Former PC Gamer writers have gone on to do amazing things: Pen Star Wars movies, sell millions of extremely good videogames, and, maybe, save the internet? I exaggerate slightly, but tech writer Corbin Davenport released a tool last week called Just the Browser that offers the faintest glimmer of light in this AI abyss we now call the web.
Per the description on Just the Browser's Github page, the project is a script that, when run, will "remove AI features, telemetry data reporting, sponsored content, product integrations, and other annoyances from web browsers." On Windows, all you have to do is open PowerShell as administrator and copy-paste this command:
& ([scriptblock]::Create((irm "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/corbindavenport/just-the-browser/main/main.ps1")))The script will then ask you which browser you wish to de-AI, with support for Chrome, Firefox and Edge. Press a couple keys and you're done. It's just as simple to run in the terminal on Mac or Linux.
To set expectations, Just the Browser does not touch anything on the actual websites you visit, which means you're still going to be seeing AI crap all over the place. It is not a silver bullet. What it's doing is using group policy settings—the sorts of under-the-hood levers that IT folks configure that aren't typically visible to the everyday user—to disable features that don't have an easy off switch. It's not a hack or a browser extension, and you could do the same thing manually if you wanted to—Corbin just bundled up a bunch of nice little changes into one simple script.
If you're a Chrome user, here's all the stuff Just the Browser is disabling, which you can see for yourself if you type chrome://policy/ into your address bar.
Feature | Information |
AI Mode Settings | Turns off Google's AI Mode integrations in the address bar and the New Tab page search box. |
Create Themes Settings | Turns off the ability to create custom themes and wallpapers with generative AI. |
Gemini Settings | Blocks Gemini app integrations. |
Gen AI Local Foundational Model Settings | Prevents the local AI model from being downloaded. |
Help Me Write Settings | Turns off the Help Me Write feature powered by AI. |
History Search Settings | Turns off AI History Search. |
Tab Compare Settings | Turns off the AI-powered Tab Compare feature. |
Built In Dns Client Enabled | Forces Chrome to use the host operating system's DNS client instead of the built-in DNS client. This has no effect when using DNS-over-HTTPS. |
Default Browser Setting Enabled | Prevents Chrome from checking if it's the default browser and showing notifications about it. |
Dev Tools Gen Ai Settings | Turns off debugging in the Dev Tools powered by generative AI models. |
The open source project has gotten a blitz of attention this week, popping up on Hacker News and a range of tech sites. This has of course invited a number of correct-but-nonetheless-obnoxious commenters pointing out that running a random PowerShell script you find on the internet is very bad opsec, and who says we should trust this random guy anyway? I am! I'm saying it!
Corbin has a long history of making cool, free open source projects, and Just the Browser also has a documented manual process if you want to see exactly what the script is changing (which is just the stuff in the table above).
Great work, Corbin. Now we just have to figure out how to block the rest of the slop.
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