Look, Another AI Browser

Summary

Yesterday, OpenAI announced Atlas, its AI browser. To the surprise of literally nobody, it’s Chromium with AI slapped on top. Perplexity also has a browser: it’s called Comet, and it also is Chromium with AI slapped on top. Then we have DIA, which is, you guessed it, Chromium with AI slapped on top. I think Opera also has one of those Chromium browsers with AI slapped on top. I code sites for a living (allegedly), and I honestly cannot overstate how uninterested I am in all these new browsers. Because these are not new browsers: these are Chromium frames with AI slapped on top. The thing I found more interesting about the whole OpenAI announcement was Sam Altman tweeting: «10 am livestream today to launch a new product I'm quite excited about!». This is coming from someone who’s allegedly running a company that’s building a tool that should usher in a new era where computers will replace most of human work, where we’ll all have a super intelligence always available in our pockets, ready to dispense infinite wisdom. And yet he’s quite excited about a fucking Chromium installation with AI slapped on top of it. I guess building an actual browser, from scratch, is still a task so monumentally difficult that even a company that is aiming for super-intelligence can’t tackle it. October's Thoughts and Interviews Look, another AI browser 22nd 10 pointless facts about me 21st A newsletter-related PSA 20th Five least favourite tech topics 18th AliceInterview 17th From the Summit 2.0 17th On concrete examples 16th Linda MaInterview 10th My issue with the two sides 10th Safari and iOS 26: PSA and a rant 8th On public online behaviour 5th Blake WatsonInterview 3rd Making things obvious 1st 2025 September New site, kinda 30th Scoring books 27th Kris HowardInterview 26th Digital fatigue 25th Robert BirmingInterview 19th RIP my minimal phone setup 16th Two quick news items 12th Jack BatyInterview 12th On em dashes 10th Blogs don’t need to be so lonely 6th I guess they did not, in f...