass alongside macos, swift, swiftui, webkit and mlx, so the design intent is consistent across the whole surface.

The assistant can run on your Mac or anywhere you point it

The AI feature is a question you ask about the page in front of you, answered by a model. The README is careful about where that model can live, and the choice is the interesting part.

There are three options. You can use MLX on your Mac, which means the model runs locally on the hardware. You can supply a provider API key, which means the page content goes to somebody else's service. Or you can point it at your own compatible server, which keeps the traffic inside infrastructure you control.

The privacy defaults are stated as plainly as the options. Page sharing with an API starts off. Private pages stay excluded. The assistant reads and summarises pages, and docs/ai-providers.md is the document that covers the providers and the privacy model in full.

That default is the part that separates this from a browser with a cloud assistant bolted on. If you enable an API provider, you are making a deliberate act of sharing pages with it, and private browsing windows are excluded regardless. With MLX the model is on the machine, and the README's own framing, asking a page with a model running on your Mac, is the primary story rather than an afterthought.

The keyboard shortcut for the assistant is shift, command and A. The README is also honest about the state of the feature in the preview: local MLX generation and Stop are verified, while cloud completions need more testing. In other words, the path the project has verified end to end is the local one.

Building it: Metal toolchain, ad-hoc signing, pinned dependencies

The build instructions assume Xcode, the macOS 26.5 SDK and the Metal toolchain, and they start by fetching the source and the toolchain component:

git clone https://github.com/nuance-dev/Web.git
cd Web
xcodebuild -downloadComponent MetalToolchain
open Web.xcodeproj

Then you run the Web scheme. The README states that local builds use ad-hoc signing, so no Apple Developer account is needed, and that dependency revisions are pinned, which is the detail that decides whether two people building the same commit get the same binary.

For a build without the debug overhead, there is a script:

./scripts/build-release.sh

and the WEB_SIGNING_IDENTITY environment variable is how you substitute your own certificate when you need one.

The test targets are described in a second command, which builds for the arm64 macOS destination and runs only the WebTests target with code signing disabled:

xcodebuild -project Web.xcodeproj -scheme Web \
  -destination 'platform=macOS,arch=arm64' \
  -only-testing:WebTests CODE_SIGNING_ALLOWED=NO test

The repository has separate WebTests and WebUITests directories alongside the Web sources and the Xcode project, and an AGENTS.md at the root, which in this project means the conventions for working on the code, including with AI assistance. The scripts directory holds the release build helper referenced above.

What a 0.1.3 preview actually promises

The Preview paragraph is the most useful thing in the README, because it says plainly what has been checked and what has not.

Web 0.1.3 is described as a development preview. Local MLX generation and Stop are verified. Cloud completions and wider browser compatibility need more testing. Three documents back that up: docs/validation.md for the validation work, docs/security-audit.md for the security review, and docs/product-direction.md for what the README calls the browser gap.

That is an unusual amount of candour for a preview, and it changes how you should read the rest of the README. The screenshots and the feature list describe intentions, while the preview paragraph describes verified behaviour, and the two are not the same thing.

The shortcut table is the same kind of document. It lists what each combination does, and it marks Glance as changeable in Settings, which tells you that the defaults are meant to be adjusted. There is a table row for nearly every action a browser needs, from new tab and private tab through history and downloads to the assistant, and the address field is reachable in Focus Mode with command L.

The project also has a SECURITY.md, a CONTRIBUTING.md, a CREDITS.md and the standard .github directory, so the repository is set up to receive issues and contributions even though the product itself is early.

Licence, releases and the pace of the project

The licence needs a note rather than a summary. The README links an MIT licence and the badge at the end of the document says MIT license, while the licence recorded for the repository itself is a custom one that GitHub cannot classify, with a pointer to the LICENSE file. In other words, the two statements are not obviously the same thing, and anyone who intends to base a product on this code needs to read the LICENSE file rather than trust the badge.

This is an observation about the metadata, not legal advice, and it is a small blemish on an otherwise careful project, which is worth noting because the rest of the documentation is unusually forthcoming about its own limits.

The release history shows two phases. Versions 0.0.3 on 2025-08-11 and 0.0.4 on 2025-08-12 came a day apart, and then a long gap, followed by 0.1.3 on 2026-09-14. The jump from a 0.0.x line to 0.1.3 in a single release suggests the numbering moved to a scheme that matches the scope of the current build rather than incrementing by one.

The last push was on 2026-09-14, the same day as the release, and the repository is not archived. The docs directory holds the release notes, the demo plan, the AI providers and privacy document, the validation notes, the security audit and the product direction, and each of those corresponds to a question a user would otherwise have to ask the author directly.

Editorial conclusion

Web fits an Apple Silicon developer who wants a browser whose assistant can run a model on their own machine, who is comfortable building from an Xcode project rather than installing a signed app, and who can accept that the release is a preview. It is the wrong choice if you need a browser that works today across every site, since the README itself says cloud completions and wider browser compatibility need more testing, and it is the wrong choice on any Mac that is not Apple Silicon running macOS 26.5 or later. Before adopting it, read docs/validation.md and docs/security-audit.md, decide whether your assistant runs on MLX, a provider key or your own server, and resolve the licence question, because the README links an MIT licence while the repository classification of the licence is unresolved.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. Issues
2. nuance-dev/Web on GitHub
3. README
4. Releases