Features · Tao Browser by Hostao®
A calm browser for busy founders.
Here's everything in Tao Browser 1.4.2, plus what's being tested for the next beta. Labels tell you what's shipped and what isn't.
Spaces, each with its own logins
Make a space for each company, client or project. Every space has its own cookies and website storage, so you can stay signed in to two Google Workspace accounts, or two Stripe dashboards, without them colliding. Each space has its own pinned tabs, folders and start page with the links you use most.
Switch spaces from the sidebar or with ⌘K.
Things no other browser we found does for founders
We checked Safari, Chrome, Arc and Dia, Brave, Opera, Edge, Vivaldi, Orion, Zen, SigmaOS and Comet. None of them has these built in. Everything runs on your device: no account, no telemetry, nothing sent to Hostao.
Smart Sidebar
Your tabs get out of the way while you type, scroll, watch or sit in a call, and slide back over the page when you pause. The page never jumps. A thin rail in your space's colour shows dots for tabs that need you, and Tao remembers your choice per site and per space. Auto-hide sidebars exist elsewhere; one that follows what you are doing, we found nowhere else.
Wrong-Account Guard
Signed in to Gmail, Outlook or Zoho with Company A's account while you're in Company B's space? Tao shows a bar with Open in Company A, and Gmail's Send asks first. Tao learns which account belongs to which space the first time it sees it, and it reads only the account label, never your mail.
Site Watch
Your start page shows your own sites: up or down, response time, days until the SSL certificate expires and days until the domain expires. The checks go from your device straight to your site and to the domain's registry (RDAP). You don't need a monitoring account, and there's no Tao server in between.
Client Mode
One switch for screen sharing (⇧⌘M on Mac). The titles of your other tabs, your pinned tabs, history in search, password prompts and your dashboards disappear, and sites you mark as confidential are covered until you click. On iPhone and iPad it turns on by itself when the screen is recorded, mirrored or AirPlayed. On Mac it turns on when you share from Tao.
Company Cards
Each space keeps its company's legal name, registered address, VAT/TRN/GSTIN/EIN and company number. Fill uses the card of the space you're in, including the tax fields normal autofill skips, and never offers another company's card.
Confidential sites are never sent to the AI panel or to Tao Agent. The Mac app needs version 1.3 or later; on iPhone and iPad they are in version 1.4 on the App Store.
Arc import
Press ⌘K and choose Import from Arc. Tao reads Arc's sidebar file on your Mac and recreates your spaces, pinned tabs, folders and favourites. It only reads: nothing in Arc is changed, and nothing is uploaded anywhere. You can also import bookmarks from Chrome, Brave and Arc.
⌘K command bar
Type a web address or a search, jump to an open tab, switch space, pin the current tab (⌘D), open a private tab (⇧⌘N), toggle split view or the blocker, or import from Arc. Everything is a few keystrokes away.
Split view
Put two pages side by side in one window. Useful for a call agenda next to notes, or your metrics next to the investor update you're writing.
AI page panel, on your terms
Open the panel and pick a task: summarise, key points, draft a reply, a quick competitor scan, or pull out contacts and pricing. You can also ask your own question about the page.
- Nothing is sent until you click. Then only the visible text of the current page and your question go to the provider.
- Bring your own key for the provider you prefer: Google Gemini (default), OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, OpenRouter, Mistral, Groq, DeepSeek or any OpenAI-compatible server, or run Ollama / LM Studio on your Mac so page text never leaves it. Each space can use its own provider and key. Requests go straight from your Mac to the provider. Tao has no AI server, no proxy and no telemetry.
- Turn on “never send” for any site, and the panel won't send anything from it. The AI panel is off in private tabs.
- Your keys are stored only in this Mac's Keychain, never in a plain file and never synced.
- The first time you use each provider, Tao tells you where the text goes and asks first. On Google's free Gemini tier, Google may use what you send to improve its products, so don't use the panel on private pages with a free key.
Built-in ad and tracker blocker
Tao compiles over 100,000 rules from EasyList and EasyPrivacy into WebKit's content blocker. Blocking happens on your Mac, so pages load with less junk and nothing about what you visit is sent anywhere. If a site misbehaves, turn blocking off for that tab.
Small things that keep you safe
Private tabs
Nothing from a private tab is written to disk or saved in your session.
Honest address bar
Built to resist spoofing, so the address you see is the page you're on.
Careful downloads
File names are cleaned and downloads are marked with the macOS quarantine flag, so Gatekeeper checks them.
Asks before leaving
Links that try to open other apps ask first. Camera and microphone access is asked per site, and you can reset it.
Sandboxed and notarised
Tao runs inside Apple's App Sandbox, and every download is notarised by Apple. It uses the WebKit that ships with macOS, so engine fixes arrive with Apple's updates.
No account
Nothing to sign up for and nothing to sign in to. Open it and browse.
Built-in password manager
Tao saves passwords in your macOS Keychain, on your Mac, and fills them after you confirm with Touch ID or your Mac password. It can generate strong passwords and import CSV files exported from Chrome, Safari, Bitwarden and 1Password. The breach check uses Have I Been Pwned's k-anonymity method: only the first 5 characters of a hash of the password are sent, never the password itself. Passkeys are coming.
Tao Extensions
Add an ad blocker, dark mode or a password manager in one click. The Tao Extensions gallery lists extensions we have reviewed and tested in Tao: uBlock Origin Lite, Dark Reader and Bitwarden. Each one downloads from its publisher's official release and must match the exact version we reviewed. You see its permissions in plain words before it's added, reviewed updates arrive by themselves, and extensions never run in private tabs. Tao can also find the extensions you use in Brave, Chrome, Edge, Vivaldi or Arc and add the ones it supports. Any other web extension can be added from a file, folder or link, though some Chrome-only extensions won't work in WebKit. There's no Chrome Web Store install. Needs macOS 15.4 or later. On iPhone and iPad (iOS 18.4 or later) the gallery has uBlock Origin Lite and Dark Reader.
The everyday basics
History and search
Searchable history, kept on your Mac, with clearing by time range.
Find, print and PDF
Find in page, print, and save a page as PDF.
Reopen closed tab, reader view
⇧⌘T brings back what you just closed. Reader view strips a page down to its text.
Downloads list and bookmarks bar
A proper downloads window and a bar for your pinned links.
Settings
Set Tao as your default browser, choose a search engine, manage site permissions and website data per space. HTTPS-Only is on by default.
Zoom and picture in picture
Zoom remembered per site (⌘= and ⌘-), and picture in picture for videos.
Coming soon: Chrome extensions with a security check and a Space network. Also planned: passkeys, Windows and Android versions, a Mac App Store version, Safari bookmarks import and more AI providers. Follow along in the changelog.