diff --git a/apps/desktop/electron/link-title-curl.test.ts b/apps/desktop/electron/link-title-curl.test.ts
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..7657fc072b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/apps/desktop/electron/link-title-curl.test.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
+import assert from 'node:assert/strict'
+
+import { describe, test } from 'vitest'
+
+import { parseCurlTitleResponse } from './link-title-curl'
+
+const BIG5_TITLE = Buffer.from([
+  ...Buffer.from('<title>'),
+  0xb4,
+  0xa3,
+  0xa5,
+  0xdc,
+  0xab,
+  0x48,
+  0xae,
+  0xa7,
+  ...Buffer.from('</title>')
+])
+
+const TRAILER = Buffer.from(
+  '\nhermes-content-type:text/html; charset=big5\nhermes-url-effective:https://example.test/final'
+)
+
+describe('parseCurlTitleResponse', () => {
+  test('decodes a legacy page from curl content-type metadata', () => {
+    assert.deepEqual(parseCurlTitleResponse(Buffer.concat([BIG5_TITLE, TRAILER]), Buffer.alloc(0)), {
+      effectiveUrl: 'https://example.test/final',
+      html: '<title>提示信息</title>'
+    })
+  })
+
+  test('reads the trailer from the retained tail after the body budget is exhausted', () => {
+    assert.deepEqual(parseCurlTitleResponse(BIG5_TITLE, TRAILER), {
+      effectiveUrl: 'https://example.test/final',
+      html: '<title>提示信息</title>'
+    })
+  })
+})
diff --git a/apps/desktop/electron/link-title-curl.ts b/apps/desktop/electron/link-title-curl.ts
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..4512fcf077
--- /dev/null
+++ b/apps/desktop/electron/link-title-curl.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+import { decodeWebText } from './web-text-decoder'
+
+const CONTENT_TYPE_MARK = 'hermes-content-type:'
+const URL_EFFECTIVE_MARK = 'hermes-url-effective:'
+
+export const CURL_TITLE_WRITE_OUT = `\n${CONTENT_TYPE_MARK}%{content_type}\n${URL_EFFECTIVE_MARK}%{url_effective}`
+
+export function parseCurlTitleResponse(bodyWithTrailer: Buffer, tail: Buffer): { effectiveUrl: string; html: string } {
+  const contentTypeMarker = Buffer.from(`\n${CONTENT_TYPE_MARK}`)
+  const at = bodyWithTrailer.lastIndexOf(contentTypeMarker)
+  const trailer = (at >= 0 ? bodyWithTrailer.subarray(at) : tail).toString('utf8')
+  const contentType = trailer.match(new RegExp(`(?:^|\\n)${CONTENT_TYPE_MARK}([^\\n]*)`))?.[1]?.trim() ?? ''
+  const effectiveUrl = trailer.match(new RegExp(`(?:^|\\n)${URL_EFFECTIVE_MARK}([^\\n]*)`))?.[1]?.trim() ?? ''
+  const body = at >= 0 ? bodyWithTrailer.subarray(0, at) : bodyWithTrailer
+
+  return { effectiveUrl, html: decodeWebText(body, contentType) }
+}
diff --git a/apps/desktop/electron/main.ts b/apps/desktop/electron/main.ts
index 79d7135fef..070ecb4737 100644
--- a/apps/desktop/electron/main.ts
+++ b/apps/desktop/electron/main.ts
@@ -294,6 +294,7 @@ import { resolveHudWindowing } from './hud-windowing'
 import { INSTALL_STAMP, installShape } from './install-stamp'
 import type { InstallStamp } from './install-stamp'
 import { createIntroRevealWindowController } from './intro-reveal-window'
+import { CURL_TITLE_WRITE_OUT, parseCurlTitleResponse } from './link-title-curl'
 import { isAuthWall, resolveLinkTitle } from './link-title-wall'
 import { createLinkTitleWindow, guardLinkTitleSession, readLinkTitleWindowTitle } from './link-title-window'
 import { CHROMIUM_LOG_FILENAME, enableLinuxCrashDiagnostics, linuxCrashDiagnostics } from './linux-crash-diagnostics'
@@ -523,6 +524,7 @@ import { createStoreStrategy } from './updater/store-client'
 import { isHermesOwnedVenvDaemon } from './venv-holder-select'
 import { fetchMarketplaceThemes, searchMarketplaceThemes } from './vscode-marketplace'
 import { createWakeIndicatorWindowController } from './wake-indicator-window'
+import { decodeWebText } from './web-text-decoder'
 import { windowAcceleratorAction } from './window-accelerator'
 import { enumerateWindowsFrontToBack, enumerationFailed, readWindowBelow } from './window-below'
 import { bindWindowChromeEvents } from './window-chrome-events'
@@ -5172,23 +5174,8 @@ function parseHtmlTitle(html) {
   return raw ? decodeHtmlEntities(raw).replace(/\s+/g, ' ').trim() : ''
 }
 
-// `--write-out` trailer: `\n<mark><url_effective>` after the body.
-const URL_EFFECTIVE_MARK = 'hermes-url-effective:'
 const URL_EFFECTIVE_TAIL_BYTES = 4096
 
-function splitUrlEffective(stdout: string): { effectiveUrl: string; html: string } {
-  const at = stdout.lastIndexOf(`\n${URL_EFFECTIVE_MARK}`)
-
-  if (at < 0) {
-    return { effectiveUrl: '', html: stdout }
-  }
-
-  return {
-    effectiveUrl: stdout.slice(at + 1 + URL_EFFECTIVE_MARK.length).trim(),
-    html: stdout.slice(0, at)
-  }
-}
-
 function fetchHtmlTitleWithCurl(rawUrl: string): Promise<{ authWall: boolean; title: string }> {
   return new Promise(resolve => {
     const url = String(rawUrl || '').trim()
@@ -5219,7 +5206,7 @@ function fetchHtmlTitleWithCurl(rawUrl: string): Promise<{ authWall: boolean; ti
       // Arrival URL after redirects, on its own line after the body: a sign-in
       // wall is proven from where curl landed even when the page has no markup id.
       '--write-out',
-      `\n${URL_EFFECTIVE_MARK}%{url_effective}`,
+      CURL_TITLE_WRITE_OUT,
       url
     ]
 
@@ -5250,12 +5237,10 @@ function fetchHtmlTitleWithCurl(rawUrl: string): Promise<{ authWall: boolean; ti
         return resolve({ authWall: false, title: '' })
       }
 
-      const body = Buffer.concat(chunks)
-
-      // The trailer is inside `body` unless the budget cut it off; then it is in `tail`.
-      const { effectiveUrl, html } = splitUrlEffective(
-        (bytes >= TITLE_BYTE_BUDGET ? Buffer.concat([body, tail]) : body).toString('utf8')
-      )
+      // The trailer is inside `bodyWithTrailer` unless the budget cut it off;
+      // then it is still present in the separately retained tail.
+      const bodyWithTrailer = Buffer.concat(chunks)
+      const { effectiveUrl, html } = parseCurlTitleResponse(bodyWithTrailer, tail)
 
       const title = parseHtmlTitle(html)
 
@@ -5524,7 +5509,13 @@ const faviconIo: FaviconIo = {
   fetchText: async url => {
     const response = await faviconFetch(url, 'text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/json;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.5')
 
-    return response.ok ? (await response.text()).slice(0, TITLE_BYTE_BUDGET * 2) : ''
+    if (!response.ok) {
+      return ''
+    }
+
+    const bytes = new Uint8Array(await response.arrayBuffer()).subarray(0, TITLE_BYTE_BUDGET * 2)
+
+    return decodeWebText(bytes, response.headers.get('content-type') ?? '')
   }
 }
 
diff --git a/apps/desktop/electron/web-text-decoder.test.ts b/apps/desktop/electron/web-text-decoder.test.ts
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..07cc185810
--- /dev/null
+++ b/apps/desktop/electron/web-text-decoder.test.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,64 @@
+import assert from 'node:assert/strict'
+
+import { describe, test } from 'vitest'
+
+import { decodeWebText } from './web-text-decoder'
+
+describe('decodeWebText', () => {
+  test('honours a quoted Big5 charset in the response header', () => {
+    const bytes = new Uint8Array([
+      ...Buffer.from('<title>'),
+      0xb4,
+      0xa3,
+      0xa5,
+      0xdc,
+      0xab,
+      0x48,
+      0xae,
+      0xa7,
+      ...Buffer.from('</title>')
+    ])
+
+    assert.equal(decodeWebText(bytes, 'text/html; charset="big5"'), '<title>提示信息</title>')
+  })
+
+  test('sniffs a Shift-JIS meta charset before decoding the document', () => {
+    const bytes = new Uint8Array([
+      ...Buffer.from('<meta charset=shift_jis><title>'),
+      0x93,
+      0xfa,
+      0x96,
+      0x7b,
+      0x8c,
+      0xea,
+      ...Buffer.from('</title>')
+    ])
+
+    assert.equal(decodeWebText(bytes), '<meta charset=shift_jis><title>日本語</title>')
+  })
+
+  test('sniffs charset from an http-equiv content attribute', () => {
+    const bytes = new Uint8Array([
+      ...Buffer.from('<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=gbk"><title>'),
+      0xd6,
+      0xd0,
+      0xce,
+      0xc4,
+      ...Buffer.from('</title>')
+    ])
+
+    assert.ok(decodeWebText(bytes).includes('<title>中文</title>'))
+  })
+
+  test('falls back to UTF-8 when a server declares an unknown charset', () => {
+    const bytes = new TextEncoder().encode('<title>Résumé</title>')
+
+    assert.equal(decodeWebText(bytes, 'text/html; charset=not-a-real-encoding'), '<title>Résumé</title>')
+  })
+
+  test('the HTTP charset takes precedence over a conflicting meta declaration', () => {
+    const bytes = new Uint8Array([...Buffer.from('<meta charset=utf-8><title>'), 0xd6, 0xd0, 0xce, 0xc4])
+
+    assert.equal(decodeWebText(bytes, 'text/html; charset=gbk'), '<meta charset=utf-8><title>中文')
+  })
+})
diff --git a/apps/desktop/electron/web-text-decoder.ts b/apps/desktop/electron/web-text-decoder.ts
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..5545622661
--- /dev/null
+++ b/apps/desktop/electron/web-text-decoder.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,51 @@
+const META_SCAN_BYTES = 8192
+
+function charsetFromContentType(contentType: string): string {
+  const match = contentType.match(/(?:^|;)\s*charset\s*=\s*(?:"([^"]+)"|'([^']+)'|([^;\s]+))/i)
+
+  return (match?.slice(1).find(Boolean) ?? '').trim().slice(0, 64)
+}
+
+function charsetFromHtml(bytes: Uint8Array): string {
+  // Charset declarations are ASCII even when the document is not. Decode a
+  // small prefix as a single-byte encoding so invalid UTF-8 cannot erase the
+  // declaration before we know which decoder to use.
+  const head = new TextDecoder('windows-1252').decode(bytes.subarray(0, META_SCAN_BYTES))
+
+  for (const tag of head.match(/<meta\b[^>]*>/gi) ?? []) {
+    const direct = tag.match(/\bcharset\s*=\s*(?:"([^"]+)"|'([^']+)'|([^\s"'/>;]+))/i)
+    const content = tag.match(/\bcontent\s*=\s*(?:"([^"]*)"|'([^']*)'|([^\s>]+))/i)
+
+    const nested = (content?.slice(1).find(Boolean) ?? '').match(
+      /(?:^|;)\s*charset\s*=\s*(?:"([^"]+)"|'([^']+)'|([^;\s]+))/i
+    )
+
+    const label = direct?.slice(1).find(Boolean) ?? nested?.slice(1).find(Boolean)
+
+    if (label) {
+      return label.trim().slice(0, 64)
+    }
+  }
+
+  return ''
+}
+
+/** Decode fetched page/manifest bytes the same way a browser would choose a
+ * character encoding: HTTP header, then an HTML meta declaration, then UTF-8. */
+export function decodeWebText(bytes: Uint8Array, contentType = ''): string {
+  const labels = [charsetFromContentType(contentType), charsetFromHtml(bytes), 'utf-8']
+
+  for (const [index, label] of labels.entries()) {
+    if (!label || labels.indexOf(label) !== index) {
+      continue
+    }
+
+    try {
+      return new TextDecoder(label).decode(bytes)
+    } catch {
+      // Unknown/malformed server labels fall through to the next source.
+    }
+  }
+
+  return new TextDecoder().decode(bytes)
+}