A small model writes well and misremembers facts. So for the questions where facts matter, tick “Search the web first”. Fogar looks the question up, hands the results to the model, and the answer cites them. The search is free with no key. Nothing is searched until you ask.
Free. Open source. Off until you tick the box, every time.
The results come back to the page and the model answers there. The search provider sees a query. It never sees your conversation or your files.
| Provider | What leaves | Good for | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free, no key | The subject of your question“Who is the US president?” goes out as “the US president”, to DuckDuckGo’s Instant Answer API and to Wikipedia’s search in your browser’s language. Wikipedia pages that only matched on body text are dropped. | Well-known people, places, terms | Free |
| Brave Search | Your question and your keySent only to Brave’s search API. Up to five web results come back. | Facts, names, anything recent | Free tier: 2,000 queries a month |
| Tavily | Your question and your keySent only to Tavily’s search API. Up to five web results come back. | Facts, names, anything recent | Free tier: 1,000 queries a month |
| Box not ticked | nothingNo search happens. The model answers on its own, from this device or your cloud endpoint. | Writing, explaining | Free |
Keys are stored in this browser. Each search API’s address is requested as a permission when you save its key.
“Search the web first” sits under the ask box. Tick it for one question, or set it to start ticked in Settings. The free provider is already chosen.
off by default · one clickUp to five results. Their titles and snippets go in front of your question, numbered, with an instruction: answer only from these, cite them like [1], and say so if the answer is not there.
snippets, not whole pagesThe answer cites its sources inline. The list of links appears only when the answer actually cites something; otherwise the line under the answer says “no relevant web results” or “none cited”.
sources are links · open themSearch the web and answer again, with sources. Think longer, which lets the local model reason first with a 600-token budget. Or ask the other model, if you have set one up: your cloud model if the answer came from the device, the device if it came from the cloud. The better answer replaces the first in the conversation.
Select text on any page and right-click. A new tab opens and asks about it, and the page comes along: its title, address, and about 1,500 characters around your selection. The answer comes from the page, and says when the page does not contain it. Dig deeper adds web results on top.
With a file attached, the answer comes from the file and the search rests. Dig deeper can still add the web, as a supplement. About attachments.
Everything else is answered by the model in your browser, with no request at all. About the local model.
For quick factual questions, it does the same basic thing: search, then answer with citations. It is much smaller. It reads five snippets, not whole pages, and the answer is written by a model in your browser or by the cloud endpoint you chose. No Fogar server sees the question.
No. The free provider uses DuckDuckGo’s Instant Answer API and Wikipedia, with no key. A Brave Search or Tavily key adds full web results, and both have free tiers.
No. A search happens only for a question you send with “Search the web first” ticked, or when you choose “Search the web and answer again” from Dig deeper. The box starts unticked unless you change that in Settings.
A query and, for Brave or Tavily, your key. The free provider gets the subject of your question with the question words stripped. None of them gets your conversation, an attached file, or the text of a page you right-clicked on.
The list appears only when the answer cites a result. If the model found nothing useful, the line under the answer says how many results were fetched and that none were cited, so you know the search happened.
Fogar is on the Chrome Web Store. One click to add it, and it updates itself from there. Then open a new tab.
Free, from the Chrome Web Store. Brave, Arc, and Edge install from it too.
On your phone, or not on Chrome? The same Fogar runs as a web app at app.fogar.ai. Open it once with a connection, add it to your home screen (Safari: Share, then Add to Home Screen; Chrome: the menu, then Add to Home screen), and set it up from there; after that it works offline. The widgets that need Chrome’s own APIs, Sessions, bookmarks, Inbox, Feed, Jira, and Agenda, stay on the desktop.
Loaded the zip before the listing went live? The store copy has a different extension ID, so your data will not follow on its own. Three steps move it over.
Todos, notes, recipes, widgets, sessions, and settings go into one file.
It opens on your next new tab, empty.
Once it looks right, remove the old copy in chrome://extensions.
Can't use the store? The same build is here as a zip: unzip it, turn on Developer mode in chrome://extensions, and Load unpacked. It will not update itself.