A browser sidebar for local AI that reads the page you’re on

What it does

Page Assist is a browser extension that connects your local inference stack—Ollama, LM Studio, llamafile, or even Chrome’s built-in Gemini Nano—to a chat sidebar and a standalone Web UI. You can open the sidebar on any page to ask your model questions, or switch to “Chat With Webpage” mode so the model can reason about the article or docs in front of you. All data stays in browser storage; the only external call is an optional share feature that can be disabled.

The interesting bit

The rare trick is combining local-first inference with ambient web context. Most local LLM UIs run in a separate app or terminal; Page Assist injects directly into the tab you’re already reading. It also supports a surprisingly wide roster of browsers—Firefox, Brave, Vivaldi, LibreWolf, and Zen included—though Opera and Arc users are stuck with the standalone Web UI for now.

Key highlights

• Runs fully offline via Ollama, LM Studio, llamafile, or Chrome AI (Gemini Nano).
• Sidebar mode overlays any webpage; standalone Web UI opens in a new tab.
• “Chat With Webpage” ingests the active page so you can query its content directly.
• Privacy-first: no personal data collection, and everything is stored locally unless you opt into sharing.
• Broad browser support, but sidebar and page-chat features are unavailable in Opera and Arc.

Caveats

• The roadmap openly flags that “More Customization Options” and “Better UI/UX” are still pending.
• Opera and Arc only support the standalone Web UI, not the sidebar or page-aware chat.

Verdict

Grab it if you want a private, offline Copilot alternative that lives inside your browser. Skip it if you need deep browser automation or a fully polished, feature-complete interface today.