Try Perplexity Comet
Overview
Comet is Perplexity's browser, and it is the product that turned the agentic browser from a waitlist curiosity into something ordinary people actually run as their daily driver. Perplexity dropped the paywall in October 2025, then made Comet completely free on every platform in March 2026. In August 2026 it landed on Android, making it the first agentic browser shipping on mobile rather than promising it.
What separates Comet from a browser with a chatbot bolted on is that the assistant sees your tabs. Ask it to compare the three product pages you have open, pull the pricing out of a PDF in tab four, or summarise a thread you have been scrolling for ten minutes, and it works from what is actually on screen rather than from a fresh web search. Perplexity's search stack does the rest: when the answer is not in your tabs, it goes and gets it, with citations.
Comet's agent mode handles multi-step tasks — filling a form, working through a checkout, collecting data across a list of pages. It is genuinely useful and genuinely imperfect: it stalls on heavy JavaScript apps and on anything behind an aggressive bot check. Treat it as a fast junior assistant you still supervise, not as unattended automation, and it earns its place.
Key Features
Tab-Aware Assistant
The sidebar assistant reads the tabs you already have open, so questions about your current research do not require re-pasting content or re-running a search.
Agent Mode
Multi-step task execution inside the page: form filling, comparison shopping, extracting a table across paginated results. You watch it work and can interrupt at any step.
Perplexity Search Built In
The address bar is an answer engine. Queries return a cited synthesis rather than ten blue links, with the underlying sources one click away.
Research Memory
Comet threads memory through research sessions, so a follow-up question days later still carries the context of what you were investigating.
True Cross-Platform
Windows, macOS, iOS and Android. The Android release in August 2026 made it the first agentic browser genuinely available on a phone rather than in preview.
Chromium Foundation
Built on Chromium, so Chrome extensions, saved passwords and profile import all work. Migration is a five-minute job, not a project.
Pros & Cons
Advantages
- Completely free on every platform since March 2026
- Tab context makes the assistant genuinely useful, not decorative
- Perplexity's cited search is the best-in-class part of the package
- Chromium base means extensions and profile import just work
- Only serious agentic browser with a real mobile release
- No account gymnastics: install and use
Disadvantages
- Agent mode stalls on JavaScript-heavy apps and bot-protected sites
- Sending page content to Perplexity is a privacy trade-off some teams cannot make
- Free product from a company still searching for its business model
- Assistant quality drops on very long pages
Pricing Plans
| Plan | Price | Key Features |
|---|---|---|
| Comet | Free | Full browser, assistant and agent mode, all platforms |
| Perplexity Pro | $20 / month | Higher model limits, Pro Search, file uploads |
| Perplexity Max | $200 / month | Frontier model access, highest limits, early features |
Best Use Cases
Perplexity Comet Excels At:
- Research-heavy work where you keep a dozen tabs open
- Replacing the search-then-skim-ten-tabs loop with a cited answer
- Anyone who wants an agentic browser without paying for it
- Mobile users who want the same assistant on a phone
May Not Be Ideal For:
- Organisations where page content cannot leave the device
- Unattended automation — the agent needs supervision
- Users committed to Safari or Firefox ecosystems
How It Compares
Perplexity Comet vs Dia
Dia is the better-designed browser and the more privacy-conservative one; Comet is the more capable researcher and the only one of the two on Android. If design and restraint matter more than reach, Dia wins. For most people doing research, Comet does more.
Perplexity Comet vs Gemini in Chrome
Gemini in Chrome has distribution Comet can only dream of, and deeper Google Workspace hooks. Comet's advantage is that the assistant and the search engine are the same product, so citations and follow-ups are tighter. Comet is also free where Chrome's better agent features are not.
Final Verdict
Our Recommendation
Comet is the AI browser to try first, and the fact that it costs nothing makes that an easy recommendation. The tab-aware assistant is the feature that justifies switching browsers at all — it removes the copy-paste tax from research work — and Perplexity's cited search is still the best implementation of answer-engine browsing anyone ships. Agent mode is the weaker half: impressive when it works, and it does not always work. Install it as your research browser, keep Chrome around for the banking site that breaks, and revisit agent mode every few months as it improves.