aylight · version 0.7.1 · free, open source
A browser made of glass.
aylight is the browser I built for my own days. Tabs in a sidebar, a ⌘K box that jumps anywhere, pins for the sites you live in, and chrome that lets your desktop show through. Nothing else on the screen.
No accountNo trackingUpdates itselfSource on GitHub
Install once. It looks after itself.
Windows and Linux update in the background
aylight checks GitHub every few hours, downloads the new build quietly, and asks for one restart from the sidebar.
Mac shows a line in the sidebar
Unsigned Mac apps cannot swap themselves, so aylight tells you a version is out and opens this page. One download, drag to Applications.
Every line is public
The whole browser is a few hundred lines on GitHub. Read it before you trust it. Builds come from GitHub Actions, not from my laptop.
The parts you use every day. Nothing more.
Jump anywhere with ⌘K
One box for your open tabs, bookmarks, history and a Google search. Type, arrow down, Enter. ⌘Enter opens a new tab.
Pin what you live in
⌘⇧P turns a tab into a small icon at the top of the sidebar. Pins come back every launch and ⌘W leaves them alone.
Tabs in a sidebar
Every tab has room for its name. Hide the sidebar with ⌘⇧S when you want the page alone.
Bookmarks, one key
⌘D keeps the page you are on. It lives under your tabs, a click away.
Glass that shows your desktop
On Mac and Windows the chrome is real system glass, so your wallpaper comes through.
Tabs that come back
Quit and reopen, your tabs are where you left them. Closed one by mistake? ⌘⇧T brings it back.
An address bar that remembers
Start typing and it finishes the site you meant from your own history. Anything else goes to Google.
Stay signed in
Your logins live in one private profile on your computer and survive every restart.
Downloads where you can see them
They land in your Downloads folder and show at the foot of the sidebar with progress. Click to open, right-click to reveal.
Find in page
⌘F, then ⌘G to step through matches. Esc puts it away.
Built on Chromium
Sites work the way they do in Chrome, because the engine underneath is the same.
One honest note before you install.
aylight is free and I have not paid Apple or Microsoft for a signing certificate, so your computer will ask before it opens it the first time. That is expected, and it happens once.
Mac: drag aylight to Applications and open it once. macOS says it could not verify the app, that is the unsigned notice. Click Done, not Move to Bin. Then open System Settings, Privacy & Security, scroll to Security, and click Open Anyway next to aylight. One more Open, and it opens normally from then on. Terminal route, same result: xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/aylight.app. If you downloaded 0.7.0 and saw “damaged”, bin that copy and download again: 0.7.1 fixed it.
Windows: if SmartScreen appears, click More info, then Run anyway.
Linux: make the AppImage executable with chmod +x aylight-*.AppImage, then run it. Linux has no system glass, so aylight paints its own.