China setup guide

This page covers the parts of installation that need extra attention if you are running from mainland China. Browy itself works the same everywhere; the friction is around reaching GitHub Releases and GitHub Copilot from the mainland.

Read this if anything in /install/ times out

The install script downloads a ~130 MB tarball from github.com/BrowyHQ/browy/releases. If the download stalls or returns a TLS error, the cause is almost always upstream network quality to GitHub, not the script.

Does Browy work in China?

Yes, with two real-world caveats.

GitHub access

The native-host installer pulls binaries from GitHub Releases. Speeds vary by ISP and time of day. If you cannot reach objects.githubusercontent.com you can mirror the release through a CDN or download the tarball manually (see below).

Copilot access

Browy uses your GitHub Copilot subscription. Copilot is sold to individuals in mainland China when you can pay with a card the GitHub billing system accepts. Education plans work the same way as elsewhere. API calls to api.githubcopilot.com from the mainland have higher latency than from HK / SG but are reachable.

Recommended setup

1. Use Edge or a recent Chrome. Both ship in China through normal channels and Browy installs on either with the same listing.
2. Sign in to GitHub on your machine before running the install script. The device-flow that grants Copilot access redirects through github.com and is more reliable when you already have a working session.
3. Run the installer. PowerShell on Windows, bash on macOS / Linux. Commands are identical to the global ones, in Install.
4. First chat. Open the side panel, click “Sign in to GitHub Copilot”, complete the device-flow. The terminal closes itself when the token lands.

If the GitHub download is unreachable

The installer accepts a custom release URL. You can mirror the latest tarball to any host you control, then point the installer at it.

Windows

$env:BROWY_RELEASE_URL = "https://your-mirror.example.com/browy-win-x64.tar.gz"
irm https://github.com/BrowyHQ/browy/releases/latest/download/install.ps1 | iex

macOS / Linux

BROWY_RELEASE_URL="https://your-mirror.example.com/browy-linux-x64.tar.gz" \
  bash <(curl -fsSL https://github.com/BrowyHQ/browy/releases/latest/download/install.sh)

A few public CDN options that have historically worked from the mainland:

• jsDelivr GitHub proxy: https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/BrowyHQ/browy@latest/...
• ghproxy: https://ghproxy.com/https://github.com/BrowyHQ/browy/...

These are operated by third parties and we do not endorse them. If you are in an enterprise setting we recommend hosting your own mirror.

Latency notes

Browy makes two kinds of network calls in normal use.

Call	Endpoint	Where the latency lives
Model inference	api.githubcopilot.com	Round-trip from your machine to GitHub Copilot’s nearest region. From the mainland, this is usually a Pacific hop; expect 200-400 ms over a normal residential link.
Tool execution	Your local machine	No network. The agent runs the tool on the page in front of you.

For most prompts the model call dominates. A chat that fires three or four tool calls in a row will feel a beat slower from the mainland than from HK / SG / EU, but the agent loop does not stall waiting for the network.

Mirroring the source

We do not currently maintain a mainland mirror of the source repo. The GitHub repo is usually reachable from the mainland for code browsing, even when the Releases CDN is slow. If a mainland mirror would meaningfully help your team, please open an issue and tell us which surfaces you would actually use it for. We are tracking demand.

What does not work

A handful of features have hard external dependencies. They will work or fail the same way they would for any user.

• Chrome Web Store install. If chromewebstore.google.com is not reachable, use the unpacked-extension sideload path documented in Install.
• YouTube embeds in the blog. The blog text is the same with or without the video.
• Crash and telemetry reporting. Browy does not send telemetry, so this is a non-issue.

Getting help

Open an issue on GitHub or email the maintainer. If GitHub is unreachable at the moment, email works.