Comet vs Google Chrome in 2026

Comet and Chrome share an engine. Comet is built on Chromium, so pages render the same and Chrome Web Store extensions install. Comet and Chrome both score 5 for AI features in our ratings. Chrome now ships Gemini to everyone, so the question is whose AI you want, how much it may do on its own, and what you pay for it.

An answer engine, or a browser with an assistant

Comet is Perplexity's answer engine built into a browser. The address bar returns a synthesised answer with citations rather than a page of links, and an assistant beside every page summarises, compares and takes follow-ups. It can also act for you. Comet has agentic mode in our feature table: its assistant can click through sites, fill in forms and build a shopping cart on your behalf, and Perplexity Max subscribers get a background assistant that keeps working while you do something else.

Chrome adds AI to a conventional browser. Gemini in Chrome became free for desktop users in the US in September 2025, reached Canada, India and New Zealand with support for 50 more languages in March 2026, and came to Chrome on Android for everyone in the US in August 2026. It can read the page you are on and answer questions across your open tabs. Chrome's agent, auto browse, is the part you pay for: it launched in January 2026 for Google AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers in the US only, with a daily limit on tasks, which is why Chrome's agentic mode is marked as paid in our table. It stops short of the final step, so you still press buy or post yourself.

So Comet gives away the agent Google charges for, though Chrome's free assistant is enough for many people.

Privacy and the risks of agents

Comet scores 3 for privacy and Chrome scores 2. Part of the gap is blocking: Comet stops ads, trackers and fingerprinting scripts by default, and Chrome blocks none of them. Neither company is neutral about your data. Google is an advertising business, and Perplexity's CEO said in April 2025 that one reason for building Comet was to learn more about users outside Perplexity's app to show them better-targeted ads. Perplexity says Comet keeps your history, passwords and cookies on your device, but anything you ask the assistant, along with the page it needs to read, goes to Perplexity's servers.

In August 2025 Brave's security team showed that hidden text in a Reddit comment could make Comet's assistant fetch the user's email address and a one-time login code and hand them to an attacker. In October 2025 it showed the same kind of attack using instructions hidden in screenshots. Perplexity fixed the specific flaws and has said that prompt injection remains unsolved across the industry. Google published its own defences in December 2025: a second Gemini model checks each action Chrome's agent plans without reading the page itself, and sensitive steps need your confirmation. That is a careful design, not a guarantee.

Everything else

Chrome scores 5 for speed against Comet's 4, and 4 for customizability against Comet's 3. It has vertical tabs, which Comet lacks, and it runs on Linux as well as Mac, Windows, iOS and Android. Comet covers the other four but not Linux. Both score 4 for extensions and ease of use, and both sync.

Which should you choose?

Choose Comet if you research heavily, want cited answers by default, and want an agent that completes tasks without paying for it. Be deliberate about which logged-in accounts you let it act in.

Choose Google Chrome if you want a familiar, fast browser on every platform including Linux, with a capable free assistant built in, and you are happy to pay for Google AI Pro if you ever want the agent. Add a content blocker, because Chrome will not block anything for you.