The Stupid Buddy
Buddy from The Stupid Browser, living on your Mac, Windows or Linux desktop (and your Android phone), with a small team that does work for you.
- File Buddy finds, reads, sorts, renames and tidies files
- Writer Buddy writes emails, notes, summaries and documents
- Web Buddy looks things up and brings back facts with sources
- Hands Buddy (Mac and Windows for now) uses other apps for you: it looks at the screen, clicks and types
- System Buddy (Linux) opens apps and Settings and does the quick things: volume, Wi-Fi, dark mode, timers
Click Buddy's ball, say what you need, and watch the team work. Buddy always asks before moving, renaming, replacing or deleting anything (in an alert only you can answer), and helpers only use the folders you allow.
Website · Download · Part of The Stupid Company
Hands Buddy
On a Mac, Hands Buddy needs two permissions: System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen & System Audio Recording (to see) and Accessibility (to click and type). Turn on The Stupid Buddy in both, then quit and reopen it.
It asks you before every task. While it works a red bar shows at the top of the screen, and Esc stops it at once. It won't type into password fields, and clicking anything like Send, Buy, Pay, Post or Delete needs your OK in an alert. With Ollama it uses qwen3-vl:8b-instruct (it can see); on Groq it switches to a model that can see screenshots.
The AI
Pick where Buddy's brain runs in Settings:
| Cost | Speed | Privacy |
|---|
| This Mac (Ollama) | Free | Slower (15–40 s a task) | Nothing leaves your Mac |
| Groq | Free key | Very fast | Requests go to Groq |
| Google Gemini | Free key | Fast | Requests go to Google |
| OpenRouter | Free key (free models) | Varies | Requests go to OpenRouter |
For This Mac: install Ollama, then ollama pull qwen3-vl:8b-instruct (6 GB). Online keys are kept in your Mac's Keychain.
Install
Mac: download The.Stupid.Buddy.Mac.zip, unzip it and drag The Stupid Buddy into Applications. macOS 14 or newer, Apple chip or Intel. It isn't notarized by Apple: the first time, right-click the app → Open → Open.
Windows: download StupidBuddy-<version>-windows-setup.exe and run it (Windows 10 or 11, no administrator needed). It isn't signed: if Windows SmartScreen warns you, click More info → Run anyway. Keys are kept with Windows' own per-user encryption. Hands Buddy needs no extra permission on Windows; it still asks before every task, and Esc stops it.
Linux: download StupidBuddy-<version>-linux-amd64.deb and open it, or sudo apt install ./StupidBuddy-<version>-linux-amd64.deb (Ubuntu 24.04 or newer, or anything with WebKitGTK 4.1). Keys are kept in your system's keyring (GNOME Keyring); with no keyring Buddy won't save them at all. Your system's software updates keep Buddy up to date. Hands Buddy isn't on Linux yet: Wayland keeps other apps' screens and keyboards private, so for now it's Mac and Windows only. Buddy opens through XWayland so its ball can float, be dragged and thrown like on the other systems.
On Linux Buddy also has System Buddy, which opens apps and Settings, changes the volume, brightness, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, dark mode and do-not-disturb, locks the screen, takes screenshots, sets timers and reminders, and tells you how the battery is doing (turning Wi-Fi or Bluetooth off asks you first). You can talk to Buddy too: press the mic, speak (Swedish, English or another language), and it stops when you do. Hearing needs an AI that can listen, Groq or Google Gemini (Ollama and OpenRouter can't yet); answers you asked out loud are read aloud with speech-dispatcher (switch it off in Settings).
Buddy in Stupid OS: Buddy starts with the computer (stupid-buddy --background, from /usr/share/stupid-buddy/stupid-buddy-autostart.desktop) and Super+Space summons it from anywhere (stupid-buddy --summon; --summon --voice opens it listening). Only one Buddy runs at a time.
Android: download StupidBuddy-<version>-android.apk on your phone and open it (Android 8 or newer). The phone uses an online AI with a free key (Groq, Gemini or OpenRouter), kept in the phone's secure storage. File Buddy works in folders you allow; deleting isn't offered on the phone.
Build
Mac: bash mac/build.sh → mac/build/The Stupid Buddy.app. Windows: cd windows && cargo build --release. Linux: bash linux/build.sh → dist/StupidBuddy-<version>-linux-amd64.deb (needs cargo install cargo-deb, ImageMagick, and libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev libgtk-3-dev libdbus-1-dev). Android: cd android && ./gradlew assembleRelease. All share ui/ (plain HTML/JS: the team and the AI); the Mac side is Swift, Windows and Linux one Rust program (windows/), the phone side Java.
Routing test: node scripts/route-test.mjs asks Buddy 13 typical things (in English and Swedish) and checks it hands each one to the right helper, without the helpers touching anything. It uses Ollama on this computer; --model <name> tries another model, and GROQ_API_KEY=… node scripts/route-test.mjs --provider groq (or gemini, openrouter) an online one.
Free and open source under the MIT license.
