A soft plush toy waits in every new tab. This guide covers how to play with it, how to use it, and what to do when something goes wrong. No account, no analytics: everything stays in your browser (details in the privacy policy).
1. Install it and open a new tab. The cloud ("Puff") is there.
2. Squeeze it: click it and it sinks in, then slowly springs back. Press and hold to hug it: the room darkens and it breathes with you, in for 4 seconds, out for 6.
3. The first time, it asks what you do (design, development, product, growth, study, writing and reading, investing, video and music; pick 1 to 4) and sets up the Dock and the desktop cards from your answer. Not in the mood? Press "I will do it myself".
4. The interface follows your browser's language (English or Chinese); Settings → Appearance → Language changes it.
5. Just type: on the new tab, start typing. It looks in your Dock and cards first (Chinese names also match by pinyin), and searches the web last.
| What you do | What it does |
|---|---|
| Click | A squeeze: it sinks in and springs back |
| Press and hold | A hug: the screen warms and dims and guides your breathing |
| Pat it, stroke it | Different touches get different faces and reactions |
| Click elsewhere in the window | It floats (the cloud) or hops over there |
| Press, drag away, let go | It is picked up, then floats down when you let go |
| Pat it until it is very happy | It flies |
| Keep squeezing and squeezing | It goes soft and lets you let off steam, a stress toy |
| Spin it around hard | It gets dizzy, with spirals for eyes |
| Ignore it for a while | It wanders off somewhere else, or dozes |
It has a few small secrets; settings only tell you how many are left, never where.
Each time you open a tab it may be asleep, daydreaming, curled up in a corner or peeking in from the side; when you move, it pretends nothing happened. In the first open of a morning it is still sleepy.
It never gets hungry, never gets cross and never minds if you stay away. No tasks, no streaks, no "it misses you".
Settings (the sliders icon, top right) → Companion: six of them, a cloud, a chick, a little whale, a little ghost, a rice ball and a bunny, each with its own world (afternoon, seaside, moonlit, midnight snack, wood) and six faces.
A clock; Today (write the one important thing and a few small ones; it is glad when you finish); a Focus timer (15, 25 or 45 minutes, it keeps you company without bothering you); a note; and your cards. Each can be turned off separately in settings.
| To do this | Do this |
|---|---|
| Search on the new tab | Just type; or press / or ⌘/Ctrl+K |
| Open the chosen result | Enter; ⌘/Ctrl+Enter opens it in a new tab |
| Search inside one site | A short word, a space, then what to find: gh react searches GitHub, yt YouTube, bili Bilibili, zh Zhihu, db Douban, xhs Xiaohongshu, wb Weibo, tb Taobao, jd JD, g Google, bd Baidu, bing, wiki, mdn, npm, so (Stack Overflow), dri (Dribbble), fig, amz. The first row is that site's own search; as with a web search, what you typed goes to the site only when you open that row. An empty search box shows the hint |
| Search your sites on any web page | Alt+Shift+F (Option+Shift+F on a Mac). It cannot be put over chrome:// or edge:// pages or the extension stores; there it opens a new tab instead |
| Search from the address bar | Type pf, a space, then a few letters |
| Keep the page you are on | Click the toolbar icon, or Alt+Shift+S, or right-click "Hand this page to Puffkin"; it goes into the "To sort" card |
| Open the Nth Dock icon | Press the digit N |
If a shortcut clashes with another extension, the browser lets only one of them have it. Settings → Shortcuts shows what each shortcut is right now and whether it works; for one that does not, press "Set the shortcut" (that is chrome://extensions/shortcuts) and choose one yourself. Right-clicking the toolbar icon and choosing "Search Puffkin…" does the same thing as the shortcut.
In the evening press "Bedtime", choose rain, white noise or a lullaby and a length; the screen dims and the sound fades until it is quiet.
Press the camera, top right, to take a polaroid of it with a date and a handwritten-looking line. The album holds up to 200 and lives only on this computer; you can download or share a photo, and deleting one really deletes it. Next to the camera there is also Record.
Stickers: Settings → Together → Make a sticker. Pick a face (normal, happy, shy, surprised, sleepy, squinting, dizzy), add a few words if you like (up to 10 characters, white with a dark outline, like a chat sticker), then "Copy" to paste it straight into a chat or "Save PNG" (transparent, 512 px on the long side). It is made on your computer.
No account, no analytics, no ads, and your browsing history is never read. Only three kinds of request leave the browser: site icons (can be turned off), companion art when you press "Download", and the weather lookup if you turn on "Real" weather. The sites, to-dos, notes and photos you keep stay in this browser. The whole story is in the privacy policy.
The new tab is slow, or the fan is loud? Settings → Quality and power → Battery saver. On virtual machines or remote desktops without a graphics card the plush will be slow; Battery saver helps there too. A tab left in the background for 45 seconds lets go of its picture, so many open new tabs cost almost nothing.
Alt+Shift+F does nothing? Open Settings → Shortcuts. If it says "Not set", another extension has it: press "Set the shortcut" and choose one. On chrome:// pages, the extension stores and PDF viewers the search box cannot be put on the page; a new tab opens with the search focused instead.
A companion will not download? Check the network. It fetches a few image files from our own asset site; if that is blocked, try again later. The cloud always works.
Where is my data, and how do I clear it? In the browser's local storage (Dock, cards, settings, album). Removing the extension or clearing browser data deletes it. Photos can be deleted one by one in the album.
New computer? Settings → Backup and sync: "Save a backup" and restore it there, or turn on sync (sign in to the same browser account). Photos are not included.
How do I remove it? Remove Puffkin on chrome://extensions (or edge://extensions) and the new tab goes back to the browser's default.
Feedback? Leave a review on the extension's store page, or write to the support address there.
Contact: [email protected]