Hermit 20 — Assorted New & Improved Features that make the Hermit Experience better

Info Cards: Many people look for answers about various features in Hermit, so the latest release includes Info Cards that explain a few of the advanced features, how they work, and where to get help.

New Dark Mode: On Android Q, R and S, Hermit now uses a more robust Dark Mode implementation, that looks better on more websites than ever before.

Better Downloads Support for misconfigured servers. Hermit can now sniff the MIME type better, so you’ll see correct filenames even when the server provided the wrong one. (E.g. even if a server sends a picture with a “.php” extension, Hermit can auto-correct it to “.png”.)

Swipe Gestures: For those of you who use Gesture Navigation on your phone, and want to turn off swiping in apps, Hermit now lets you enable or disable gestures for opening Bookmarks and Quick Settings. (Hermit → Settings → Lite Apps → Swipe Gestures)

Early Access Program Discontinued: We are thankful to all our Early Access Program users whose feedback and suggestions have shaped Hermit into the app it is today. It’s clear that users are getting tired of too many subscriptions, and would much rather prefer a one-time purchase model.

Understanding “App Tracking” Reports from Competing Browsers such as DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo makes a competing browser app that has recently started reporting on other apps’ usage of telemetry. As a direct competitor, they are hardly a neutral third-party since they have a vested interest in getting you to use their browser instead, and we recommend you treat their reports with caution.

Facebook & Instagram experience deteriorates even further in mobile browsers

From our experience and recent reports from users, the Mobile Web UI for Facebook-owned sites has deteriorated rapidly. Since we do not own or control these sites, we have no power to fix these breakages — please reach out to Facebook for an explanation.

Hermit 19 — Sandbox available to all Premium users + WebView Crash Protection + Android S Compatibility

• Sandboxed Lite Apps, Multiple Profiles and Containers: Out of Early Access. Now available to all Premium users.

  • Hermit is the first and only Android browser with Sandboxes: completely separate Containers that let you use Multiple Profiles. With the Sandbox feature, you can:
  • Separate work accounts from personal accounts.
  • Create a separate sandboxed environment for privacy-invasive sites like Facebook.
  • Use multiple Google accounts, all active at the same time, in the same browser.
  • Use Incognito Mode for sites that offer preferential treatment to first-time users (such as free access to paywalled content).

• WebView Crash Protection: Hermit puts you in control even if WebView crashes.

  • We made huge changes to the underlying code so that even if WebView crashes (like it did for billions of Android users all over the world in March 2021), Hermit will not crash and lets you choose how to recover from the crash.

  • Try it out with this sample page that will cause any Chromium-based browser, including Chrome, to crash:

    https://ronsor.github.io/byechrome.html?ok=bye

  If you’re curious how other browsers handle this, try this URL in any browser!

Android S Compatibility: Hermit is ready for Android S when it ships in the next few weeks.

• We still continue to support Android versions Lollipop (5), Marshmallow (6), Nougat (7), Oreo (8), Pie (9), Q (10), R (11), and S (12).

Hermit 18 — Sandboxed Lite Apps, Multiple Profiles and Containers

• Sandboxed Lite Apps, Multiple Profiles and Containers: Hermit is the first and only Android browser with Sandboxes: completely separate Containers that let you use Multiple Profiles. With the Sandbox feature, you can:

  • Separate work accounts from personal accounts.
  • Create a separate sandboxed environment for privacy-invasive sites like Facebook.
  • Use multiple Google accounts, all active at the same time, in the same browser.
  • Use Incognito Mode for sites that offer preferential treatment to first-time users (such as free access to paywalled content).

• Custom Dark Mode Styles: Instead of a small selection of styles, now you can create your own Dark Mode style by picking one from a million colors.