Pickle: TV Browser

Most web browsers on a television are a desktop browser with a cursor bolted on. Pickle is built the other way round — for a remote control, at ten feet, on hardware that is slower than the phone in your pocket.

WHAT MAKES IT DIFFERENT

Pages are adapted for the screen you are actually using. Body text is given a minimum size, line length is capped so a paragraph does not stretch across two metres of panel, and line spacing is opened up. A strong focus outline is injected into every page, because most sites style only the mouse hover state and leave D-pad navigation invisible. Menus that appear only on hover are made to work on focus instead, so hover-only navigation stops being a dead end.

Ads and trackers are blocked using EasyList filters, with cosmetic filtering so blocked ads do not leave holes in the layout. On TV hardware this is the largest single speed improvement available: it removes work rather than optimising it.

Typing an address with a D-pad is the worst part of any TV browser, so Pickle gives you two ways around it. Open "Send from phone" and scan the QR code with any phone — no app to install — then type or paste the address on a real keyboard and it opens on the TV. A pairing code shown on the screen keeps it to people in the room.

Videos on pages that were never designed for a remote often have a play button the D-pad cannot reach. Pickle drives the page's own video player directly and expands it to fill the screen.

ALSO INCLUDED

- Bookmarks and history, on a home screen built for a remote

- Private browsing, with the whole interface recoloured so you can tell at a glance

- Find in page, with next and previous on the D-pad

- Choice of search engine: DuckDuckGo, Google, Bing or Wikipedia

- Adjustable text size

- Desktop or mobile site switching

- A dimmed-white reading mode for dark rooms

- An optional safe-area inset for televisions that crop the edges of the picture

PRIVACY

Pickle has no account, no sync and no analytics. Your history and bookmarks stay on the device. The phone link runs on your local network only, and only while that screen is open.