Alternative Browsers Target Chrome, Safari With $200 AI Plans and Privacy Tools
Updated
Updated · TechCrunch · May 30
Alternative Browsers Target Chrome, Safari With $200 AI Plans and Privacy Tools
5 articles · Updated · TechCrunch · May 30
Perplexity, Opera and OpenAI are among developers rolling out AI-centric browsers as alternatives to Chrome and Safari, with new products spanning chatbot search, task automation and agent-style browsing.
Perplexity’s Comet is live only on its $200-a-month Max plan, while The Browser Company’s Dia and Opera’s Neon remain limited to beta or waitlists; OpenAI’s Atlas is available on macOS and expanding to more platforms.
Privacy-focused rivals are also pushing differentiation through built-in ad blocking, anti-tracking and scam protection, with Brave and DuckDuckGo adding AI features while Ladybird pursues a rare browser built from scratch.
The broader field now includes niche products such as Opera Air, which adds wellness tools, and SigmaOS, which sells unlimited workspaces for $8 a month, showing challengers are competing on focus and workflow as much as speed.
With AI browsers costing up to $200/month, are their unproven features worth the high price and privacy risks?
While the market focuses on AI, is the urgent threat of quantum computers to browser security being ignored?
As AI search causes a 33% traffic drop, how can online publishers survive this 'extinction-level event'?