Perplexity Comet - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44513769 - July 2025 (52 comments)
Comet Browser by Perplexity - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44511527 - July 2025 (14 comments)
Free slogan, courtesy of Joe MacMillan: “Search it, find it, comet”
:)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/24/perplexity-ceo-says-its-br...
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
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.
People ought to be most interested in the final outcome of each example.
I have a feeling this assumption will age poorly.
U.S. will review social media for foreign student visa applications
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44524749
History tells us it won't stop here.
Continue making excuses to not investigate the thing you clearly don't want to hear.
They have a proven track record of not respecting people's data...
we have macOS and windows build as of now.
I am yet to see a normal "non-tech" person use Perplexity after being a longtime ChatGPT user.
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?
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.
So I wouldn't describe them as kind and benevolent, more that they want to make products people will pay for.
Apple still makes 10s of billions a year letting Google be the default search, they have a vested interest in maintaining that revenue.
Plus whatever "values" they have will go right out the window if the golden iphone shaped Goose ever stumbles.
[1]: "Apple Partners With Anthropic for Claude-Powered AI Coding Platform" -- https://www.macrumors.com/2025/05/02/apple-anthropic-ai-codi...
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.
slacktivism123•9h ago
garciasn•9h ago
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•8h ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44523226