I tried Perplexity's Comet ☄️ browser for an hour today. This is how it happened and what I noticed. I recently decided to go back to Perplexity and download its browser app after seeing that it had a Discover "News Feed" like feature. Each article or headline relies on collating information across many sources to ensure that the stories are thorough and complete. It reminded me of Ground News, which aims to tackle reporting bias. There's also a Spaces feature that allows for the organization of different "search threads". The browser app reminded me a lot of Notion -- which I currently use to organize my life, so it didn't feel too difficult a decision to sign up for Perplexity Pro. Shortly after doing this, I discovered their agentic browser, Comet. Without the Max subscription, I needed to sign up on their waitlist. Yesterday, I received an invitation email to download Comet and try it out. Today, I spent about 1 hour messing around with what Comet could do. I challenged it to find a reel I may have watched on Facebook about ice skating. It wasn't able to find it, but it was cool to watch the agent navigate to my activity history and do the manual investigation without me. I hypothesize that the reel I watched was likely on Instagram and never interacted with either a like or a comment, so it was not saved in recorded history. The other fascinating thing about the design of the browser is its homepage, or New Tab page. There are more robust widgets--a clock, a stock view that, when clicked, takes you to their Finance page that oddly reminds you of Yahoo Finance, along with a weather widget that takes you to a query for "weather near <your location>". It's also possible to access all of Perplexity's Discover and Spaces from the logo in the top left of the browser page window. It's as if we slapped Notion into a browser and made it an entire packaged product. There have been articles I've seen saying that Comet may take some of Chrome's market share. However, upon noticing that the extensions come from the Chrome Web Store, it may seem more like a modified Chrome. Not quite a wrapper-- more like a cousin. In any case, I find it to be a fascinating venture into the UI/UX potentials of what browsing the internet could be. The Zen widget is also pretty cool, but I wish I could look at a different planet 🪐 or pick from different space-themed soundtracks. It wouldn't surprise me if it were AI-generated music, but I would be more impressed if they hired a proper musician for the thematic music.