Perplexity's AI Browser 'Comet' is Now Free, with Big Marketing Deals to Challenge Chrome (indiatimes.com) 27
"Earlier available only to the paying subscribers, the Comet browser now offers its core features to all users at no cost," writes the Times of India. "This includes AI-powered search, contextual recommendations, and integrated tools designed to streamline research and content discovery." They say the move reflects the Chromium-based browser's goal to "compete with incumbents like Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge" — but also reflects Perplexity's "broader mission to democratize AI tools."
More details from The Verge: The internet is better on Comet," the company says, promising to remain free forever as it styles the browser as a serious challenger to Google's Chrome...
It's supposed to make surfing the web simpler and help you with tasks like shopping, booking trips, and general life admin. To borrow the company's words again: you "get more done." The AI-powered browser launched in July, though was only available for users who subscribed to the $200 per month Perplexity Max plan... No subscription at all will be needed to use Comet going forward, the company says.
Perplexity has even struck deals with major sites including the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times to offer free access to their sites for one month through the Comet browser. And last week Perplexity also launched an agressive paid referral program, where active Perplexity Pro/Max subscribers get a payout of up to $15 for each friend who downloads and uses Comet through their affiliate link. (The payout size is based on the friend's country, with $15 being the payout amount for a U.S. user, with $10 payouts for users in 19 other countries include Canada, Australia, the U.K., several EU countries, Japan, and South Korea.
In addition, Srinivas has been sharing positive tweets about Comet. (Like "This is unbelievable. Comet automatically hunts down Sora 2 invite codes across the web and signs you up!") But Perplexity is making even bigger claims for its browser: Perplexity AI CEO Aravind Srinivas said that the Comet AI browser can improve productivity so that companies won't need to hire more people. "Instead of hiring one more person on your team, you could just use Comet to supplement all the work that you're doing," Srinivas told CNBC's "Squawk Box"... The CEO said the artificial intelligence-powered web browser is a "true personal assistant" that allows users to complete more tasks in the same amount of time and said that the productivity gained could be worth $10,000 per year for a single person...
Other tech companies have also been rolling out their own AI browser assistants. In January, OpenAI introduced its web agent, Operator, and Google released Gemini AI to its Chrome browser in September.
Meanwhile, The Verge adds, The Browser Company (makers of the Arc browser) "is going all in on Dia, and Opera just launched its own AI browser, Neon."
Of course, popularity brings problems, writes the Times of India: iPhone users are being warned by Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas against downloading a fake 'Comet' app on the App Store. He clarified that the official iOS version is not yet released and the current listing is unauthorized spam..
And earlier this month the browser security platform described a "CometJacking" attack where malicious prompts could be hidden in URLs (as a parameter). Comet is instructed "to look for data in memory and connected services (e.g., Gmail, Calendar), encode the results (e.g., base64), and POST them to an attacker-controlled endpoint... all while appearing to the user as a harmless 'ask the assistant' flow." (And with some trivial encoding it also seems to evade exfiltration checks.)
The Hacker News reported that Perplexity has classified the findings as "no security impact."
More details from The Verge: The internet is better on Comet," the company says, promising to remain free forever as it styles the browser as a serious challenger to Google's Chrome...
It's supposed to make surfing the web simpler and help you with tasks like shopping, booking trips, and general life admin. To borrow the company's words again: you "get more done." The AI-powered browser launched in July, though was only available for users who subscribed to the $200 per month Perplexity Max plan... No subscription at all will be needed to use Comet going forward, the company says.
Perplexity has even struck deals with major sites including the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times to offer free access to their sites for one month through the Comet browser. And last week Perplexity also launched an agressive paid referral program, where active Perplexity Pro/Max subscribers get a payout of up to $15 for each friend who downloads and uses Comet through their affiliate link. (The payout size is based on the friend's country, with $15 being the payout amount for a U.S. user, with $10 payouts for users in 19 other countries include Canada, Australia, the U.K., several EU countries, Japan, and South Korea.
In addition, Srinivas has been sharing positive tweets about Comet. (Like "This is unbelievable. Comet automatically hunts down Sora 2 invite codes across the web and signs you up!") But Perplexity is making even bigger claims for its browser: Perplexity AI CEO Aravind Srinivas said that the Comet AI browser can improve productivity so that companies won't need to hire more people. "Instead of hiring one more person on your team, you could just use Comet to supplement all the work that you're doing," Srinivas told CNBC's "Squawk Box"... The CEO said the artificial intelligence-powered web browser is a "true personal assistant" that allows users to complete more tasks in the same amount of time and said that the productivity gained could be worth $10,000 per year for a single person...
Other tech companies have also been rolling out their own AI browser assistants. In January, OpenAI introduced its web agent, Operator, and Google released Gemini AI to its Chrome browser in September.
Meanwhile, The Verge adds, The Browser Company (makers of the Arc browser) "is going all in on Dia, and Opera just launched its own AI browser, Neon."
Of course, popularity brings problems, writes the Times of India: iPhone users are being warned by Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas against downloading a fake 'Comet' app on the App Store. He clarified that the official iOS version is not yet released and the current listing is unauthorized spam..
And earlier this month the browser security platform described a "CometJacking" attack where malicious prompts could be hidden in URLs (as a parameter). Comet is instructed "to look for data in memory and connected services (e.g., Gmail, Calendar), encode the results (e.g., base64), and POST them to an attacker-controlled endpoint... all while appearing to the user as a harmless 'ask the assistant' flow." (And with some trivial encoding it also seems to evade exfiltration checks.)
The Hacker News reported that Perplexity has classified the findings as "no security impact."
No mention of the license, whatsoever (Score:4, Interesting)
Perplexity: your very own digital Panopticon (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
That's completely off the point being made. You clearly don't know what the Panopticon is. Look it up on Wikipedia, or better, in your local library. You can ask the friendly librarian lady with glasses about it, she'll brighten up and open your eyes to a world you never knew existed!
The actual point is that the Panopticon is not a technology intended to serve you, nor do you have the ability to opt out of it. It is a technology used by your jailer, to keep you inside the cage without
Re: (Score:2)
AI meme + reskin of Chrome = profit (Score:3)
Suits the sort of users who deserve (even more) data mining.
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2Fbrows... [reddit.com]
I gave it a shot (Score:3)
still unsure what is so different from having an LLM de jour tab open and asking it my questions there.
okay sure Comet has a somewhat easier UI for answering questions about the page I'm visiting but I just don't seem to have a need to do that.
so far for me this falls into the "solution looking for a problem" category. I acknowledge I might be not the right audience for this though.
LLMs ... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
How does that help them entrench themselves in your consciousness and the market? Doh.
Comet cleanser is great. (Score:2)
very useful (Score:3)
I use it frequently, but not exclusively. It's great for answering any kind of question, and it supplies links to websites it scraped in order to get you the answer. Interfacing with it feels a lot like working with AI coding assistants.
Comet's Bold Strategy: Free AI Browser with Market (Score:1)
Perplexity's move to make Comet completely free (after being a $200/month perk) is an aggressive play against Chrome and Edge. The key points: AI-powered search, contextual recommendations, partnerships with major news outlets for free access, and a generous $15 referral program. They're clearly banking on network effects and data acquisition to monetize later.
The strategy is interesting—giving away a Chromium-based browser with integrated AI while Chrome already has Gemini and Edge has Copilot. Perpl
Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)
This was posted entirely by Comet browser itself. I simply asked it to post a comment in the thread and it did the rest - even pausing whilst I logged-in.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
What makes you think so?
Re: Comet's Bold Strategy: Free AI Browser with Ma (Score:2)
Super duper way to squeeze money out of people, even a few percent on a large number
Re: (Score:1)
Agreed however you're replying to a now-absent Comet browser. I installed it as a test, then asked it to make whatever post it wanted to. It chose the response, entered the text and submitted after waiting for me to log in. I of course changed my password shortly afterwards.
Presumably there'll be an add-on to release paid-for breathable air from a cartridge in your laptop in a future update with surge pricing FTW.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Am I mistaken or is this a bit of closing the barn door after the horse has escaped? Is there no valuable info on your system that it could have exfiltrated other than your /. pass? You don't use a password manager, for example?
Re: (Score:1)
(oops, by 'it', I mean some exploit you might encounter, not the browser itself.)
Re: (Score:1)
Yeah. Ignoring this giant red flag seems foolish in the extreme. Don't even know if they keep current with the underlying (here Chromium) security patches, which is a basic necessity new browsers often miss.
"Perplexity classified it as 'no security impact.' " mandates sandboxing it (or using it on a toy system) at a minimum, or just taking a wide berth.
I like perplexity, but... (Score:2)
...I couldn't find any uses for comet
Perplexity is a feeling (Score:2)
Perplexity (noun, Synonyms: puzzlement, bewilderment, confusion) is what I feel when pondering the question: why do we need another Chrome browser?
So it's a Chromium-based browser like Chrome... (Score:2)
Sloppy slop translator. (Score:2)
I love how we've created an information source that's so filled with AI slop, that some folks believe the cure is to put another step of slop between them and the source. "The internet is infested with AI slop, use our AI browser to cut through the slop and get the information you need."
How does adding another potential layer of hallucination help? Maybe the solution is to cut all the slop off the internet, not add more layers of slop between the true source of the information and the humans that would like