Frequently Asked Questions

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Understanding Aera For Solo Founders For Growth Engineers For Freelance Developers For Developers & Automation Builders Privacy & Security Getting Started & Technical Pricing & Company

Understanding Aera

What makes Aera different from other browsers and AI tools

ChatGPT answers questions. Perplexity researches topics. Neither are running background tasks for you while you sleep. Aera doesn't just answer, it acts. You can describe a 10-step workflow in plain English, and Aera executes it. Schedule it to run hourly, daily, or on trigger. That's the difference between a recipe and a personal chef who cooks for you.
No wrapper. No overlay. No Chrome extension pretending to be more. Aera is a full browser, built from scratch, with automation and MCP support as the foundation, not an afterthought. The AI sees everything: DOM, network requests, headers, payloads. It's not bolted on, it's baked in.

Anything you do repeatedly in a browser:

  • Social media engagement and posting
  • Data extraction and reporting
  • Form filling and data entry
  • Research aggregation across multiple sources
  • Lead qualification and monitoring
  • Competitive intelligence gathering
  • Email and notification triage

If it involves clicking, typing, navigating, or extracting, Aera can handle it.

Those tools require you to write and maintain code. Aera lets you describe what you want in plain English. No scripts to debug, no selectors to update when sites change, no infrastructure to maintain. The AI adapts to page changes automatically. Plus, Aera is a real browser you actually use, not a headless automation running somewhere else.
You could. But that's another project, another codebase, another thing to maintain. Every time a website updates their UI, your automation breaks. Aera gives you the automation layer without the engineering overhead. Describe what you want. It runs. Your time is better spent shipping product, not maintaining browser scripts.

For Solo Founders

How Aera helps when you're wearing every hat

Minimal. If you can describe what you want in plain English, you can use Aera. There's no scripting language to learn, no complex configuration. Tell Aera what you need done, and it figures out the how. Most users can automate their first workflow within 10 minutes of installing.
Yes. Schedule replies, automate engagement, generate reports, all running in the background while you code. Monitor mentions, respond to comments, track competitors. Think of it as a social media co-founder who never sleeps and never asks for equity.
No babysitting required. Aera adapts to page changes automatically, if a button moves or a site updates their layout, the agent figures it out. You'll get notifications if something genuinely fails, but you won't be debugging broken selectors every week like with traditional automation tools.
Time is your scarcest resource when you're bootstrapped. Every hour spent on browser busywork is an hour not spent on product, sales, or customer conversations. If Aera saves you even 1 hour daily, that's 30+ hours monthly. We think that's worth paying for.

For Growth Engineers

Automating outreach, reporting, and marketing workflows

Yes. Set up engagement rules once: reply to comments with certain keywords, like posts from specific accounts, send automated DMs to new followers. Aera executes continuously in the background, hourly, daily, or on custom triggers. You focus on strategy, Aera handles the repetitive execution.
Describe your ideal lead criteria. Aera can visit prospect profiles, analyze their activity, check company details, and compile qualified leads into a report, automatically. What used to take hours of manual research can run in the background while you're in meetings.
Absolutely. Schedule Aera to pull data from Google Analytics, social media dashboards, CRM, and any other web-based tool. It aggregates everything into a single report, formatted how you want it, delivered when you want it. No more morning data-entry rituals across 12 different tabs.
If your tools have a web interface, Aera can interact with them. It's not limited by API availability, Aera works through the browser, just like you would. Plus, MCP integration means you can connect Aera to your development workflow and build custom automations that span multiple tools.
Set up monitoring for competitor websites, social accounts, job postings, product pages, anything public. Aera checks continuously and surfaces only what's changed, already summarized and organized. No more manually checking the same 10 sources every morning.

For Freelance Developers

Managing multiple clients and projects efficiently

Your research, automations, and workflows can be organized by context. Switch between clients instantly without losing your place. The AI understands project context, so your research for Client A doesn't bleed into your work for Client B.
Time tracking says 8 hours worked. Actual productive output: maybe 5. The rest? Lost to browser overhead, context switching, and hunting for that tab you definitely had open somewhere. Aera gives you back those lost hours. More billable output in less calendar time, or more projects with the same capacity.
Aera is built for developers who need speed. Background automations run in separate processes and don't impact your active browsing. When you're debugging a frontend or running performance tests, Aera stays out of your way.

Aera does not track or store your browsing data on our servers. Your browsing history, bookmarks, and local data stay on your machine, and we don't have access to them.

However, please be aware that when you use AI features, data (including page content, instructions, and conversation history) is sent to third-party AI providers (OpenRouter and underlying models) and is subject to their privacy policies. This means if you use the AI agent on pages with client data, that content may be transmitted to AI providers.

Important: While Aera does not track or store your browsing data on our servers, when you use AI features, your data (including page content, instructions, and conversation history) is sent to third-party AI providers (OpenRouter and underlying models) and is subject to their privacy policies. Please review our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service for complete details.

Aera speaks MCP (Model Context Protocol). Connect it directly to Cursor, Gemini CLI, or any MCP-compatible tool. Your AI coding assistant can trigger browser automations, and Aera can feed data back to your development environment.

For Developers & Automation Builders

Technical capabilities, MCP, and extensibility

MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open standard for connecting AI tools. It means Aera can talk directly to Cursor, Gemini CLI, Claude Desktop, and other developer tools. Your AI coding assistant can control the browser. Aera can feed real-time web data into your development workflow. No more being the middleware between your tools.
Yes. Power users can create reusable automation recipes and share them with the community. MCP support means you can also build custom integrations using tools you already know. No proprietary API to learn, MCP is an industry standard.
Aera offers flexible model selection through OpenRouter. Use GPT-4, Claude, Llama, or any other supported model. Optimize cost vs. quality per task, expensive models for complex work, cheaper ones for simple tasks. Bring your own API keys (BYOK) if you prefer.
Everything. Unlike browser extensions that only see the DOM, Aera's AI has visibility into network requests, headers, payloads, responses. It can reverse-engineer APIs, debug integrations, and extract data that's not visible on the page. X-ray vision for the web.
Not currently, but we're built on open standards (MCP, Chromium). We're considering open-sourcing parts of the automation layer in the future. Join our Discord to influence our roadmap, we build in public and user feedback directly shapes our direction.
Headless automation (BrowserBase, etc.) runs in the cloud and is designed for backend processes. Aera is a full browser you use daily, with automation built in. Use it for browsing AND automation. No context switching between your 'real' browser and your automation environment.

Privacy & Security

How we protect your data and respect your privacy

We don't collect your browsing data. We don't train on your prompts. We don't sell access to your behavior. Your browsing history, bookmarks, and local data stay on your machine. Our business model is subscriptions, not surveillance. You're the customer, not the product.

However, when you use AI features, your data (including page content, instructions, and conversation history) is sent to third-party AI providers and is subject to their privacy policies. We have no control over how AI providers handle this data once it leaves your device.

Important: While Aera does not track or store your browsing data on our servers, when you use AI features, your data (including page content, instructions, and conversation history) is sent to third-party AI providers (OpenRouter and underlying models) and is subject to their privacy policies. Please review our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service for complete details.

Your browsing history, bookmarks, saved passwords, chat history, and automation configs are all stored locally on your machine. We don't have servers receiving your browsing activity. We can't see what sites you visit, what you search for, or what you automate.

However, when you use AI features, data is sent to third-party AI providers (OpenRouter and underlying models) for processing. This data includes your instructions, page content, screenshots, and conversation history. Once sent to AI providers, this data is subject to their privacy policies, not ours.

Important: While Aera does not track or store your browsing data on our servers, when you use AI features, your data (including page content, instructions, and conversation history) is sent to third-party AI providers (OpenRouter and underlying models) and is subject to their privacy policies. Please review our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service for complete details.

Aera was designed with privacy in mind. Your browsing data is stored locally, and we don't track or collect your browsing activity. Developers working with proprietary code, freelancers handling client data, and growth teams with competitive intelligence can benefit from local-only storage.

However, please be aware that when using AI features, sensitive data visible on pages (including proprietary code, client information, or competitive intelligence) may be sent to third-party AI providers. We recommend being cautious about using AI features on pages containing highly sensitive information.

Important: While Aera does not track or store your browsing data on our servers, when you use AI features, your data (including page content, instructions, and conversation history) is sent to third-party AI providers (OpenRouter and underlying models) and is subject to their privacy policies. Please review our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service for complete details.

Aera operates like a normal browser, because it is one. We don't use techniques that trigger bot detection. The AI interacts with pages the same way you would, just faster. That said, respect each site's terms of service. Aera is a tool, how you use it is your responsibility.

Our local-only architecture for browsing data means your history, bookmarks, and local data stay on your machine, which can be beneficial for compliance. However, please be aware that when you use AI features, data is sent to third-party AI providers and is subject to their privacy policies and compliance standards.

We strongly recommend reviewing our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service, and consulting with your legal and compliance teams before using Aera (especially AI features) with sensitive or regulated data. Always verify specific compliance requirements with your legal team.

Getting Started & Technical

Installation, compatibility, and requirements

Windows, macOS, and Linux, with full feature parity across all platforms. No 'Mac-first, others later' approach. Whichever OS you prefer, Aera works the same.
Yes. Aera supports Chrome extensions with direct import. Keep your password manager, ad blocker, dev tools, and everything else you rely on. No ecosystem rebuild needed, your existing workflow stays intact.
Aera runs on any modern system that can run Chrome. 4GB RAM minimum (8GB recommended for heavy automation use). No special hardware required, if you can run a browser, you can run Aera.
  1. Download and install Aera
  2. Open the sidebar
  3. Describe what you want to automate in plain English
  4. Watch Aera execute it, then save as a recurring task if needed

Most users can have their first automation running within 10 minutes. Our Discord community also shares workflow recipes you can use as starting points.

Pricing & Company

Subscription details, company background, and support

We're currently in free early access while we finalize our subscription tiers. When we launch paid plans, they'll be priced for individuals, not enterprise budgets. Think premium productivity tool pricing, not enterprise SaaS. Subscribers get full access to all features, no feature walls or artificial limits.
We understand the concern, too many tools disappear without warning. Aera is part of an established company with existing revenue streams, not a VC-dependent startup that dies when funding runs out. We're building in public with full roadmap transparency. No surprises about product direction.
Direct founder access via our Discord community. Talk to the person who built it, get answers in hours not weeks. Issues get resolved by someone who can actually fix them. We have thousands of active developers sharing workflows and helping each other and would love for you to join us.
New versions ship every few days. Bug fixes deploy same-day. We're in rapid iteration mode, and your feature requests actually get built. This isn't enterprise software with annual updates, it's a product that evolves with your needs in real-time.
Absolutely! Join our Discord and tell us what you need. We build in public, and user feedback directly shapes what we work on next. Many current features started as user requests. This is software built with its users, not just for them.

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