Hermit — Lite Apps Browser

• Get Hermit now from Google Play or our own Chimbori App Store (F-Droid repo with automatic updates).
• Get Hermit Premium ~~$7.99 USD~~ $4.99 USD (the sale is global, at this price in your local currency).

More Sandboxes — now up to 10

We heard from some of you that 5 sandboxes weren’t enough for compartmentalizing your digital life, so we’ve now doubled the number.

A frequently-asked question we get is, why not allow infinite sandboxes: the way sandboxes work, they have to be individually created and defined inside the app. They cannot be created at run-time. Each sandbox works in its own process, so there are also performance concerns with enabling a large number of sandboxes. We will continue to listen to feedback, and as hardware evolves, we’ll consider adding even more sandboxes in the future.

Copy a Lite App to Create a New One

For those of you creating multiple Lite Apps that are similar, or to use the same Lite App in different sandboxes, you can now copy an existing Lite App, and use it as a template to create as many new ones as you need. In the main Hermit app, tap on the three-dots menu, select “Copy”.

UserScripts in Incognito Mode

UserScripts are quick and easy ways to modify the content of any page you visit. Written in JavaScript, you can run UserScripts within Hermit, and achieve what extensions, add-ons, boosts, and power-ups do in other browsers.

In previous versions, UserScripts could only be used for Lite Apps. Now, you can turn on UserScripts that will be applied to all pages loaded in Incognito Mode. Note that any site inclusions or exclusion defined in a UserScript file (using the @match or @exclude headers) will still be checked first.

Install UserScripts from a Library

To make it easier to discover and start using UserScripts, we now offer a Library within the app itself. More UserScripts will be added over time, and feel free to suggest ones you would like to see added.

Install UserScripts by opening .user.js files from your device

Use any file manager app, and choose to open any existing JavaScript files in Hermit. You will be prompted to install it as a UserScript or a Bookmarklet.

Reader Mode Improvements

Reader Mode has been available for several years in Hermit. Now, the Reader Mode button in the toolbar shows up for even more sites. The new Reader UI shows images from the original page in addition to page content.

Search for Lite Apps in Library by name

The Lite Apps Library in Hermit has grown over the years. There are now over 250+ Lite Apps available to install in one click. That made it hard to quickly find the ones you’re looking for. So now, you can type the first few letters to search for Lite Apps by name, and then install them in Hermit.

Downloaded files open automatically when ready

When a download completes, you no longer need to open your file manager to view it. Downloaded files will open automatically in the default viewer app, giving you easy and quick access to all files.

New to Hermit?

Lite Apps are fast and lean Web apps, tightly integrated with Android. With Hermit, you can create your own Lite Apps out of any Web site. Unlike a usual traditional browser, Hermit integrates Lite Apps into your Android OS, so that you can share from any other Android app to a Lite App, search from within the Lite App, get notifications via Atom & RSS feeds, and customize Privacy Settings, Content Settings, and Behavior for every single Lite App individually — features you won’t find in any other browser.

Hermit is proudly Android-first and Android-only, and follows Material Design guidelines to bring you a superb user experience backed by solid engineering & a commitment to your privacy: no personal data collection, no behavior tracking, all brought to you by a small California indie developer.

Unlike other browser makers, we are not in the business of selling ads or your personal information. You pay for our app with money, not your privacy. Most features can be used for free. Your purchases are our only source of support for many more years of innovative feature-packed updates. Thank you!

For 8+ years, you’ve known, downloaded, and loved Hermit, the Lite Apps Browser — and told all your friends about it too! And we have continued to release regular updates with brand new features in every version. All this, for the same low one-time purchase price that you paid early on.

We have maintained the same high level of trust you put in us, and Hermit continues to be a privacy-first app with no ads, no upgrade nags, no personal data collection, no behavior tracking, and no shady SDKs. Thank you for all your support, we truly appreciate it!

It takes a bit of learning & understanding before you can use Hermit effectively & we’re here to help!

• Getting Started Guide: https://hermit.chimbori.com/help/getting-started
• Help Articles & FAQ: https://hermit.chimbori.com/help
• Compare with Traditional Browsers: https://hermit.chimbori.com/features/compare
• Send Feedback: https://chimbori.com/feedback

Get it on Google Play or from our own App Store

• Google Play
• Chimbori App Store: Skip the waiting time for Google to approve every release, and get it straight from us.

Is there a way to get the reader View icon permanently into the address bar for easy access? Seems to me there used to be a way this happened.

I recall opening the settings sidebar to turn on the reader view for an article displayed on the screen. That opened the reader view, and after closing that article the Reader icon remained in the address bar so you could easily access it again. It would be great if it could always be there, at least on pages with eligible text.

One of my major complaints about the Chrome browser is that the invitation to use "simplified view" only appears for a few seconds when you first open an eligible article. But once it's gone you can't get it back. There is a setting in Chrome to "always" show the icon in the address bar. But in effect "always" becomes an unpredictable "sometimes".

I use Edge as my default Android (and Windows) browser partly because it consistently shows the "Reader" icon in the address bar on any page with convertible text. The Yandex browser does the same.

I wish Hermit did also so you don't have to keep opening the sidebar to get at the reader icon.

When creating a lite app either by hand or with the pre-made app for www.walmart.com, opening it in Hermit returns "The requested URL was rejected. Please consult with your administrator" instead of the Walmart homepage. I'm guessing this is due to something on walmart's end, but maybe it's a Hermit issue.

Does anyone else get the same result, and is it fixable? Thanks, all.

Hi, maybe I'm trying to do something that Hermit cannot do, but I was wondering how the "Share" function works. Is it to share links from other apps into a Hermit app?

To be more specific, I was wondering if I could "share" a YouTube URL and parse it so that it redirect some parameters like watch?v= or the videoID after youtu.be/ into another website, for example https://piped.video/

Thanks!

Links to the scripts I imported into Hermit https://github.com/aimslut/old-twitter-logo https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/471572-x-to-twitter

For now, I found both were needed to replace the splash logo and top bar logo

Hermit is the only way I remain logged in to Twitter now, everything else I redirect automatically to Nitter :)

Saved 6 gb of space, no longer have to worry about constantly withdrawing permissions from the IG app via Bouncer,, and the website is faster and nearly fully featured! And it's sandboxed from my main browser within Hermit!

Get Hermit now from Google Play or our own Chimbori App Store (F-Droid repo with automatic updates).

UserScripts

UserScripts are quick and easy ways to modify the content of any page you visit. Written in JavaScript, you can run UserScripts within Hermit, and achieve what extensions, add-ons, boosts, and power-ups do in other browsers. There are several thousands of UserScripts written by others & shared online that you can install and use directly.

More information about UserScripts in Hermit is available as a Help Article: https://hermit.chimbori.com/features/userscripts

UserScripts is a Premium feature: you can either buy it separately for $1.99, or it’s also included as part of the full Premium bundle.

Using a Web browser with Ad Blocking & customized UserScripts is a great alternative for sites whose CEOs have started imposing wacky draconian rules for third-party apps. And also for upcoming new communities like Lemmy, that have yet to see high-quality third-party apps developed for it.

Other Noteworthy Improvements

Icon Picker for Icon Packs

You can now pick custom icons from icon packs more easily, without being limited to photos and images from your device.

Tablet Layout Optimizations

While previous versions of Hermit have already been well-optimized for tablets, we re-did a lot more testing with the new Google Pixel Tablet, and thus this release includes a few more quality fixes specifically for tablets.

New to Hermit?

Lite Apps are fast and lean Web apps, tightly integrated with Android. With Hermit, you can create your own Lite Apps out of any Web site. Unlike a usual traditional browser, Hermit integrates Lite Apps into your Android OS, so that you can share from any other Android app to a Lite App, search from within the Lite App, get notifications via Atom & RSS feeds, and customize Privacy Settings, Content Settings, and Behavior for every single Lite App individually — features you won’t find in any other browser.

Hermit is proudly Android-first and Android-only, and follows Material Design guidelines to bring you a superb user experience backed by solid engineering & a commitment to your privacy: no personal data collection, no behavior tracking, all brought to you by a small California indie developer.

Unlike other browser makers, we are not in the business of selling ads or your personal information. You pay for our app with money, not your privacy. Most features can be used for free. Your purchases are our only source of support for many more years of innovative feature-packed updates. Thank you!

For 8+ years, you’ve known, downloaded, and loved Hermit, the Lite Apps Browser — and told all your friends about it too! And we have continued to release regular updates with brand new features in every version. All this, for the same low one-time purchase price that you paid early on.

We have maintained the same high level of trust you put in us, and Hermit continues to be a privacy-first app with no ads, no upgrade nags, no personal data collection, no behavior tracking, and no shady SDKs. Thank you for all your support, we truly appreciate it!

It takes a bit of learning & understanding before you can use Hermit effectively & we’re here to help!

• Getting Started Guide: https://hermit.chimbori.com/help/getting-started
• Help Articles & FAQ: https://hermit.chimbori.com/help
• Compare with Traditional Browsers: https://hermit.chimbori.com/features/compare
• Send Feedback: https://chimbori.app/send-feedback

Get it on Google Play or from our own App Store

• Google Play
• Chimbori App Store: Skip the waiting time for Google to approve every release, and get it straight from us.

A new lite app should be pre-configured for wefwef. Works like a dream

Discussions and questions about Hermit are now available via Lemmy