Search is a new Mac browser that weighs 3.7 MB and opens its first window in 320 milliseconds. It is free, runs on Apple silicon Macs with macOS 14 or later, and skips the bundled engine that makes most third-party browsers so large.
Search is made by Office Commun, a design studio in Paris. Version 1.0.3 is available as a DMG from the Search download page. The studio lists it as free for now, with no account or subscription required.
Search Runs on the WebKit Engine Already Built Into macOS
Search uses WebKit, the engine that powers Safari and is part of macOS itself. Because the app does not carry a second engine inside it, the download stays tiny. Office Commun says pages render the same way they do in Safari.
That also means Search gets its engine from the same place Safari does. WebKit fixes reach Macs through system updates, like the critical WebKit security fix that came with macOS Sequoia 15.3.2.
Office Commun also published its own benchmarks. It measured Search against Chrome, Safari and Dia on the same Mac, the same afternoon and the same pages, and reports the median of three runs.
| Measurement | Search | Safari | Chrome | Dia |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Size on disk | 3.7 MB | 36 MB | 1,429 MB | 1,321 MB |
| Cold launch to first window | 320 ms | 730 ms | 526 ms | Not listed |
| Memory before the first page | 51 MB | 203 MB | 663 MB | Not listed |
| Processes with five tabs open | 11 | 21 | 29 | Not listed |
The cold launch time is measured with no page open, and the memory figure counts every process the app owns. Safari takes the longest to open a window in this test, at 730 ms, which is slower than Chrome.
Search Includes Ad Blocking, Spaces and Chrome Extension Support Out of the Box
Office Commun describes Search as a browser with nothing in the way, and the interface follows that idea. Tabs sit across the top or down the side, and a highlight slides to the tab you pick in either layout. Here is what else is built in.
- Pinned tabs. A pinned site shrinks to a single letter or its icon at the head of the row. Pins survive force-quits, and pressing ⌘W puts a pinned tab to sleep instead of closing it.
- Spaces. Separate sets of tabs live in one window, such as work, home or a side project, each with its own icon. Two fingers swiping sideways over the tabs switches between them, and a fresh set can either stay signed in to your accounts or start clean.
- Reading mode. Press ⌘⇧R to keep the article and its pictures and drop the rest of the page.
- Floating video. Press ⌘⇧P or leave the tab, and the video from YouTube or Netflix follows you in a small window above every app. You can skip, pause or send it back with a click.
- Ad blocking. Ads are blocked in the network layer before they load, so there are no scripts and no counter.
- Hide anything. Press ⌘⇧H, click an element, and it stays hidden on that site.
- Chrome extensions. Extensions install straight from the Chrome Web Store in one click on macOS 15.4 or later.
- Private tabs. Press ⌘⇧N for a tab with its own cookies, no history and no place in tomorrow’s session.
- Web Inspector. Inspect Element works on any page, and the console opens with ⌥⌘J.
Passwords are stored in your keychain and shown with Touch ID. If you are coming from Chrome or Dia, Search can bring over passwords, bookmarks and history in one click. For passwords, macOS asks once for the other browser’s key, and everything lands in your keychain under Search’s name. Nothing changes in the browser you import from.
Search does not sync, so your tabs, history and passwords stay on the Mac where they were created. If you move between browsers often, our guide to syncing Safari and Chrome bookmarks and history on Mac covers the options that exist today.
Search is built for people who want Safari’s engine without Safari’s interface. Ad blocking, floating video and Chrome extension support in a 3.7 MB app is a good list for a 1.0.3 release. Spaces and the sidebar layout will feel familiar to anyone who has tried Arc or Dia.
The benchmark numbers come from Office Commun itself, so I would treat them as a starting point and run your own comparison on your Mac. The missing sync is the bigger limit for anyone who lives across an iPhone, iPad and Mac. That keeps Search a second browser for many people, alongside other Mac browser options like DuckDuckGo’s. It also has no AI features, so it falls outside our list of recommended AI browsers to use.
Search Is Free for Apple Silicon Macs Running macOS 14 or Later
Search requires an Apple silicon Mac and macOS 14 or later, which includes Macs on macOS 27 Golden Gate. To make it your default browser, open Settings, go to This Mac and choose Make it the default.
Homebrew users can install it with this command.
brew install --cask driceroland/tap/searchOnce a day, Search reads a small file on the Office Commun site, downloads any newer build in the background, checks that Office Commun signed it, and swaps it in for the next launch. Settings, pins, history and passwords are never touched, and the code is open source on GitHub.
