Browser Automation
Control your real Chrome browser with your login sessions intact
Foxl's most powerful feature is browser automation using your actual Chrome browser - with all your logged-in sessions intact. This is what sets Foxl apart from every other AI assistant.
Why This Matters
ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other AI tools cannot access your logged-in accounts. They can only browse the public web. Foxl is different - it controls your real Chrome browser, which means it can:
- Read your Gmail or Outlook inbox
- Check your Amazon order status
- Navigate your company's internal tools
- Fill out forms on sites where you're logged in
- Extract data from authenticated dashboards
Two Browser Tools
browser (agent-browser)
A separate automation browser, driven through the agent-browser CLI (Rust +
Playwright). It uses its own Foxl profile under ~/.foxl/browser-profile, kept
apart from your personal Chrome, and a login you make in it persists between runs.
The agent sends it agent-browser commands:
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
| open URL | Navigate to a page |
| snapshot -i | List the interactive elements with short refs (@e1, @e2) |
| click @ref | Click an element |
| fill @ref "text" | Type into an input |
| wait --load networkidle | Wait for the page to settle |
| screenshot | Capture the page |
| close | End the session |
It needs Node's npx on your machine: Foxl runs npx agent-browser@latest, so the
first use downloads the CLI and later runs reuse it.
Best for: JavaScript-heavy sites, forms on public sites, and anything that should stay out of your personal browser.
browser_extension (Chrome Extension)
Enhanced control of your actual Chrome browser:
| Action | Description |
|---|---|
| Tab management | Open, close, switch, and group tabs |
| Navigate | Open a URL in the focused tab |
| Snapshot | A compact accessibility snapshot - only the interactive elements, with short refs |
| Click and type | Interact with your real Chrome tabs |
| Select | Pick an option in a dropdown |
| Scroll | Navigate long pages |
| Screenshot | Capture visible content |
Best for: tasks requiring your login sessions - email, dashboards, authenticated sites.
The Chrome Extension uses your real browser sessions. When you're logged into Gmail in Chrome, Foxl can read your email. When you're logged into Slack, Foxl can check your messages. No separate login needed.
Installing the Chrome Extension
Open the Foxl listing on the Chrome Web Store and click Add to Chrome. Inside the app the link lives under Settings > Web Access, on the Chrome extension card, which also shows whether the extension is connected.
The extension is its own project (foxl-ai/browser-extension, Apache-2.0), not a folder inside the desktop app, so there is nothing to point Chrome at locally. See Chrome Extension for the manual "Load unpacked" route, which is there for a Chrome that cannot reach the store.
The extension checks the desktop's version when it connects and asks you to update a desktop older than 0.6.5.
Web Access
Everything about how Foxl reaches the web is one pane, Settings > Web Access, and its switches are standing permissions rather than per-message choices: Browser control (turns the browser and browser_extension tools on or off together), Fetch URLs (the web_fetch tool), the Chrome extension card (Connected or Not connected, with the Web Store link, the manual download and the source), and Allowed domains. It is desktop-only; app.foxl.ai has no local tool server to drive.
Security
Browser automation is powerful, so Foxl includes several safety measures:
- Sensitive site blocking: banking, payment, crypto-exchange and tax or government domains (US and Korean) are blocked by default. Settings > Web Access > Allowed domains shows how many are blocked, lets you switch the filter off, and takes domains that should be allowed through; the blocklist itself can be edited through
TOOLS.mdor the/api/security/domainsAPI. - Visual feedback: The Chrome Extension shows visual indicators when the agent clicks or types.
- Action transparency: All browser actions are logged and visible in real-time in the dashboard.
Platform Support
There is no Chrome to detect or configure. The browser tool brings its own browser through agent-browser, with a Foxl-only profile under ~/.foxl/browser-profile, on macOS, Windows and Linux alike. The browser_extension tool works in whichever Chrome (or Chromium-based browser) you installed the extension in - see Chrome Extension.