Settings, Memory, And Knowledge
Open Settings from the button at the top of the AI panel. You can also use Ctrl+, or Cmd+,.
General
Use General to:
- check for Browso updates
- choose light or dark appearance
- change the homepage used by new tabs
- choose Google, DuckDuckGo, or Bing for address-bar searches
AI
Use AI to choose the service that answers your questions:
- Ollama runs through your configured local Ollama server.
- OpenAI uses an OpenAI API key configured for Browso.
- Anthropic uses an Anthropic API key configured for Browso.
For Ollama, the default server address is http://127.0.0.1:11434. Browso lists the models installed on that server. The default model is gemma4:e2b.
Cloud providers can receive your question, current page context, screenshot, relevant saved pages, and enabled memory. Use Ollama when that information should stay with your local model server.
Workspace
Use Workspace to change the width of the AI panel. You can also resize it by dragging its left edge.
The automatic local-runner option controls whether suitable code, file, and data tasks can move to Browso's scoped local runner.
Profiles And Contexts
Profiles group multiple named contexts. The application always keeps at least one profile and one context per profile.
Each context isolates:
- the live AI conversation
- saved user memories
- pages saved for local AI knowledge
Switching context immediately swaps those three data sources. The context name, profile name, and optional purpose are included in the AI system prompt. Existing flat memory and knowledge files migrate into the default Personal / General context.
Browser tabs, website cookies, cache, provider credentials, and general application preferences remain shared. Profiles do not create separate website login sessions.
The Data tab provides explicit local-data controls:
- clear the current AI conversation
- review, delete, or clear pages saved for AI knowledge
- clear the browser cache without removing sign-ins
- clear cookies and site storage, which signs users out of websites
The application does not persist a general browsing-history database.
User Memory
Memory stores durable facts about how the assistant should work with the user.
Categories:
preferenceprofileworkflowinstruction
Memory can be added explicitly with @... or distilled from phrases such as “remember that”, “I prefer”, and “always”.
Memory is bounded to 100 entries. Duplicate normalized content updates the existing entry.
Saved Knowledge
Knowledge stores pages the user explicitly chooses to preserve.
Each page contains:
- ID
- title and URL
- normalized readable text
- selected text captured at save time
- optional note
- creation and update timestamps
Save a page with the bookmark button or /save. Saving the same URL updates the existing record.
Retrieval
Each chat request searches saved knowledge locally using the user message as the query. Up to five relevant excerpts can be added to the model context.
Research mode also includes bounded open-tab context. Saved knowledge and open tabs remain separate sources and are labeled separately in the prompt.
Memory Is Not Knowledge
| Memory | Knowledge |
|---|---|
| User preferences and instructions | Saved web pages and notes |
| Small distilled statements | Larger page records |
| Can be automatically inferred | Explicit save action only |
| Controls assistant behavior | Supplies factual retrieval context |
Neither store is a raw debug log.
Data Controls
Use Settings > Data to clear the current AI conversation, delete saved pages, clear cached files, or clear cookies and site storage. Clearing cached files does not sign you out. Clearing cookies and site storage does.
Browso does not maintain a separate general browsing-history database.