Desk exists because the modern web is designed to distract you, and the tools we study with shouldn't be.
Bring focus back to students.
Desk was created to help students learn: one place for a whole study session, instead of a browser split across ten different apps and tabs. No distractions competing for your attention, just a unified space built around the way students actually work, with features built for them, not for engagement metrics.
Every mainstream browser is built around the same incentive: keep you browsing. More tabs, more feeds, more time on page. Desk flips that. We measure success by how quickly you get into a focused session, and how little the browser interrupts you once you're there.
Desk started as a simple frustration: studying online means juggling a PDF in one window, notes in another, a timer app on your phone, music somewhere else, and forty distracting tabs in between. The tools existed, but never together, and never designed around a study session.
So we built the desk we wished we had: a split-pane workspace for reading and annotating, a focus timer that lives in the toolbar instead of another tab, an ad blocker that's on before you ever see an ad, and a homepage that shows your to-dos instead of a news feed. One window. Everything in reach. Nothing shouting at you.
Every design decision is judged by one question: does this help you concentrate, or does it compete for your attention?
No accounts, no telemetry, no cloud. Your history, notes and annotations belong to you and stay on your device.
Timers, annotation, media controls and blocking aren't extensions. They're part of the browser, designed to work together.
Desk is in alpha. It's young, it's opinionated, and it's improving every week. Alpha testers get every build first and directly shape what we make next. Most of Desk's current features started as a tester's suggestion.
Want in? Email us and we'll set you up.
Join the cause, break things, tell us what your ideal study browser looks like.