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Perplexity launches Comet, an AI-powered web browser
- slacktivism123 1y agoUse case for LLM-infested Chromium wrapper?
- garciasn 1y agoVideos from Perplexity as well as YouTubers show what it's supposed to do: provide you an interface to simplify your research, evaluation, and execution of written instruction. For example: you're supposed to tell it to do something like, "plan my week for me including make me a menu plan, setup a grocery list and add everything I need to it, shop the list and allow me to pick it up on Sunday afternoon, and, in the meantime, plan for me 2 days of things to do." And supposedly, it will do all of these things for you automatically. I haven't tested it, but it basically this is intended to do all the things we've hoped AI would help us do--automatically. Will it be successful? Probably a bit better than we've come to expect, but it's nothing like we have built up in our minds. AI has been game changing for me in my work life, but I have yet to find it useful for things like I laid out above. Maybe that's changing and this is the first step toward that future.
- ParetoOptimal 1y agoTrack everything users do and sell the data. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44523226 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44523226
- dang 1y agoRecent and related: Perplexity Comet - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44513769 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44513769 - July 2025 (52 comments) Comet Browser by Perplexity - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44511527 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44511527 - July 2025 (14 comments)
- kennywinker 1y agoComet, you say? Free slogan, courtesy of Joe MacMillan: “Search it, find it, comet” :)
- vpShane 1y agoPerplexity CEO says its browser will track everything users do online to sell ‘hyper personalized’ ads https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/24/perplexity-ceo-says-its-browser-will-track-everything-users-do-online-to-sell-hyper-personalized-ads/ https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/24/perplexity-ceo-says-its-br...
- latexr 1y agoA web browser which tracks everything you do and you have to pay for the privilege…
- swed420 1y agoIt's kind of wild how the west draws this distinction: If China does it while being responsible and taking into account cost/benefits on overall human well being, it's Creepy Big Brother Communism. If the US does it and charges money for it (or makes it 'free' by selling your personal info to untrustworthy companies / selling you junk you don't need) it's an innovative futuristic privilege. Cold War propaganda was incredibly effective through generations. edit: changed "If China does it for free" to "If China does it" since it had some distracting assumptions
- ericmcer 1y agono one in this thread is calling the tracking in this innovative. Additionally the government doesn't do anything for "free", if you make 200k a year you are paying $8k/mo or $10/hour just to live in the USA.
- swed420 1y ago> no one in this thread is calling the tracking in this innovative I didn't say otherwise. But clearly Perplexity (and Google etc) feels there is a market fit for this, so I'm referring to those customers and whatever future customers might come. This is also nothing new. See: basically all existing social media and its consequences. > Additionally the government doesn't do anything for "free" I reworded this since it wasn't the point, and had some assumptions made about usage.
- qoez 1y agoI've always wanted a browser with a subscription fee
- jabroni_salad 1y agodon't let your dreams be dreams https://www.aol.com/products/browsers/desktop-gold https://www.aol.com/products/browsers/desktop-gold
- notahacker 1y agoI wonder how many people pay that just for the nostalgia. Do they have the "you have email" voice?
- whyenot 1y agoWow, $200/month for the privilege of being monetized and tracked even more closely than Chrome does. Sounds like a real winner.
- felarof 1y agoif you want an open-source, privacy-first option -- check out https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44523409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44523409 :)
- phyzome 1y agoPerplexing indeed.
- Havoc 1y agoCan't say I have much trust in any of these recent AI company launched browsers. They have a proven track record of not respecting people's data...
- rpastuszak 1y agoI very rarely diss other people’s work, but Arc/Dia is a perfect example of that. It’s a wolf in sheep’s clothes, without any clarity regarding their business model.
- dawnofdusk 1y agoNot sure if it's the perfect example. Pretty sure Arc was shady before it had any AI stuff.
- 0dayz 1y agoCould you elaborate?
- whywhywhywhy 1y agoDunno about shady but it's surprises me anyone uses it after this https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/20/24249919/arc-browser-boost-firebase-vulnerability-patched https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/20/24249919/arc-browser-boos...
- symisc_devel 1y agoImagine paying $200/mo for this privacy nightmare
- felarof 1y agoWe just launched an open-source alternative -- you can download today; use local LLMs with ollama and not pay $200/month. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44523409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44523409
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- eGQjxkKF6fif 1y agoWhats the outlook for Linux with that
- GlitchRider47 1y agoIMO this is not a true launch, just a beta only available to those who pay top dollar.
- rvz 1y agoRight after the "launch", most of the people that are praising the browser are either employees, paid influencers or fans of the CEO. I am yet to see a normal "non-tech" person use Perplexity after being a longtime ChatGPT user.
- panarchy 1y agoHow do we know it isn't just Vomet making comments about itself?
- freedomben 1y agoMaybe off-topic, but there are lots of rumors flying - will Apple acquire Perplexity?
- havaloc 1y agoApple should acquire Perplexity - it's a pretty great product and combined with some privacy enhancements it's a win, and they could likely integrate it better than Google could with Gemini.
- criddell 1y ago> it's a pretty great product Is it? I was gifted a pro subscription for a year and after trying it for a few weeks I instead signed up for an Anthropic Claude subscription (which I pay $20 / month for) and I use that all the time. What am I missing about Perplexity?
- felarof 1y ago+1, I bought perplexity pro annual subscription last year, and hardly use it now. chatGPT+o3 search is much better. My typical workflow is fire the question to Google AI mode and chatGPT+o3 at the same -- AI mode is fast but meh answer, chatGPT is slower but pretty good answer always.
- kimos 1y agoI signed up and I no longer use most other websites. I only use Kagi for basic searches, where I want to get to a destination and not get information. Perplexity “does the googling for me” and summarizes or seeks for me. No more skimming and synthesizing. No more crafting search queries and comparing. Ask a question, no matter how obscure or specific, and it fetches the real time answer. Honestly not much has ever so drastically changed how I use the internet.
- Agraillo 1y agoAs a cultural synthesizer ("create a sketch...") or translator (i.e., from human to programming) perplexity is as good as the others and maybe worse. But I like it as being an alternative semantic web search engine. Search engine because most of the time the facts are referenced at the end of the paragraphs and when it fails to insert them, I usually ask to expand. It's a new feeling after all those years of PageRank dominance. For example, It sometimes creates a paragraph with a reference to some recent research that according to the PageRank logic should be at the bottom (because almost nobody cites it). It's like the relevance was reborn. Once it was in a primitive sense of the early AltaVista, then Google killed it with PageRank, now when an engine really understands the question, the answers might become relevant in a new sense while being tangential to the reputations of the sources
- lvl155 1y agoI don’t get it. Didn’t they launch this already a few month ago?
- evo_9 1y agoYou’re probably thinking of The Browser Companies Dia Browser (replaced Arc). Came out last month, same AI focus.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- senko 1y agoI see multiple comments decrying the browser price. Have we collectively forgotten how to read? The browser is not $200/mo. It's available for free to those on the Max plan now, and will be rolling out to other plans. I imagine users on all those plans get some value out of Perplexity other than the browser.
- SudoSuccubus 1y ago[dead]
- glimshe 1y agoSo... The main feature is the homepage setting and an AI tag that everyone else has had doe months?
- oc1 1y ago<< At launch, Comet will be available first to subscribers of Perplexity’s $200-per-month Max plan, as well as a small group of invitees that signed up to a waitlist. Boy i already pay Anthropic that. Now i should pay another 200 bucks to use an ai browser? On top of all these ai saas that want another 20 bucks.