We believe there are better options available in this category, read below to learn what this software does well, and what they could do better. ⤵
.webp)
Bring ChatGPT with you across the web for instant answers, smarter suggestions, and help with tasks—all with privacy settings you can control.
ChatGPT Atlas is a Chromium-based browser built by OpenAI that feels a lot like Google Chrome, but instead of Google Search, you have the full power of ChatGPT available everywhere you go.
ChatGPT Atlas has an AI agent mode that can navigate the web on your behalf. It has ChatGPT with you everywhere (even highlight some text and tell it how you want to modify it and it'll do it inline right there).
Because it's a browser, you also have the ability to @ mention tabs to pull in added context, and it also has deep memory on what you're searching from day-to-day. Other than that, it's really just ChatGPT in the browser.
Think of ChatGPT Atlas as more of an upgraded UI/UX for the ChatGPT desktop app than that of a full replacement for your primary browser.
If you compare it in that way, then it's a no-brainer to install and use it instead of the ChatGPT desktop app.
For example, clicking on a link mid-chat expands the site to the left-hand-side, with chat sitting on the right. It's just a better user-experience than it popping you out to whatever default browser you have set.
From there you can easily ask additional questions about the site you're on, or even reference other open tabs along with browser history. And depending on how complex of a question you ask, their built-in AI agent mode can even pop in and start navigating and completing tasks for you.
So what is the biggest "Pro" for ChatGPT Atlas? It's that it feels like an upgraded desktop app on all fronts. It just feels "right".
Now this is a browser after all, right? Well, when looking at it as one of the best browsers on the market, it feels like you're using a browser that's still in alpha (not even yet beta).
When comparing it to the other agentic browsers in the space, e.g. Dia and Comet, Comet just feels way more fleshed out and refined in many of the micro interactions, interacting with extensions, bookmarks, you know, all the things that make a browser feel like a browser.
So Comet browser feels more like it's in beta, so a generation or so ahead of Atlas browser.
While Atlas is technically free, the features that you're probably seeing teased all over social media and the marketing videos are actually primarily paid (at least for now).
To unlock their AI agent functionality, you must be on ChatGPT Plus ($20/mo) or higher. The same goes for memory and file recall (prior uploaded documents) as well.
So while Atlas is free, it's a pretty restricted version of it.
This is where we'd recommend also giving Comet a shot, especially if you don't have a paid ChatGPT account already, because many of the AI agent features that Comet also has, are readily available to free users.
Do you use ChatGPT? If yes, absolutely install Atlas browser, and just treat it as more of a replacement for the ChatGPT desktop app.
In-fact, use ChatGPT for work and personal, and have 2 separate accounts? Use Atlas to login to one of them, and the ChatGPT desktop app to login to the other one, and boom! You've now got built-in account switching (sorta).
If you're not a paying user of ChatGPT, then I'd recommend you give Comet browser by Perplexity a shot if you want to experience the AI agent mode and other agentic features without purchasing a paid subscription.
The battery optimized browser built by Apple.
This is the default browser that comes with mac devices, and has existed for over a decade.
With Safari, you're not going to get anything too cutting-edge or innovative, because they, like Google Chrome are focused on stability for their 1+ billion users.
For a further breakdown in understanding the negatives that come with browsers that have hit major scale, refer to our Chrome vs Safari comparison.
Since Apple is a hardware company at the end of the day, the whole point of Safari is that you're going to get a great cohesive experience if you're using all Apple products (Mac + iPad + iPhone).
The largest benefit to be had here, in our eyes, comes from Apple owning both the hardware and software layers. This allows them to go above and beyond with optimizations like battery life and cross-device syncing.
While they have baked in password management
We don't really see much major innovation or differentiation coming to Safari though. Why? Because this isn't Apple's core business. Not only that, but Apple has zero interest in going after the B2B and collaborative browser space. When comparing Arc Browser vs Safari, you'll see first-hand that Arc has a lot more going on in the features and differentiation space as they ultimately want to be the browser for teams and collaboration.
We do applaud Apple for adding tab groups, and allowing for them to be on the side of the browser window. There's some small similarities when comparing Safari vs Brave in the recently released sidebar tab management in Brave and Arc.
With Safari, you get a familiar and safe UI. It looks like a browser, it looks pretty much the same as it has the past decade, and it's relatively bland in terms of how it looks.
There's just not much to mention here, but the truth of the matter is some of this is by design. Their focus is to be stable, functional, and to let the content of the website you're currently on, shine.
This is where we can give Apple some props on the user-experience, if of course you're also using other Apple products. Take for example you visit a website on your iPhone, you get a prompt in your MacOS dock that shows a website was just opened on mobile. Want to open it up on your desktop? Simply click the Safari icon in your software dock.
In actually using the browser though, there's nothing in particular that stands out as an exceptional UX. This category in particular is where Arc shines. They have the smallest UX details, that just makes using the browser on the day-to-day so incredibly enjoyable.
Are you a huge Apple fan? Do you only care about getting the best possible battery performance on your MacBook and nothing else matters to you? Do you absolutely despise change? If so, Safari is probably fine for you.
If you're on the other hand sort of bored when looking at the existing browser market and wish you could get a bit more enjoyment and productivity out of your browser, then that's where you should definitely be giving Arc a shot.
Genuinely, give Arc a shot for a week straight as your daily driver, and I'm willing to bet you that you never come back to Safari again.
Arc Browser is genuinely what Apple could have made, had they re-thought the browser from the ground up, without all the baggage that currently exists with Safari. And for that reason, that's why we rank Arc at the top of our best browser apps list. Genuinely wouldn't be surprised if Apple one day acquired Arc and replaced it with Safari as the default browser for MacOS.
.svg)
.jpg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg){kind=icon}
.svg)
.svg)
