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Look, Another AI Browser

(manuelmoreale.com)
220 points v3am | 8 comments | 22 Oct 25 17:15 UTC | HN request time: 0.002s | source | bottom
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btown ◴[22 Oct 25 17:58 UTC] No.45672814[source]▶
To be sure, a browser that retains a representation of every word you read on it, constantly synthesizing a profile on your preferences, using that profile to filter everything you see through a lens that consistently enforces and limits the worldview of a snapshot-of-you - all with a level of data retention that would be controversial for Google but that OpenAI's users will happily opt into, that Palantir and its government clients are likely salivating over, and that is fertile ground for a new generation of ads that bypass pesky things like third-party cookie restrictions - must be exciting to many!

It's just not exciting to me.

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1. microtonal ◴[22 Oct 25 18:29 UTC] No.45673237[source]▶
Another possible aspect of it is that probably more and more sites are blocking AI crawlers through e.g. Cloudflare's support for blocking AI crawler and AI agents. This will give them a backdoor to that content through a user's connection.

I am not sure if this is happening, but as blocking becomes more prevalent, having a widely-used browser will help.

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2. ikmckenz ◴[22 Oct 25 18:36 UTC] No.45673323[source]▶
Why won't these sites simply block this browser?
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3. jazzyjackson ◴[22 Oct 25 18:52 UTC] No.45673517[source]▶
Because this browser is just chromium and its user agent will be indistinguishable
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4. Zetaphor ◴[22 Oct 25 19:01 UTC] No.45673633[source]▶
It can (and likely will) just transmit standard browser signals. The AI integration is more of a UI layer on top, not something that is being sent in a request header UA string.

That lack of signals in addition to the regular human behavior patterns that something like Puppeteer doesn't have is going to make this practically impossible to block

5. btown ◴[22 Oct 25 19:25 UTC] No.45673951[source]▶
I can just see the news story now:

"Oops, we got caught using our customers' internet connections as exit nodes for the largest residential proxy ever to exist, both on pages they visited and ones that they didn't. But don't worry, this was an unauthorized experimental rollout to only parts of the world that we don't have legal nexus in. The program has been halted, and the person responsible has been sacked. Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti..."

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6. xena ◴[22 Oct 25 20:13 UTC] No.45674572[source]▶
I downloaded it to see if Anubis can block it. It lies and claims to be Google Chrome.
7. wahnfrieden ◴[22 Oct 25 20:44 UTC] No.45674911{3}[source]▶
Bots can report such user agents too, so that's not the reason.

The reason is that it's easier to block bot hosting providers. That's why illegal botnets rely on compromised personal machines.

8. echelon ◴[22 Oct 25 20:45 UTC] No.45674920[source]▶
What's the user agent?

We can redirect those users to horrible content. One of those blinking gif websites with loud midi music or something.

Edit: it reuses popular browser user agents and is indistinguishable. They know what they're doing.