Everything Vev can do
A practical tour — from the basics to the parts that make Vev different. If you've used a browser before, most of this will feel familiar; the rest is quick to learn.
The basics
The address bar is also the search bar. Type a URL to go there, or type anything else to search with your chosen engine. As you type, Vev suggests matches from your history and bookmarks and live search suggestions — use the arrow keys and Enter to pick one. Press ⌘L anytime to jump to the address bar and select what's there.
The command palette (⌘P) is the fastest way to do anything — open a page, run Huma Read, jump to settings, start a private window — without reaching for the mouse.
The Dynamic Island
Vev's signature is a small pill that drops from the top center only when it has something to say. It shows how many trackers were blocked on the page; tap it to expand the list and Allow anything you trust per-site. It also carries phishing warnings (with Go back / Report / Allow anyway) and Huma Read summaries. Click anywhere else, or press Esc, to dismiss it.
Tabs & windows
Open tabs with ⌘T, close with ⌘W, and reopen a closed one with ⌘⇧T. Drag tabs to reorder them, middle-click to close, and jump straight to a tab with ⌘1–⌘9. Open a fresh window with ⌘N.
Private browsing
Press ⌘⇧N for a private window — a separate, indigo-tinted window whose session lives only in memory. Its home page has switches for WebRTC, fingerprint resistance, and shields that apply to the whole private session. Close the last private window and everything is wiped. More on private windows →
Huma AI
Huma is always working in the background. Before you open a site it scores the address; after a page loads it checks whether the page is impersonating a brand. If something looks like phishing you'll get an amber warning in the Island. Click the sparkle in the toolbar (or run Summarize page) to get an on-device summary of any long article. How Huma works →
Blocking & reporting
Trackers and ads are blocked at the network layer automatically. If a site breaks, open the Island and click Allow next to the domain you need — the change is remembered for that site. If you land on a phishing page, Report tells your local Guard (and, if you've opted in, the community feed) that it's malicious.
Downloads, media & torrents
Every download lands in the downloads page (⌘J) with live progress, pause / resume / cancel, a Show-in-folder button, and a clear-from-list control. Regular files use a high-speed segmented downloader (parallel connections).
Media downloader. On any video or audio page, run Download media (⌘⇧J, the menu, or the command palette). Vev reads the real formats with yt-dlp, so you can pick a resolution, extract MP3, or hit Play online to stream it instead of saving. yt-dlp and ffmpeg are used from your PATH if installed, otherwise Vev fetches them once into its own folder — nothing is bundled into the app or installed system-wide.
Torrents. Click a .torrent link or a magnet: link and Vev hands it straight to the built-in torrent client (librqbit) — it even sniffs the downloaded bytes, so a torrent served with a movie-title filename still goes to the engine instead of saving as a junk file. Torrents show live progress with pause, resume, and remove. You can also paste a magnet or a local .torrent path into the box on the downloads page.
Pop-up blocker. Script-spawned pop-unders — the ads that streaming and torrent sites fire — are blocked automatically. Only a pop-up you actually clicked opens, and it opens as a normal tab, never a bare window.
Extensions
Open vev://extensions, point Vev at an unpacked extension folder, and toggle it on. Content-script extensions (themes, restylers, userscript helpers) are supported. More on extensions →
Keyboard shortcuts
| New tab | ⌘T / Ctrl+T |
| Close tab | ⌘W / Ctrl+W |
| Reopen closed tab | ⌘⇧T / Ctrl+Shift+T |
| New window | ⌘N / Ctrl+N |
| New private window | ⌘⇧N / Ctrl+Shift+N |
| Focus the address bar | ⌘L / Ctrl+L |
| Command palette | ⌘P / Ctrl+P |
| Find in page | ⌘F / Ctrl+F |
| Reload | ⌘R / Ctrl+R |
| Back / forward | ⌘[ / ⌘] |
| Zoom in / out / reset | ⌘+ / ⌘- / ⌘0 |
| Bookmark this page | ⌘D / Ctrl+D |
| Downloads | ⌘J / Ctrl+J |
| Jump to tab 1–9 | ⌘1 … ⌘9 |
| Next / previous tab | ⌘⇧] / ⌘⇧[ |
Getting-started questions
How do I set my search engine or home page?
Open Settings (the menu, or vev://settings). Under General you can pick the search engine used by the address bar and set a custom home / new-tab page, or leave it on the Vev start page.
Where do the internal pages live?
Type a vev:// address: vev://settings, vev://history, vev://bookmarks, vev://downloads, vev://passwords, vev://extensions. Each opens as a real tab.
How do I summarize a long article?
Click the Huma Read action in the toolbar or run 'Summarize page' from the command palette. The summary appears in the Dynamic Island; it's built from the page's own sentences.
How do I route through Tor or a VPN proxy?
Open a private window (⌘⇧N) and use the network picker: Off, Tor (the embedded Arti engine), or a custom SOCKS5/HTTP proxy such as a Mullvad endpoint. Because the engine only accepts a proxy at launch, the picker saves your choice and offers a one-click Apply & relaunch. Everything, DNS included, then goes through it.