OpenAI To Release AI Web Browser in Challenge To Chrome (reuters.com) 44
OpenAI is close to releasing an AI-powered web browser that will challenge market-dominating Google Chrome, Reuters reported Wednesday. From the report: The browser is slated to launch in the coming weeks, three of the people said, and aims to use artificial intelligence to fundamentally change how consumers browse the web. It will give OpenAI more direct access to a cornerstone of Google's success: user data.
History rhymes (Score:2)
Sorry, you gotta justify that statement re chrome (Score:3)
Just as the dawn of Google Chrome ushered in the decay of the internet to the degenerative state it now sits in
Please explain how this is Chrome's fault and why things were better when it was Internet Explorer, Safari, and Firefox? Whatever you're thinking, it's not common knowledge.
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Where have you been for the past 17 years?
Lamest teen response in history (Score:2)
Where have you been for the past 17 years?
No, I sincerely don't know what Chrome specifically did to ruin the web. Maybe there is something I don't know...but when someone asks you a technical question and you answer with something as low-effort as "where have you been for the last 17 years?" it makes me think you don't have a clue either. I know, I know Google sucks and all...but I honestly don't know what Chrome did...the few guesses I have LONG predate them and would have happened regardless.
Re:Lamest teen response in history (Score:5, Informative)
>"I sincerely don't know what Chrome specifically did to ruin the web."
Let's take a stab at that:
1) Wiping out ALL competing multiplatform browsers except Firefox. And mostly through their free and constant "advertising" about it on all their platforms for years.
2) Spurring "alternative" browsers, other than Firefox, that are all based on code that Google controls.
3) Creating a near browser monopoly that threatens the security of the web.
4) Creating a monoculture that is starting to make sites incompatible with the few browsers that follow standards but not Google's "standards" or implementation. Further eroding competition and choice.
5) Giving Google the power to ram through or force "standards" that benefit themselves more than the community at large.
6) Systematically removing user privacy and control.
I am sure I missed a lot more that others can contribute.
I am glad that Chrome/Chromium exists (even though I refuse to use either or anything based on them). And it kicked Mozilla's complacency the first few years until Firefox caught up with performance (and it has been on-par ever since). But not at the point it started destroying the "market", standards, security, privacy, and freedom at large. We desperately need more totally open, multiplatform, non-Chromium and non-Mozilla based browsers because right now it is more like there are only two browsers: Chrom* and Firefox*. And if Firefox fails or is eroded to nothing, we are SCREWED.
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and forcing Webmanifest V3 (that will kill adblockers)
Re: Lamest teen response in history (Score:1)
I'm with you, I don't see how chrome "ruined" anything. I personally don't use chrome but that's just personal preference. I can easily tweak chrome like I can brave or Firefox. I prefer Firefox for most things but on my phone I split usage between Firefox and brave.
This sounds more like a personal issue rather than anything specific.
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Re:Sorry, you gotta justify that statement re chro (Score:4, Funny)
Got something against font-family: "Comic Sans MS", "Comic Sans", cursive; ?
Your comment triggered my PTSD
Re: Sorry, you gotta justify that statement re chr (Score:1)
I still change everything to tahoma
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The internet was destroyed when client-side scripting was introduced, and I am not even trolling.
Client-side scripting makes a lot of things possible, including surveillance. But downloadable apps are worse. At least the browser can be a gatekeeper for client-side scripting. A good browser for the user would be one that gives us control on what things the scripting is allowed to do. For example, I would like to allow only specific sites to save persistent cookies and site data locally (my data). I can do this with Firefox for the desktop, but not with Firefox or Fennec for Android. It is as if Bi
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But downloadable apps are worse
In what way? Do you think dynamic on-demand downloading and execution of unsigned code, and a patchwork of shitty security features to mitigate against intrinsic design problems, is brilliant or something?
This is Google's fault? (Score:4, Insightful)
The internet was destroyed when client-side scripting was introduced, and I am not even trolling.
Every web developer I've ever met has had no trouble enshittifying their page without the help of Google or Chrome. I think client-side scripting is heavily abused and typically not necessary in the ways most use it...but again, JavaScript was created by Netscape and predates Chrome. How did Chrome make this any worse? Why would it be any different if they never released a browser? Why is firefox any better regarding client side scripting? Safari? IE/Edge?
It sounds like you're making a legit complaint about the state of the modern web...but I don't know how it relates to Chrome directly and is uniquely their fault.
That's like blaming Tesla because there was a ton of traffic on the way to work this morning. You may have a legit reason, but I'd ask follow up questions as to why it's their fault and had they never existed how your commute would be any better. You might have a point, but whatever it is, it's not yet obvious to me.
Another? (Score:3)
Sounds like doubling up on tracking to me, just hype fuelled. Unless the "AI" can do the valid coupon hunting for me, it doesn't sound much better
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If you ask it nicely, it will always find coupons for you. Even "hallucinated" ones!
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>"Sounds like doubling up on tracking to me"
And it is also just yet another Chrom* in which Google controls the entire engine, just like all multiplatform browsers, except Firefox (and it's few offshoots).
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In theory, Google paid most of the Mozilla money, so in a way Google owns them all? :o)
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>"In theory, Google paid most of the Mozilla money, so in a way Google owns them all? :o)"
Yes but no. Mozilla was/is over-dependent on Google's money. There is no question there. However, as far as I know, there were/are no strings attached when it came to design decisions, standards, development decisions, user-choice, etc. Had Google done that, in any way, they would have really set themselves up for a MAJOR antitrust situation.
Mozilla, unfortunately, wasted way too much of that money. Had they in
My first login in years, just to express... (Score:5, Funny)
Why worry about new ideas (Score:5, Insightful)
It's so funny to see the supposedly next generation of technology companies falling into the same old patterns. The greatest myth ever told was that innovation happens in Silicon Valley. In reality, it's just capitalism run amok, with all the companies lying, stealing, and eating themselves in an effort to be the biggest fish in the sea.
Why does OpenAI need a web browser? Because all these people know how to do is eat market share. ChatGPT stopped growing exponentially, so they have to cannibalism users some other way.
"Well gowrsh, everyone still uses a web browser!"
No new ideas, no real innovation. Just ouroboros-brand capitalism.
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Tank Girl - The company water & power. They have all the water, and all the power.
Re: Why worry about new ideas (Score:2)
Well said.
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I don't think it's that they exhausted market share, but that they've exhausted the amount of training data they have.
Imagine how much more data on user behavior and website interpretation they can collect from a browser.
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Investors won't be happy to see their big piles of investments dwindle while development 'ran out of data'; the problem is they already ran out of useful data.
Ever expanding data is like Economists and their ever expanding economy: it isn't sustainable. Just like adding more money suffers inflation, data rots.
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I don't think there will be any recognizable innovation beyond the set of models people are using right now simply by throwing more data at the problem.
Will it have its own engine? (Score:4, Interesting)
Probably just has the address bar go to ChatGPT (Score:5, Interesting)
Or is yet another Chromium wrapper? Is making a custom engine a use case for vibe coding?
I will wager it's just a lame Chromium wrapper that directs traffic to OpenAI instead of Google when you type something into the address bar...basically Brave, but shittier? We all know they can't come up with a superior browser engine using ChatGPT to code it...and even if they had a reasonable chance of doing so, it would be a massive headache for them to deal with all the security issues that would arise even from an extremely well made new browser....let alone the garbage ChatGPT pukes out.
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>"Or is yet another Chromium wrapper?"
Yes
Like all multiplatform non-Firefox/based browsers, it is yet another Chrom* in which Google controls the entire engine and what defines most of web browsing and design now.
What does that even mean? (Score:4, Insightful)
"an AI-powered web browser"
Seriously, what does that even mean?
They must mean "AI enhanced", aka "AI enshittified".
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"an AI-powered web browser"
Seriously, what does that even mean?
They must mean "AI enhanced", aka "AI enshittified".
It means, "We've wrapped all the data gathering in a wrapper called 'AI' to make it sound more palatable to the data cattle, er, uh, we mean users, yeah, that's it. Users." I expect the AI is literally just hooks to guarantee all data about browsing habits, along with anything you'd type into a text box or maybe even a login window, will be directly collected into their servers for training data. It's not going to do anything for the end-user other than annoy and pester. That seems to be the main mode of AI
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Well, if you're correct, then it will be a total failure. And you *could* be correct, as that would be the easiest way to their stated result.
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It's not going to do anything for the end-user other than annoy and pester.
Will it at least slow my browser down and make it crash once in a while for no reason?
This is how AI takes over (Score:2)
Not by killing all humans directly, but by sticking its s**t in everything until we all kill ourselves.
Altman (Score:2)
Altman seems about a Skeevy as the come. I honestly would run a browser from Zuck/Meta before I would OpenAI.
At least browser based on the open source Chromium code base can be 'un-googled' and have a fair number of eyes looking to make sure Google has filled it with even more spyware we don't know about. Mind you that is only if you eschew the closed widevine stuff.
We need browser that isn't the product of an organization that isnt primarily the surveillance business. OpenAI is the wrong answer here. Mo
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There is no act to get together for Mozilla. If Mozilla had a non self enriching leadership 10 years ago it could have put almost all the Google money in a trust fund and fund Firefox development indefinitely, but now it's too late.
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>"At least browser based on the open source Chromium code base can be 'un-googled'
That is mostly fiction. Chromium is a moving and changing target in which these other "browser creators" can't possibly keep up with. Sure, they can tweak some significant things here and there, but they will not have the resources to undo/change some of the fundamental control Google exerts at this point. So they will mostly plop all of Google's code right into their "browser".
Chromium is open source, but it is NOT an o
Yet another Chromium browser (Score:2)
Yawn. We need browser diversity.
If they allow adblockers, it could thrive (Score:2)
If an OpenAI fork/release of Chromium allows adblockers and was something more like Brave but with deep ChatGPT integration, they might have something...