You already know about Microsoft’s desperate ploys to get you to use Edge on Windows 11 — chances are you’re one of the folks who have gone through the test of patience to install Firefox or Google Chrome.

Well, new research by Mozilla reveals that the Redmond crew are not only still up to their old tricks, but getting worse. All kinds of “harmful design” shenanigans are at play here, in order to “not allow people to download and install an alternative browser, to set it as their default, or to continue using it as their default, without harmful interference.”

If only we could only get the same treatment as Windows users get in the EU...

Staying desperate

So what did the research find? Well, Mozilla discovered that a lot of the shady tricks Microsoft was called out for in the past are still happening:

• Visual interference: Searching for different browsers to download in Edge still brings up the “All you need is right here” banner, as well as a banner promoting the browser when you go to Chrome’s download page.
• Default browser selection trickery: There is a button at the top of the default apps screen to change to a different browser, but not every file type is switched over.
• Trick wording: Things like “Use Microsoft’s recommended browser settings,” “You’re almost done setting up your PC” and more still persist.
• Dark patterns: In the setup screens you normally see a few days later, Edge-preferential options are shown as big blue buttons, whereas keeping the same settings is usually smaller, greyed-out text.

And that’s just a few of the many different harmful patterns Mozilla found — including Copilot opening links in Edge instead of your default browser, pre-selecting checkboxes to sync data to Edge, and resetting it as the default browser when you migrate from Windows 10 to 11.

Just make a better browser

It screams “inferiority complex” if I’m being real, which is a shame because Edge is indeed a good browser. It runs on the same Chromium engine as Chrome (to support all the same extensions), but also has some efficiencies built into it to not drain the battery as badly.

But this aggressive lock-in, some high RAM resource usage in the background and the clutter of Copilot and MSN news does make it falter. It’s not like Microsoft doesn't have a history of doing this — they were taken to court over an antitrust lawsuit in 1998 for bundling Internet Explorer with Windows and making it difficult to install a competing browser.

The only difference now is that users are committed enough to jump through those hoops to get to their favorite browsers. I mean “Google Chrome” is one of the most searched terms on Bing after all!

If you want to compete, build something better. Don’t go about it this way.

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OpenAI is saying goodbye to Atlas, the AI-powered web browser it launched less than a year ago. But don't mistake the move for a retreat from the web. Instead of trying to convince millions of people to abandon Chrome or Safari, OpenAI is folding Atlas' most useful AI features directly into ChatGPT, its desktop app and a new Chrome extension.

The decision marks a significant shift in strategy, suggesting the company no longer sees AI browsing as something that needs its own browser. Instead, it wants ChatGPT to become an AI assistant that works wherever you already browse.

What happened?

OpenAI confirmed that Atlas will begin shutting down on Aug. 9.

Rather than continue developing a standalone browser, the company says many of Atlas' AI-powered browsing tools, including agentic features capable of interacting with websites on your behalf, will continue inside ChatGPT Work, the ChatGPT desktop app and an upcoming Chrome extension. Existing Atlas users will be guided through the transition over the coming weeks.

While the Atlas name is going away, the technology behind it isn't. Instead, OpenAI is moving those capabilities into products that already have a much larger user base.

Why OpenAI changed course

When Atlas launched, the idea was pretty straightforward: create an AI-first browser that could summarize web pages, answer questions about what you were reading and complete tasks online without requiring constant manual input.

The challenge wasn't the technology but changing people's habits. As a Chrome user, I can honestly say I found it hard to leave behind. And I'm not alone. Chrome remains the dominant browser, while Safari is deeply integrated into Apple's ecosystem. Convincing users to switch browsers is a much bigger hurdle than adding new AI capabilities to software they already use every day.

OpenAI now appears to be betting that AI doesn't need to replace your browser. It simply needs to make the browser you already use smarter.

What this means for ChatGPT users

For most people, this should make AI browsing feel much more seamless. Instead of opening a dedicated browser to access AI features, users will increasingly find those capabilities built directly into ChatGPT or available through Chrome. That means fewer apps to install and manage while keeping the ability to summarize long articles, research complex topics, automate repetitive online tasks and interact with websites using AI.

This also marks a shift across the industry. OpenAI's decision also reflects a broader trend taking shape across the AI industry. Earlier this year, AI-powered browsers were positioned as the next major computing platform. Companies raced to build browsers with built-in assistants, hoping users would abandon traditional web browsers altogether.

That vision now appears to be evolving. Instead of competing to become your primary browser, AI companies are increasingly embedding their assistants into the software people already rely on. Whether you're using a browser, a desktop application or another productivity tool, the goal is the same: make AI available wherever work happens.

Rather than creating yet another destination, AI is becoming part of the tools we already use.

The bottom line

Atlas may be disappearing, but OpenAI's ambitions for AI-powered browsing are only growing.

By moving Atlas' technology into ChatGPT and Chrome instead of maintaining a standalone browser, OpenAI is betting that convenience matters more than another browser icon on your desktop.

If that strategy succeeds, the future of AI browsing won't be about choosing a different browser at all. It'll be about having an intelligent assistant available no matter which browser you prefer.

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Google Chrome's next update could be the final nail in the coffin for some of the best ad blockers like uBlock Origin. As per a Cybernews report, Chrome is set to finally drop support for Manifest V2 extensions, which would mean the end of support for Chrome's ad blockers.

Google began the shift over to Manifest V3 last year, but the report notes the next iterations of the browser — either version 150 or 151 — will remove the older framework completely.

“MV2 extensions are no longer allowed in any supported version of Chrome, and we are removing support for them and the associated functionality," Google engineer Devlin Cronin wrote in a Chromium commit confirming the change.

"We won't be able to provide/maintain this functionality indefinitely due to the complexity and tech debt, as well as the security risks it entails."

Shifting Chrome fully to Manifest V3 won't stop new ad blockers from being developed (in fact, some services like AdGuard, AdBlock, and Ghostery have been updated for V3), but it does impose restrictions. Manifest V3 will cap the number of filtering rules an extension can apply, which could theoretically foil ad blockers' attempts to respond to the latest ad-deployment technology.

Of course, there are some benefits to this new system. Many Chrome extensions that seem legitimate are actually loaded with malicious code. Chrome's new, more rigid Manifest V3 system will be better equipped to put a stop to that.

What does this mean for those that want to block ads?

The simplest answer for those who want to continue blocking ads after the latest version of Chrome rolls out is to switch browsers. This change will likely affect other Chromium-based browsers like Opera, Edge, and Samsung Browser, albeit not for a while yet.

However, Mozilla's Firefox browser doesn't use Chromium and has no current plans to remove the MV2 framework extension, so switching over could be a viable option if people want to continue running uBlock Origin. Similarly, the privacy-focused Brave browser could be another way to keep your favorite extensions running.

Finally, if you're determined not to see ads, you could investigate signing up for a desktop app that will block ads for you — rather than relying on a browser extension. This may be more costly, but it will also likely be more effective at catching those adverts that interrupt your browsing.

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There's a major change coming to Microsoft Edge today that removes the Master Password.

In a press release shared with TechRadar Pro, NordVPN said that as of today (June 4), Edge would be retiring the master password feature. It will be replaced by device-based authentication like Windows Hello, which is more secure than a master password. This comes shortly after Microsoft decided to drop passwords as the default option for new Microsoft accounts.

According to the VP of engineering at NordPass, Ignas Valancius, biometrics like fingerprint or facial recognition (along with PINs) are more secure. The VP rightly states that folks who manage too many passwords tend to reuse them or make simple changes like swapping a letter or number (things I'm certainly guilty of).

Naturally, if someone with malicious intent has a hold of one password, they could potentially have access to all of a person's data if said person used the same password everywhere. Moving away from a master password for more secure login methods is more logical.

If you already use Windows Hello, then you can log in with your Windows device's login. This latter authentication method is the best way to go since it doesn't have to send data over the internet.

The NordVPN exec says he expects backlash as some folks are set in their ways when it comes to passwords. For those unhappy about this change, you can still use services like LastPass, which still has a master password.

I use LastPass myself, but I certainly see the benefit of passwordless authentication, such as fingerprint readers or facial recognition. Even if some users grumble about this change, it seems ultimately for the best.

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People are flocking to the privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo as Google goes all-in on its expanded AI-driven search interface. At Google's I/O conference last week, the company rolled out its biggest search upgrade in decades, replacing the standard page of links with an AI-powered search agent that does the leg work for you, complete with support for follow-up questions.

Considering how often the company's flagship AI Overview feature still struggles with hallucinations, users weren't thrilled at the news. Many are jumping ship for DuckDuckGo, which lets users tailor how much AI they want in their search experience. A representative for DuckDuckGo told CNET that, in the U.S., installations jumped 21% week over week from May 20 through May 26, directly following Google's announcement of several AI initiatives. Browser installs on iOS spiked by 33%, including 69% on Memorial Day.

The company also told MacRumors that traffic for its No AI search page has tripled since Google's announcement. This feature ditches AI-assisted answers, AI-generated images, and DuckDuckGo's own AI tools from results altogether, letting you browse Search pages as you always have. We've reached out to clarify those figures, and will update this article once we hear back.

DuckDuckGo's standard browser offers a Search Assist function that uses AI to help answer search queries, though you can choose how often you want it to appear or nix it entirely. Similar to Google, there's also an Ask AI button to the right of the search bar, which you can use to get AI-generated answers.

According to cloud network and cybersecurity company Cloudflare, DuckDuckGo was the No. 2 most-used search engine on mobile and No. 3 overall in the U.S. in December 2025. Given the clear appetite for AI-free search, DuckDuckGo plans to add No AI search settings to its original extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Opera sometime in the near future.

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You're deep in a rabbit hole: comparing hiking boots, researching a trip, reading a piece with seventeen footnotes. Every time you tap a link in Safari, it yanks you away from the page you were on. Open a link, navigate back, open another, navigate back. It gets old fast.

The fix is a single toggle buried in your iPhone settings. Flip it and Safari stops hijacking your attention every time you open a new tab. Links open quietly in the background instead, waiting for you whenever you're ready for them. Here's where to find it.

Why this feature is a game-changer

It's a small change that quietly improves a lot of daily browsing. Comparing products before buying something is the obvious use case. Open everything you're considering as background tabs, then flip through them at your own pace rather than bouncing back and forth to search results.

But it's just as useful for anything research-heavy: reading a long article with citations, fact-checking something, or trying to get your head around a topic that requires taking in a few different perspectives at once.

There's also a faster way to open background tabs once you've got the setting enabled. Instead of long-pressing and going through the menu, try tapping any link with two fingers simultaneously.

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Microsoft Edge apparently saves your passwords in its memory as cleartext according to a Norwegian cybersecurity researcher. This matters because it means a malicious actor could see all of your passwords if they gain access to your PC.

Update: Microsoft provided Tom's Guide with a statement, read on for the company's response.

The researcher, Tom Jøran Sønstebyseter Rønning (spotted by our friends at PC Gamer), posted a thread on X explaining how the browser decrypts "every credential at startup" and then keeps them in process memory. It even happens for sites that you don't visit that session.

"Edge is the only Chromium‑based browser I’ve tested that behaves this way," Rønning said.

To be clear, this isn't available for anyone to just stumble across. You need some know-how and administrative access to the terminal server, already a huge breach. Once that is done, a bad actor "can access the memory of all logged‑on user processes."

A person could have administrative access on one account and then use that access to compromise passwords for other logged-in users too.

Yes, someone with admin rights can wreak havoc on any computer they have access to, but you typically need passwords to access password managers or two-factor authentication. Cleartext means that passwords are more visible and in a shared environment, that would be a treasure trove for a bad actor.

"Access to browser data as described in the reported scenario would require the device to already be compromised," a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement.

"By design"

Rønning posted that he disclosed this flaw to Microsoft and was told that the behavior is "by design." And it appears to be known.

In a related thread, X user LopezLucio666 responded that they reported the flaw in September of 2025. According to a screencap they posted, the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) deemed the flaw "not a vulnerability and no security boundary being crossed."

The message says that the ability to read Edge memory requires privileges "the same or greater."

Microsoft has a password manager security FAQ that does sort of address the issue. "Even if an attacker has admin rights or offline access and can get to the locally stored data, the system is designed to prevent the attacker from getting the plaintext passwords of a user who isn't logged in."

This doesn't do anything for users who are logged in, though.

Microsoft told Tom's Guide that design choices regarding this involve "balancing performance, usability and security, and we continue to review it against evolving threats."

The company added that the browser's access to password data in memory allows you to sign in quickly and securely, an "expected feature of the application."

Per Rønning and others' research, the system may not be doing enough to prevent attackers from being able to access the cleartext passwords.

In the meantime, we recommend using one of the best password managers instead of storing them in Edge or any other browser for that matter.

Microsoft statement

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A 4GB file showed up on my computer — and I don’t remember downloading it.

After digging around, I traced it back to Google Chrome. According to a new report from Cybernews, some users are finding the same file, called weights.bin, hidden inside Chrome’s folders — and it may be tied to upcoming AI features.

So, the obvious question is why is Chrome downloading something this big — and did you agree to it? Here's what's actually going on.

What is the 4GB file in Chrome?

At the heart of the controversy is a file called weights.bin, which researchers say is part of an on-device AI model used by Google Chrome.

Specifically, it appears linked to Gemini Nano, Google’s lightweight AI model designed to run locally on your device instead of in the cloud. This model powers features like writing assistance, text summarization, scam and phishing detection as well as AI-powered autofill and suggestions.

So, instead of sending your data to a server, the model runs directly on your computer, which is technically better for privacy. Of course, there's an obvious tradeoff (storage).

Why is the AI model so big?

The thing is, even “lightweight” versions like Gemini Nano can take up gigabytes of storage because they include massive sets of trained parameters, hence a file like weights.bin.

This explains why some users are noticing a sudden 4GB increase in storage usage, new folders inside Chrome directories (like OptGuideOnDeviceModel) and no obvious notification explaining what was downloaded. But all of that could be a big problem for anyone using a laptop with limited space.

Did Chrome install this file without permission?

Well, this is where things get a bit...murky. According to the Cybernews report, the model may download automatically when certain AI features are enabled, but users aren’t always clearly told that a multi-gigabyte file is part of that process.

There’s no strong evidence that Chrome is installing this on every device without consent. But there is a growing concern that the download isn’t always clearly explained or that it may be tied to features users didn’t realize were enabled. In other words, there's no obvious "yes/no" moment for the storage impact. The company just wasn't exactly transparent.

How to check if it’s on your PC

If you’re curious (or low on storage), here’s how to look:

• Open File Explorer (Windows) or Finder (Mac)
• Navigate to your Chrome data folders
• Look for directories with names like: OptGuideOnDeviceModel or files named weights.bin

These locations can vary depending on your system, but they’re typically buried in Chrome’s application data folders.

Can you delete it?

Yes, you can delete it, but there's a catch. If you delete the file, Chrome may re-download it later if the related AI features are still active. You may notice that some AI-powered features inside the browser may stop working.

To fully prevent it from coming back, you may need to disable certain AI features in Chrome settings or, turn off experimental flags tied to on-device AI. Keep in mind that these settings aren't always easy to find yet, which is part of the issue.

Why this is happening now

While this may feel like a bug, it's actually a shift. Big tech companies like Google are rapidly moving toward on-device AI, where your laptop or phone does the processing instead of the cloud.

This shift comes with benefits like better privacy, faster responses and offline functionality. But it also means your devices are starting to store parts of the AI themselves. And that's new (and a storage shock) for many users.

Google responds: what the company actually said

According to Google as reported by Android Authority, the file is tied to on-device AI features powered by Gemini Nano and is downloaded “so features that rely on these on-device models stay ready for use.” The company also said that beginning in February, Chrome started rolling out a way for users to “easily turn off and remove the model directly in Chrome settings.” Once disabled, Google says the model will no longer download or update.

That response addresses one of the biggest complaints users had: the inability to permanently remove the file. Previously, many users reported deleting the folder only to see Chrome automatically reinstall it later.

Still, Google’s statement doesn’t fully answer the larger criticism surrounding transparency and consent. Privacy researcher Alexander Hanff, whose investigation helped bring attention to the issue, argues that users were never clearly informed before the multi-gigabyte download began. Additionally, Chrome’s visible “AI Mode” feature appears to rely on cloud processing rather than the local Gemini Nano model, which raises questions about why the download was happening automatically in the first place.

For now, Google’s position is essentially that the download is intentional, tied to AI features inside Chrome and users now have a manual opt-out option if they don’t want the model stored locally.

Bottom line

This isn’t a “Chrome is secretly installing something malicious” situation, but it does show where software is heading. As AI gets baked into everyday tools, your computer is quietly becoming part of the system that runs it.

The real issue isn’t the 4GB file, it’s whether anyone told you it would be there. Right now, that transparency feels like a work in progress, which makes it worth paying closer attention to what’s being stored on your device.

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Google saves every search you make. Every query you type, every website you click from results, every topic you research — all of it gets stored in your Google account indefinitely unless you delete it.

This search history doesn't just sit unused. Google uses it to personalize ads, refine search results, and build a profile of your interests and behavior. The company can see everything you've searched for years back, creating a detailed record of your curiosity, concerns, shopping habits, and personal questions.

Don't want Google remembering your browsing history? Fortunately, the clearing process takes under five minutes and works from any device with a browser. Here's how to delete your entire Google search history.

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Chrome collects data about your browsing activity, and Google isn't entirely transparent about what information it gathers. While the company keeps specific details vague, court filings over the last few years have shed light on some of the data collection happening in the background.

Chrome has faced legal challenges over its tracking practices. A 2024 lawsuit revealed the browser was collecting data even in incognito mode, which led to a settlement requiring Google to delete significant amounts of browsing data.

Chrome's default settings lean toward data collection rather than privacy protection. Many tracking features are enabled automatically, and disabling them requires navigating through settings that most users never explore. Here's what Chrome tracks and which settings you can change to limit data collection.

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Google's Incognito mode is one of the best means to keep your web browsing private, while also making sure that you're not hindered by prior search data while searching Google. However, the best Android phones can make it even more secure.

While Google Chrome and Incognito mode are available on any device, users with a Samsung or Google Phone can lock their tabs behind their PIN or even Face Recognition. In comparison, iPhones will hide the pages, but you only need to press a button that appears to see all the tabs.

However, to turn on the feature, you do need to navigate Chrome's menus, which can be a bit of a challenge if you don't know what you're looking for. As such, we've compiled this guide to help you find what you need with ease.

How to lock Incognito mode on Android phones

Once you have activated the toggle, you'll be asked to confirm your identity using either your Face Recognition, PIN or pattern. From then on, anyone who wants to see your incognito tabs will require the same means each time.

This is the kind of addition that I would want to see more of, as it doubles the security of Incognito mode. For instance, if you're looking to hide your holiday shopping for a family member, then this is just an added layer of security.

However, it is worth noting that, while Incognito mode doesn't store cookies or appear on your history, it doesn't stop websites, employers, or ISPs from tracking your activity, and data may remain in network logs or system caches.

If you want more privacy, then you would be better served investing in one of the best VPNs to help keep your data private and protect important information. If you have any other information or tips and tricks for iPhone and Android phones, then let us know in the comments.

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Chrome is getting a trio of upgrades designed to help you be more productive: spilt view, PDF annotations and Save to Google Drive. All three appear to be available right now.

Annotations and save to Drive are specifically for PDFs, which we'll cover below. Split view, however, changes how you use tabs and view sites in the browser.

Google announced the new features in a blog post, saying they were developed for both everyday and business users. Here's what they do.

What Split View does

My colleague, Anthony Spadafora, tested out split tabs back when it was still in beta and came away quite impressed with the feature calling it a "browser breakthrough."

"Split Tabs provides a whole new way to browse that, as a long-time Chrome user, has really impressed me so far," he said.

Simply put, split view lets you put two tabs together so you can look at condensed versions of two websites side by side. In your browser, they're also put in the same tab so you can move the double tabs to a new window if you need to.

Now, you can bounce back and forth between the two tabs without having to actually open them or split them between two windows. Within the double tab, you can close one when you're done or separate it once you need more space.

To access it, right-click a tab you're using and click "Add tab to new split view." From there, you can either have it open a blank window that you can use to search or select another open tab to add it to the split view.

PDF Annotations and Drives

The other two upgrades are smaller but PDF-focused and should make editing and saving documents much easier when looking at them in Chrome.

Annotations allows you to highlight text and notes directly in a PDF in the browser. For example, you can use it to e-sign a document without opening a new program or build the feature into a PDF.

To access annotations, you can click the new icon that looks like a squiggly line in the tool bar. Once open you can change the color of your notes and the type of tool you're using.

"Save to Google Drive" lets you save a new PDF directly to your Drive folders without downloading it and reuploading it. When looking at a PDF in Chrome you should see a Drive button with a plus symbol in the tool bar. Clicking that will allow you to automatically save the document.

These saved PDFs will be sent to a dedicated "Saved from Chrome" folder.

All three features are available in Chrome now. If you aren't seeing them, try to updating your browser to the latest version.

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Whether you like it or not, AI is finding its way into all of our devices and the apps we use everyday. From chatbots to image generators, you can’t blink without seeing AI somewhere now. However, I never expected to try and enjoy using an AI-powered browser as much as I have over the past week while testing Norton Neo.

After going hands-on with OpenAI’s ChatGPT Atlas browser when it first released last year, I have to admit the bar was quite low. Although both it and Neo are Chromium-based browsers, they do things quite differently, especially when compared to my go-to browser, Google Chrome.

While ChatGPT Atlas tries to turn the traditional web browser on its head, Neo follows in the footsteps of Opera Air and its more mindful approach to how you use the web. Instead of taking the actual browsing out of your hands like ChatGPT Atlas does with its agents, Neo focuses more on refining the browsing experience by making it calmer and smarter at the same time.

Don’t get me wrong. Norton’s browser has plenty of useful AI-powered tools built in, but what impressed me the most and could almost convince me to ditch Chrome, is its more intelligent approach to browser tabs.

As someone who often has dozens of tabs open across multiple windows simultaneously, here’s how Neo’s Smart Tab Management completely changed how I organize my browser tabs while making them infinitely more useful at a glance.

From magic to peeking

Right from the get-go, I knew I was dealing with something entirely different after booting up Norton Neo for the first time. Instead of being met with a Flipboard-style list of stories I might want to read when opening Firefox, Norton’s browser starts you out with a dashboard that almost resembles its own OS.

Known as Magic Page, Neo’s default landing page features a minimalistic and calmer workspace without any clutter whatsoever. It has a floating pane with your history and chats, widgets for weather and time, and a central command bar called the Magic Box.

This bar combines a typical address bar with an AI chatbot interface. So instead of typing out full URLs, you can just tell Neo where you want to go or what you want to find, and it intelligently handles the rest.

Off to a promising start, I then dived into everything else Neo has to offer. On the far left side, you can quickly access all your open tabs and favorites. There’s also a button at the very top that lets you quickly switch between more traditional horizontal tabs and vertical ones — a convenient and easy way to test out vertical tabs without having to head to the browser’s settings menu. On the far right, Norton’s AI chatbot, Neo Chat, is just a single click away.

As I normally do throughout the day, I went on a bit of a news dive for potential stories. While reading a report on BleepingComputer, I came across one of Neo’s most useful features: its Link Peek tool.

When you hover over a link, a small upside-down 'U' icon appears next to your mouse cursor and when you interact with the icon, it flips over. You don’t have to use it, but hovering over the Link Peek icon and heading to its two submenus either lets you quickly summarize stories or, as the name implies, gives you a live preview of the site in question in a lightweight overlay.

For instance, in a story about a flaw in Honeywell’s CCTV devices, there was a link to an official advisory from CISA. Normally, I would have opened this in a new tab to look through it later. With Link Peek though, I was able to read the entire advisory right then and there.

While you are technically still "opening" the page in a preview window, Norton addresses the risk of malicious links through Neo’s built-in Web Shield feature. This isn't just an extension though; it's a security layer baked into the browser that uses AI and behavioral analysis to scan links before you even click them.

It’s designed to block phishing and malware attempts proactively, even if you don’t have the best antivirus software installed on your computer.

A contextual chatbot where you'll actually use it

Link Peek gave me a sneak peek of Neo’s AI capabilities, but there is a full sidebar on the right side of the browser if you want to go even further. With a quick click on the Neo Chat icon in the top right corner, you can instantly access Norton’s chatbot.

What I like about Neo Chat over ChatGPT or Gemini is that it’s built into Neo’s foundation, meaning you can bring it up without having to open yet another tab. It’s also context-aware, meaning it "sees" what you see on whatever page you visit.

For instance, when I opened a blog post from PlayStation, the chatbot didn't wait for me to prompt it. Instead, it already had pre-made questions ready to go based on the article's content.

I’m all about cutting clicks and keypresses out of my workflow, and Neo Chat does exactly that. When you’re in the zone researching, having suggested questions ready saves precious brain power and is essentially "zero-prompt" assistance.

Though you can do so via Link Peek, you can also ask Neo Chat to summarize any article you’re currently reading. To test this feature out, I pulled up a data leak story I wrote recently on Tom’s Guide and let Norton’s chatbot break it down for me. Not only was the summary almost instantaneous, it was accurate and did a great job capturing the gist of a story I knew quite well as I wrote it myself.

Neo Chat isn’t just limited to pre-made questions and summarizing articles though. You can also use it as a co-writer to help you put together emails or even social media posts. At the same time, Neo Chat can resurface calendar reminders so you don’t forget about a meeting or an event as well as do things like plan a trip by aggregating data from several open browser tabs. Speaking of tabs…

Not just vertical but auto-organized tabs

If, like me, you often have a dozen tabs open in one Chrome window and another dozen open in another, things can get very confusing. This is because once you reach a certain number of tabs, Google’s browser makes them teensy-tiny to the point where you can’t even guess which site is open in a particular tab. Fortunately, Neo takes all of the guesswork out of your currently opened tabs.

I know vertical tabs have been around for a while but right now, if you want to enable them in Chrome, you need to go hunting for them. At the time of writing, this feature is still tucked away behind an experimental Chrome flag (chrome://flags/#vertical-tabs).

Even after you enable it and relaunch, you still have to manually right-click the tab bar to "Show tabs on side". In Neo on the other hand, this isn't an extra feature — it's part of the browser’s core experience. You can use horizontal tabs as well or quickly switch between the two with a dedicated toggle, but in my time testing Norton’s browser, I mainly used vertical tabs thanks to Neo's unique twist on them.

Neo uses its AI-native core for what it calls Smart Tab Management. Instead of just listing your tabs, it categorizes and color-codes them based on what they’re for — a great reason to have your browser "see what you see."

In the screenshot above for example, I have a number of different sites open, but I no longer have to hunt for a specific tab. Neo automatically categorizes them into themed groups like Entertainment (for YouTube or Netflix), Technology, or Shopping.

While I've become accustomed to grouping my tabs manually in Chrome with Gmail on the far left, followed by Slack and Sheets, Neo does this for me automatically in real-time. This helps turn a chaotic mess of Favicons (site icons) into a clean, color-coded list that’s easy to navigate.

More than another Chromium flavor

Although Norton Neo, like many other browsers, is built upon that same Chromium foundation as Google Chrome, it manages to do enough things differently while being truly helpful to stand on its own. I was skeptical at first when I heard about Neo, but after testing the browser for myself, it’s quickly grown on me.

From those color-coded tab groups to Link Peek and having a proactive AI chatbot available in its sidebar, there’s quite a lot to like about Norton’s browser even if it's a newcomer.

Another great thing about it being Chromium-based is that once you log into your Google Account the same way you do in Chrome, you have immediate access to all of your extensions, bookmarks, and other data.

Now, would I ditch Chrome for Neo? I considered it for a second until I discovered I wasn't able to log in with my work email. This isn't a Norton issue though, and it comes down to the fact that many Google Workspace accounts like my work one have strict administrative policies when it comes to what browser you and other apps you can use. As a result, I was stuck using Neo for personal use and research without full access to my work account.

Who knows, maybe our IT team will make an exception for a browser from one of the biggest names in the cybersecurity business. But until then, I’ll be sticking with Chrome, knowing full well that a calmer, smarter, and easier-to-navigate browser is just a click away.

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In honor of the Opera browser turning thirty, the company has set up an internet time machine named “Opera Web Rewind,” and it truly got me right in my feelings for a good long while.

From the screech of the dial-up connection to the meteoric rise of the AI prompt, every significant moment that changed the web is preserved here as a digital “artifact” that you can interact with.

So I spent a couple of hours browsing through it, reminiscing about the good old days, thinking about where we are now, and where we will be looking ahead.

A trip down memory lane

Simply put, this is an interactive museum of the web over the past 30 years — since Opera’s browser first launched in 1996. By pressing and holding the spacebar, I was immediately taken back to the glory days.

Whether it’s the “You’ve Got Mail” era, the explosion of Limewire, the time we all created our own custom MySpace pages or the birth of the viral video, it’s all here, and it’s a glorious trip back through time.

Just hearing those dial-up tones of connecting to a 56k modem fired up my fight or flight response — anticipating my mom shouting at me to “get off the internet” so she can make a call.

But of course, the internet has been so much more significant than just thinking about small moments in time.

The reason why we remember these things is because being connected has become an essential element of humanity, and whether it’s documenting the world’s history on Wikipedia or bringing scientists together to turbo-boost the speed of discoveries, it has been life-changing.

“In three decades, the web has evolved from a niche scientific tool to an indispensable part of our entire lives. At Opera, we’ve spent 30 years building a faster, better, and more creative window to the world,” said Jan Standal, Senior Vice President at Opera.

“Web Rewind is our tribute to the community that shaped the web. We want to celebrate the memes, the breakthroughs, and even the quirks that made the web what it is today.”

All of the biggest moments are documented, and if you’re feeling lucky, you can enter a competition to win a trip to CERN in Switzerland — the place where the World Wide Web was born in the 90s.

Our favorite internet moments

It got me thinking back to all the experiences I’ve had on the web over the past 26 years, so I had one very obvious question for the team: what is your most cherished internet memory?

If I wasn’t on Tumblr reblogging “edgy” quotes and fandom GIFs, I was on Club Penguin earning coins and redecorating my igloo for the hundredth time.

For a whole generation, it was the after-school ritual: logging in to see who was online, adopting a new puffle, trying (and failing) to tip the iceberg, and grinding mini-games like it was serious business. Club Penguin honestly felt like the early internet at its safest and most imaginative.

Even though I hadn’t played in a while by 2017, it still felt like a real shame when Club Penguin was shut down and replaced with a mobile app that didn’t capture the same magic (and then that got shut down not long after). Some things are meant to end, I guess, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s a core memory.

Like many, the first thing I would do as soon as I came home from school was fire up my family PC, connect to dial-up internet and immediately “nudge” anyone online on the iconic MSN Messenger.

It’s the instant messaging client that kicked off mass communication over the web, and for me, the latest gossip around school. Sadly, it was discontinued over a decade ago, but MSN Messenger paved the way for WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Slack, Signal and plenty more to flourish.

Instant messaging has shaped digital communication as we know it, and you can thank MSN Messenger for that. In hindsight, though, perhaps “nudging” wouldn’t translate too well in today’s world (imagine getting a “nudge” from your boss!), but you can bet I miss annoyingly shaking up somebody’s screen.

In 2001, my middle school library trips were meant for "learning." But thanks to non-existent parental controls, I spent that wide-open internet time discovering Flash games instead.

It would be easy for me to reminisce here — talk about Joe Cartoon, Newgrounds, Xiao Xiao 3 and the World’s Hardest Game. But what these actually did was become a wild test bed for a lot of the AAA experiences you love today.

Roguelites like “Hades”? You can thank the likes of “Learn to Fly” and “Burrito Bison” for that. Love the environmental puzzles in “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom”? Yep, “Crush the Castle” did physics-based puzzling first. It all started in a browser.

But has AI slop killed it?

One part that piqued my curiosity was the birth of ChatGPT in 2022, and seeing the advent of AI video in 2024.

And it made me think about my usual web-browsing habits nowadays — never about discovering amazing projects, like I did in the past, but much more transactional in the walled gardens of chatbots and Google AI Overview. Something’s gone wrong here.

Am I viewing the world through rose-tinted spectacles by reminiscing? Quite possibly. I’ve been called “unc” a few times, and this could very well be a very real expression of that.

But surely, I’m not alone in thinking this, right? A study from AWS back in 2024 estimated around 57% of online content is already AI-generated, and while there are no specifically researched numbers for 2025, the fact that Merriam-Webster named “slop” its word of the year gives the impression that the problem is getting worse.

Content discovery has been all but eliminated by getting answers to your questions scraped from said websites, and AI-generated images and videos dominate the social feeds of hundreds of millions. And while vibe coding is capable of making cool things for sure, they can quite often be massive security concerns.

After web eras of human creation, it seems like we’re entering a synthetic web of AI in everything. Gartner’s surveys have shown that 70% of consumers believe that more generative AI in social media will harm the user experience, but it seems like they’re not listening.

And what do we get in return? Skyrocketing RAM prices. I really didn’t want to turn this into a rant, because I do indeed see the value of AI to humanity. But to put a finer point on it, when I said AI could very well be a bubble, I don’t mean the core technology itself — I mean generative AI.

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You can never be too careful when downloading new software — whether that be an app or a browser extension — onto your computer. Case in point: when trying to download an ad blocker for their browser, a user ended up installing a fake extension that ‘broke’ their computer before offering up a malware-filled fix instead.

As reported by BleepingComputer, the browser extension in question is called NexShield. Despite being fake, it’s promoted as a privacy-first, high-performance and lightweight ad blocker. To make the extension appear legitimate, the cybercriminals who created it impersonated the original developer of uBlock Origin, Raymond Hill.

Unfortunately, besides not blocking ads, NexShield breaks your computer before offering to help you repair it to carry out a new ClickFix-style attack. Here’s everything you need to know about this new malicious extension, the malware it infects unsuspecting users with and how to stay safe from this highly successful new tactic being employed by hackers and other cybercriminals.

Breaking your browser to hack you with a fix

The cybercriminals behind this campaign have gone to great lengths to trick unsuspecting users. Not only have they created a fake extension, but they’ve also made a landing page for this so-called ad blocker and are running malicious ads to promote it.

According to a blog post from the cybersecurity firm Huntress, the NexShield extension can create a denial-of-service (DoS) condition in Google Chrome by making numerous ‘chrome.runtime’ port connections in an infinite loop, which exhausts a targeted computer’s memory. From your point of view as a Chrome or Edge user, you’d see frozen tabs, increased CPU and RAM usage and an unresponsive browser.

Once Chrome or Edge crashes and you restart your browser, NexShield shows a pop-up with a fake warning and suggests that it scans your PC to find the problem. Clicking on the “Run Scan” button opens a new window with yet another fake warning about security issues detected on your system. There are also instructions on how to fix the problem, but as you may have guessed, following them leads to a ClickFix-style attack security researchers at Huntress have dubbed CrashFix.

ClickFix attacks are very popular with hackers right now because, by copying and pasting malicious commands into a Windows command prompt, you’re actually doing the hard work for them. The command in question here triggers a hidden PowerShell script over a remote connection, which then downloads and executes a malicious script.

What’s different from other CickFix attacks, though, is that the malicious activity doesn’t occur until an hour after the NexShield extension is installed. This helps the hackers behind this campaign avoid detection while confusing victims, since many won’t know why their computer is suddenly acting funny.

How to stay safe from fake extensions and malware

With this particular attack, the cybercriminals are targeting business users as opposed to normal home users. When someone on a corporate network downloads NexShield and applies the ‘fix’, the ModeloRAT malware is downloaded onto their computer. However, when an ordinary person does, they’re just met with a “TEST PAYLOAD!!!” message according to Huntress’ security researchers.

Fortunately, Google has since removed this fake NexShield extension from the Chrome Web Store. If you have it installed, though, you should remove it immediately.

Even though your computer didn’t get infected with malware from the NexShield extension, this should be a wake-up call. In the example shared by Huntress, the victim in question never should have clicked on the ad that popped up in their browser when looking for an ad blocker. Then, instead of following the extension’s instructions, they should have immediately deleted it and run a full scan of their computer using the best antivirus software.

Just like you and me, hackers can also buy ad space on Google and other search engines, which looks to be what happened here. This is why I highly recommend going right to the store itself — in this case, the Chrome Web Store — instead of clicking on advertisements in your browser, as they could be malicious ads posing as legitimate ones.

Likewise, when looking for new browser extensions, always check their rating, read reviews, and do your own external research before downloading anything. Our browsers handle everything from email to social media and even online banking, so you don’t want to risk having a malicious extension getting access to that data. Just like with the apps on your phone, you want to limit the number of browser extensions you have installed. Before downloading any new ones, first, always ask yourself if you actually need it.

From there, you should never follow instructions to fix a problem that involves copying commands and pasting them into a command prompt. This is a major red flag and doing so is exactly how countless ClickFix victims have infected their own machines with malware.

ClickFix and now CrashFix attacks have been highly effective for cybercriminals, and as such, I don’t think this tactic will disappear anytime soon. Instead, it’s up to you to do your research and be extra careful when installing new browser extensions.

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Your home address could be floating around somewhere on the internet in more places than you'd expect. I googled my own name recently and was genuinely shocked to see where I currently reside and even the previous town I lived in pop up in search results.

Between data brokers selling information, old account signups you've forgotten about, and social media profiles you filled out years ago, your address gets shared, indexed, and distributed without you really noticing. While you can't scrub your address from every single corner of the internet, you can make it significantly harder to access.

Here are seven practical ways to remove your home address from the internet.

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Google Chrome has dominated the browser market since 2012 when it surpassed Internet Explorer (remember that?) with millions of users across the globe. However, that popularity also means Chrome comes with some limitations when it comes to protecting your privacy, according to a new study

As reported by Neowin, iGaming company Digitain looked at the risks various browsers expose users to in 2025. Chrome isn’t the worst, but its nearly 72% market share means that more people are at risk than those who use smaller and less popular browsers.

You might want to avoid ChatGPT's browser (for now)

Digitain claims that ChatGPT Atlas, the browser from OpenAI, is the worst for your security. Atlas just launched in October, but the team at Digitain felt this browser is apparently designed without security in mind at all.

ChatGPT Atlas failed all state partitioning tests, meaning that the browser does not block websites from tracking what you do across sessions. It ranked low on all three measured metrics (connection and navigation security, privacy and anti-fingerprinting, and tracker and data blocking). Atlas ended with an overall risk score of 99 out of 100.

Chrome was the second-worst browser by comparison, at 76 out of 100. Compared to ChatGPT Atlas though, Google's browser seems like a locked safe

Here’s the list of the 10 worst browsers when it comes to user privacy, along with risk scores (the lower the score, the better the browser):

• ChatGPT Atlas - 99
• Google Chrome -76
• Vivaldi - 75
• Microsoft Edge - 63
• Opera - 58
• Ungoogled - 55
• Mozilla Firefox - 50
• Apple Safari - 49
• DuckDuckGo - 44
• Tor - 40

Microsoft Edge scored better at 63, but Apple’s Safari browser, the second most popular browser in the world, smoked both at 49 out of 100.

“New AI-powered browsers like ChatGPT Atlas and Comet from Perplexity are getting a lot of attention right now, and millions of people are trying them out because of the AI hype,” Paruyr Harutyunyan, head of digital marketing at Digitain, supposedly said in a statement.

“AI works by collecting and learning from data, which means these tools might be gathering more of your personal information than you realize. Just because something uses AI doesn't automatically make it safe or private.”

Digitain noted that Brave and Mullvad Browser have a strong focus on user privacy. Brave has long been built and sold as a privacy-oriented browser, but Mullvad, as the name suggests, was built in partnership between Mullvad VPN and The Tor Project. It’s marketed as an open-source privacy-focused browser by one of the best private VPNs.

Protect your privacy

Chrome likely won't lose the top spot in terms of browser popularity anytime soon, but there are things you can do to ensure your data and privacy are protected. And that carries over no matter which browser you use to surf the web.

First, you’ll want to deny or restrict permissions for things that aren’t necessary like location, contacts, and phone access. Likewise, you can turn off personalization settings in the browser's desktop or mobile app. For example, in Chrome, you can turn off the browser's ability to sync with your Google account as well as disable add personalization and activity tracking.

For things you do allow, like storage access (to save downloads) and camera and microphone access for video calls, make sure to recheck your permissions monthly, especially if any new ones have been added.

To protect your privacy even further, you might also want to consider using one of the best VPNs when browsing the web. Doing so will keep your data encrypted while masking your IP address. Good VPNs won't log or share your data and verified no-logs policies can back up these claims. Some VPNs even offer tracker, ad and malware protection.

Additionally, you should consider using one of the best ad blockers, too. Google has cracked down on ad blockers recently, but there are still some options that work available. Using one means you block some tracker activity and reduce the number of annoying ads you see.

Finally, if you're are a Chrome user, you might want to consider switching browsers and start using something like Mullvad or Brave as, at least according to Digitain, they're safer for your privacy compared to the Google elephant in the room.

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Editor's note: Microsoft has reached out to us regarding the story below and has issued the following update: "We have removed all the extensions identified as malicious on Edge Add-on store. When we become aware of instances that violate our policies, we take appropriate action that includes, but is not limited to, the removal of prohibited content or termination of our publishing agreement"

A long running malware operation that has evolved over several years has been turning browser extensions in Chrome and Edge into spyware through updates that added malicious functionalities. According to a report from Koi Security, the ShadyPanda campaign affects 4.3 million users who downloaded these now compromised browser extensions.

The ShadyPanda campaign consists of 20 malicious extensions on the Chrome Web Store and 125 in Edge; initial submissions of the extensions appeared in 2018, and the first signs of malicious behavior didn’t show up until five years later when a set of them posing as wallpaper and productivity tools began to show signs that something was amiss.

According to Koi Security, the malware campaign rolled out slowly, in phases, through the auto updated mechanism that is designed to keep users safe:

“Chrome and Edge’s trusted update pipeline silently delivered malware to users. No phishing. No social engineering. Just trusted extensions with quiet version bumps that turn productivity tools into surveillance platforms.”

Here's everything you need to know about this massive malicious extension campaign along with what steps you can take to secure your browser and your data right now.

From fraud to full browser access

The extensions begin their malicious activity by injecting tracking codes into legitimate links, which allowed them to earn revenue off of users' purchases. Search hijacking, where search queries are redirected, was also one of the behaviors the researchers saw. Search queries were logged, monetized, sold, manipulated and exfiltrated.

ShadyPanda can collect a range of personal information from users including browsing history, search queries, keystrokes, cookies, local and session storage, fingerprint data, and mouse clicks with coordinates. The extensions that had gained a “good” reputation were modified throughout the years to include a backdoor update that permitted an hourly remote code execution; downloading and executing arbitrary JavaScript with full browser access. This means they were capable of monitoring every website a user visited and exfiltrating browsing URLs, fingerprinting information and persistent identifiers.

Most concerningly, the extensions were able to stage adversary in the middle (AitM) attacks which means they were capable of facilitating credential theft, session hijacking and injecting code into any website. Additionally, any attempt to access the browser’s developer tools will cause it to switch to benign behavior.

While Google has since removed the extensions from the web store, Koi Security noticed the active campaign in the Microsoft Edge Add-ons platform with one extension listed as having 3 million installs.* There is no way of telling if those are inflated numbers, intended to create a sense of legitimacy though.

*Microsoft has said that this extension has since been removed.

How to stay safe from malicious browser extensions

Most of these extensions are wallpaper or productivity apps and if you've downloaded any of them, you should remove them immediately. While Koi Security lists all the extensions at the end of their report, three of the most frequently mentioned ones are Clean Master, WeTab and Infinity V+.

After removing the extensions, you should reset your account passwords – the recommendation is for all accounts across your entire online presence. Since this could be quite a serious undertaking, you may want to use one of the best password managers to make things easier. Not only can a password manager help keep your passwords organized and safe but they can also automatically create strong and unique passwords for each of your online accounts.

As always, I recommend using the best antivirus software on your computer as well. While an antivirus may not have caught these malicious extensions due to how this campaign operated, they can scan for malware, spyware and viruses even when you slip up and download something that shouldn't be on your machine. Antivirus programs also have browser extensions that can help advise you against visiting suspicious websites, help protect your data with cloud backups and can provide you with a VPN and other extras to add an extra layer of security to protect you when you're online.

Given how successful and long-running this campaign was, I doubt this is the last we've heard of ShadyPanda. However, by limiting the number of extensions you have installed and carefully vetting each one before you add it to your browser, you can keep your data and your devices safe.

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Your digital footprint is likely much larger than you realize. Every social media post, account signup, and online purchase adds to the trail of personal information scattered across the internet. While completely disappearing from the digital world is nearly impossible, you can significantly reduce your online presence with a few targeted strategies.

Whether you're concerned about privacy, trying to minimize targeted advertising, or simply want a fresh start, these methods will help you take back control of your personal information.

While these steps won't completely erase your digital existence, they will significantly reduce your online footprint and make your personal information much harder to find. The key is persistence. Online privacy isn't a one-time effort but an ongoing process of monitoring and maintaining control over your digital presence.

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Is this a safe space? Can I be honest? The internet is pure chaos right now — a constant cycle of doomscrolling, sites packed with AI slop that are built to be as addictive as possible, dark patterns (that cost Amazon $1.5 billion) and a news cycle that can reap pure havoc.

In February, the answer to my prayers came in Opera Air: the world’s first mindful browser. And in 2025, a browser that can take you out of this noise, strip out all the UI clutter of Google Chrome and provide mindfulness is needed now more than ever.

Even better, over the past 12 months, Opera has added more features to really add an air of calm to your browser, as well as a downright adorable cat companion.

Does it sound kind of gimmicky? I feared so at first, but over the course of a year, I’ve fallen in love with Air to the point that it pried my hands off of Google Chrome. Not even Opera’s breakthrough AI agentic browser Neon could tear me away from the zen vibes of using this on my day-to-day.

It’s a browser that wants you to…stop browsing!?

The first thing that immediately jumped out at me (aside from the gorgeous new dark “Obsidian” theme being far easier on the eyes), is the fact that Opera Air seems to be hellbent on making sure I don’t browse too much. Like, isn’t this supposed to be the business model of a web browser — clocking hours of website engagement?

That’s where Take a Break comes in, and in a sea of browsers begging for your time, it’s a serious reprieve. Here, you’ll find a range of guided mindful exercises you can take that come with a nice spa-like gentle sound track:

• Breathing: A simple breathing exercise to help reduce stress
• Neck exercise: Guided neck rotations that really helped ease the ache I feel at the back of my neck
• Meditation: This came in clutch when switching to a big, daunting project task — focusing myself and getting into a more relaxed state
• Full body scan: This one took me a while to figure out and notice the sensations in my fingers and toes, but once I did, this formed a part of my end-of-day routine

On top of that, you may see the three line icon gradually empty over time. This is the body battery indicator, and it is a visual indicator of when you’re probably feeling drained and you can get prompted to re-center yourself with an exercise. Think of it like those Mindfulness prompts on your Apple Watch, only a whole lot less annoying!

Binaural focus

In my Chrome era, Lo-Fi girl was always open in a tab with chill vibes to help me focus. But once I donned a pair of good headphones and got into the world of binaural Boosts, there was no turning back.

For those uninitiated, binaural tones are bass notes that are played at different frequencies to encourage certain subconscious reactions. For example, when I’m hard at work typing a story (like this one right now), I fire up the ‘Energized Focus’ track with a 12Hz tone to really help me lock in. As I come to the end of the day and I need to sign off both physically and mentally, a 30-minute session with ‘Deep Relaxation’ 5Hz tones is just what the doctor ordered.

Over the summer, another update was added that provided a track EQ of sorts — meaning you could turn off the background music and sound effects to get nothing but the bassy binaural tone. Pair that with your own tunes on Spotify or Apple Music and you can come up with some amazing combinations.

My favorite personally? Well, throw on ‘Deep Relaxation’ and listen to Loyle Carner’s ‘Not Waving, But Drowning’ and thank me later!

The Hygge browser

Pronounced “hooga” (yes, I was just as confused as you reading that word) is the Nordic concept of being content simplicity — focusing on the smaller details and removing unnecessary distractions to be present in the moment.

That is exactly what Opera Air has been built around, and it shows in its super clean UI and thoughtfully-placed exercises in mindfulness and focus. Not even the animated cat could get me down (mostly because I’m a dog person).

Once I saw this “mindful browsing companion,” I was skeptical. I had Catz on my Windows 98 PC, and even at 8 years old, I found it annoying. But it’s not intrusive on the UI, and can actually be a cute distraction when I needed it!

Plus, you’re getting all the nice-to-haves that Opera is well known for in its browsers — built-in VPN and ad blocker, multi-modal AI that can understand page context and even support offline LLM usage, and all your message, music and social services in a bar to the left.

The internet is pure chaos right now, and Opera Air is your best line of defense against it.

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OpenAI’s new browser, ChatGPT Atlas, brings AI directly into your daily web routine. But for someone like me — who rarely uses their desktop to browse and doesn’t need constant handholding to read the internet — Atlas feels like a co-pilot I didn’t really ask for.

Don’t get me wrong, Atlas is seriously impressive. It's essentially a browser with ChatGPT baked in; it even looks and acts exactly like ChatGPT. With quick page summaries, personalized context and memory-aware suggestions, it’s easily the most intelligent browser I’ve used.

But here’s the thing, after trying it with several prompts, I realized I don't really need it. I'm a capable browser. I know how to search, skim, click and backtrack without AI. For the record, I’ve also tried Comet and didn’t care for it either. Chrome is the only browser that feels useful. Here’s why.

I usually browse from my phone, not my desktop

My desktop is for working. Just as I don’t sit at my desk and scroll Instagram on my phone, I don’t sit on my desktop and search the web. If I ever need to fact check something, I usually go to the link directly. I certainly don’t need ChatGPT Atlas to show me how to get there.

In other words, the setup alone makes Atlas a bit of a mismatch for me. The entire experience is desktop-only for now, and while it works well in that space, it’s not where most of my browsing happens. On mobile, I’m tapping through links quickly, while sitting in the school pickup line or waiting for my turn at Starbucks. For that reason, until Atlas makes it to mobile, I won’t be using it.

ChatGPT is harder to interrupt — but thorough when the answers matter

If I’m on Chrome or using Google, I can shift gears before the links populate. With ChatGPT Atlas, it will sometimes go on (overboard!) with a response. The follow up question is also a frustration for me. I could hit the black square to make it stop mid-query, but even that isn’t as easy as just typing in something new with Google.

One thing I will say is that I do find it helpful to have ChatGPT available for follow-up questions. For example, I looked for lights for reading in bed and ChatGPT was right there to help me find the best deal. That was much easier to do than if I had been Googling it, making the response feel much more personalized.

I also appreciate seeing citations within the chat, unlike Google’s AI Overviews, which often feel like the AI is saying “just take my word for it.”

Still, I don’t need this much help while surfing the web

I hate to admit it, but I’m older than the internet. I can still remember the first thing I ever Googled. I don’t need a tour guide every time I open a new page. I don’t need definitions of terms I already understand or summaries of articles I’m already reading. I enjoy reading, it’s literally why I click on the articles, which, by the way, I prefer to do from my phone.

For some people, Atlas is a dream — students, researchers or anyone dealing with information overload. But if you’re a confident browser with decent reading comprehension and a clear sense of what you’re looking for, it might feel like overkill.

What Atlas does well (that Chrome doesn’t)

Here are the genuinely useful tools Atlas brings to the table:

• Thread memory lets you keep multiple searches or rabbit holes organized across tabs.
• Context-aware chat knows what you’re reading and helps you dig deeper.
• In-browser writing tools make drafting emails, summarizing docs and brainstorming seamless.

If your workflow is already integrated with AI, these are game-changing. As much as I use AI, these features just aren't necessary within my browser. I like having them separate.

Bottom line

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The wait is finally over: OpenAI has released its own browser, ChatGPT Atlas, in a daring bid to finally dethrone Google Chrome.

The speculation has lasted for the better part of a year, and now, we can all finally test whether ChatGPT Atlas is the long-awaited Chrome replacement many hoped for—provided you own one of the best MacBooks or a computer running macOS. After watching OpenAI’s latest livestream announcing its new browser, I immediately turned on my Mac mini M4 to find out.

While many jump between browsers at a moment’s notice (such as Jason England jumping on Opera Neon), I’ve been a Chrome diehard since Google’s browser launched in 2008. At the time, switching from Internet Explorer on PC was a no-brainer, but Chrome hooked me so much that I even installed it on my old Mac to replace Safari.

Here are my initial thoughts on ChatGPT Atlas after using it for a full day including what I love and what I hate about OpenAI’s new browser.

What it does better than Chrome

Quick sidebar access to ChatGPT

Although Google recently made Gemini directly accessible in Chrome, I honestly prefer OpenAI’s approach with ChatGPT in its Atlas browser. Gemini’s way of working — which often means a floating window popping up and distracting you — feels overpowering.

With ChatGPT, the experience is more discreet. Instead of a big pop-up that can cover the content you're reading or looking at, the chat is right there as a consistent sidebar. To start chatting with ChatGPT on any page, you just click the little button in the top right corner of Atlas.

For those of us who rely on our favorite AI chatbot throughout the day while working, studying, or researching, a small design difference like this can really matter. This Atlas approach means ChatGPT is there exactly when you need it without taking you out of your current flow, and frankly, I could really get used to this kind of seamless, non-disruptive integration.

Full-sized and scrollable tabs

If you’re like me, you know how quickly research spirals out of control. I can easily end up with a dozen or more tabs open across two separate, side-by-side browser windows, and that’s where Chrome’s tab problem begins. Your tabs get smaller and smaller until eventually, all you can see is a tab with an "X" in it. Since Chrome is my most-used app, I just sort of lived with that reality. That is, until I tried ChatGPT Atlas.

While Atlas’s default tab layout looks like Chrome’s, the real game-changer is the option to switch to Scrolling Tabs. This single setting made a massive difference during my short time with the browser. Instead of those teeny-tiny tabs, you get full-sized tabs that never shrink. When you open more tabs than can fit, you just hover your mouse over the tab bar and scroll to reveal the rest.

This works seamlessly whether you're using your mouse’s scrollwheel or your laptop’s trackpad, making navigation lightning-fast. Scrolling Tabs are simply awesome. Honestly, if Google were to add this feature to Chrome — even if it’s just tucked away behind an experimental flag — I wouldn't argue in the slightest.

Full URLs are just a toggle away

I know plenty of people prefer not seeing a page’s full URL, and I get it — it gives your browser a cleaner look. But I’m not one of them. Often, I really need to see the full address. Whether it’s when I’m writing deals and need to cut off tracking nonsense at the end of an Amazon link, or if I want to inspect a URL for a cybersecurity story I’m working on, seeing the whole thing is critical for my workflow.

That's why I appreciate that Atlas puts this option front and center. Instead of hiding this setting behind multiple clicks or deep-dive flags like Chrome does, it’s one of the first options you see in the browser’s Settings menu under the General tab. The best part is that OpenAI uses a simple toggle switch for this, making it a breeze to enable when I need to look at a URL closely and just as fast to turn off when I don't.

It’s Chromium-based because of course it is

To Microsoft’s credit, when it finally retired Internet Explorer for Microsoft Edge, the software giant repeatedly said that its new browser was Chromium-based. Maybe this was to convince more people to switch (it certainly worked) or perhaps they were just giving credit where it was due.

However, Sam Altman and the crew at OpenAI's ChatGPT Atlas announcement didn't exactly lead with that detail or even mention it at all. The minute they opened an incognito window on stage, though, myself and countless other tech nerds instantly noticed that familiar look.

But why should you care that Atlas runs on Chromium? It actually comes with a couple of huge perks. For starters, if you have a favorite browser extension from the Chrome Web Store, you can instantly add it to Atlas without any fuss. It just works. Likewise, given how much work Google and the Chromium Project put into constantly updating the code, you can rest easy knowing you won't be dealing with nasty vulnerabilities. That enormous development effort means Atlas gets the same security patches as Chrome, and will likely get them fast.

How it falls short compared to Chrome

No seamless switching between Google Accounts

If you have a personal Google Account and also use one for work, then you know how simple it is to switch between the two in Chrome. Yes, you can click on your profile icon in the top right to do so, but you can also use one of my favorite keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl + Shift + M) to do the same thing instantly.

After installing Atlas, my personal Google Account was available after signing in, but that’s where the convenience ended. I looked everywhere — and I mean everywhere — but there was simply no option to add a second Google Account.

For my day-to-day workflow, this is a deal breaker and why I won’t be ditching Chrome anytime soon. You can’t properly manage your work and personal digital lives without this basic feature which is exactly what this fledgling browser needs to be a serious contender. However, OpenAI could easily add this feature in an update and I’ll keep my fingers crossed it does.

Constant reminders to upgrade

One of the best things about Chrome is that, like other Google services, it’s completely free. Sure, you can pay for extra storage in Google Drive, but the reason products like Chrome and Google Docs are so ubiquitous is because they’re free and easily accessible. Google makes its money elsewhere.

Don’t get me wrong, OpenAI’s ChatGPT Atlas browser is also free. However, the pressure to upgrade felt constant while using it. For instance, after I finally, and begrudgingly, made it my default browser, the "Make Default" prompt at the bottom of the home page didn't disappear — it instantly flipped to a jarring "Upgrade" button. That was definitely not what I was expecting.

I get it: like any other AI company, OpenAI needs to make money. But these constant, subtle nags to upgrade I saw throughout Atlas didn't convince me to open my wallet. Instead, they were distracting and honestly, a real turn off that hurts the experience of this otherwise promising new browser.

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Gemini can now summarize any webpage directly in Chrome without needing to open the Gemini app. The feature works on Android devices, making it faster to get quick summaries of articles, documentation, or any content you're viewing in your browser.

Previously, summarizing a webpage required copying the URL, opening the Gemini app, and pasting the link into a query. Now it's a single button press that generates an instant summary of visible content on the current page.

Here's how to use Gemini's page summarization feature in Chrome and what to expect from the summaries it generates.

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When it comes to notifications, it's overwhelmingly easy for your lock screen to get swarmed with little boxes pinging for your attention. It can easily drown out information you actually want to see.

Google seems to be paying attention and has released a new tool for Chrome on your phone meant to help quiet the number of notifications you receive. And it's based on a feature that already exists.

Android 11, released in 2020, introduced a feature that revokes notification permissions from apps you haven't opened in a while. Essentially, Google is adding this feature to Chrome Safety Check, launched in 2024, which was built to "give you even more control over your personal data."

At the time, it would remove camera, microphone, and location permissions for sites and auto-detect spam, but it didn't do so for notifications.

Similar to the deep sleep ones that Android occasionally sends you. The Chrome version is an expansion of that for sites you don't visit often. It will automatically revoke permissions for notifications.

According to Google, Chrome on Android will now stop notifications from websites that you haven't interacted with in some time. It's not clear how long that window stays open until Safety Check snaps it shut.

This only applies to normal websites, not installed apps or web apps. Google says that Chrome will notify you when it's doing so. When it comes to apps, you can already choose to disable most notifications in your phone's settings menu.

Notification overload hurts engagement

Google says the reason it introduced the feature is that constant notifications actually hurt engagement.

"Data indicates that users frequently receive a high volume of notifications, resulting in minimal engagement and high disruption. Less than 1% of all notifications receive any interaction from users," the company's blog reads.

Of course, if Chrome gets it wrong, you can always re-enable notifications or turn the tool off. The feature should work on desktop as well if you receive notifications on your computer. For a while now, I've made it a personal habit to block all sites from notifying me of anything as soon as I'm prompted. The banned list is long.

I have yet to receive any silencing notifications from Chrome on Android, but Google tends to roll out launches, meaning that not everyone may have received the feature just yet.

In the meantime, here's how to check out your Safety Check: Open Chrome > click the three-button action menu > navigate to Settings. From there, scroll down to 'Safety Check' and it will tell you show you Chrome's safety settings.

You can adjust permissions under the tab labeled Permissions, which will take you to 'Site Settings.' Tweak to your heart's desire, everything from camera access to third-party cookie access.

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I tested (and loved) Opera Neon a few weeks ago, and today, it’s shipping to the first users! We also have confirmation of the subscription price for those AI features: $20 per month.

Alongside the three key AI smarts that I got to see in its real-time LLM interactions, Agentic AI browsing and even giving it a coding project to work on in the background, Opera has rounded things off with a slick design and more new features. But $20 for a web browser? That’s more than a Disney+ subscription — is it worth it? Let’s take a closer look.

Just so it’s clear, this is $20 for the AI features of Opera Neon. You can still use the browser itself for free.

Opera Neon vs Google Chrome: AI Features

Getting things done for you

I won’t delve too much into what we already know, but to quickly refresh, you’ve got three key AI features that make up Opera Neon:

• Chat: Basically your ChatGPT level of interaction. A multi-modal prompt box that can answer questions, provide context about the webpage you’re on, and search the web to tailor its answer with the most relevant context.
• Do: Taking the tech I got to test in Browser Operator, it can browse the web on your behalf, fill in forms, book trips and even do shopping for you – all while “preserving your security and privacy.” I’ll go into more detail on this in a minute.
• Make: Built into Neon is an AI engine that is able to understand whatever you want to build or code, and build it for you. It can even do so offline via a cloud computer, so you can go do other things while Neon gets to work.

Let’s go a little more into the way Opera Neon is embracing this and changing the ways you use a browser.

Starting with Tasks, this is a new higher level above the ocean of tabs you’re working in that can intelligently understand the context and relation between said tabs and file them under different workspaces. Essentially, it’s a mini-browser for each of your tasks.

Second, Cards. Basically, if you constantly get paralyzed by the “you can do anything” part of AI that has you staring at a prompt box (similar to how I freeze when trying to pick a Netflix show), this will come in handy. Think of it like your go-to deck of reusable prompt instructions that you can use, combine and put to the task.

Of course, you can create whatever cards you want, but there are also a bunch of pre-defined Cards available in the community Cards store for you to download and use.

All-in-all, Opera built the groundwork of these three pillars working — now Cards and Tasks is the glue that can seemingly bring it all together into the same sleek UI that you know and love.

Chrome’s catching up (for free)

This is all great stuff, and I absolutely loved it during my testing of the early Developer Alpha test (more hands-on impressions of the finished browser is coming soon). But I can’t ignore the fact that Google Chrome is on track to get some of these key AI features for free.

Basically, Gemini’s right at the heart of bringing all this to you — from the simple implementation of the prompt box appearing right in Chrome, to agentic browsing, intelligent tab organization, AI mode right in the address bar and much more.

Yes, it’s clear who did all this first, but like I said way back when the AI industry panicked over DeepSeek R1, nobody cares if something is a copy — people will always go for the thing that is cheaper. Offering some of the headline agentic functionality for free vs $20-a-month is always going to be a steep ask for most folks.

Outlook

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Chrome is getting a massive AI update in the coming weeks thanks to an infusion of new Gemini-based features making AI integral to nearly every aspect of using Google's browser. Google outlined the updates in a blog post today (September 18).

For those who've bought into AI, the new tools look useful; if you haven't, there's Vivaldi, a browser that is stridently anti-ai and built for online security (we would have suggested Firefox but it is also getting an AI chatbot).

You'll know Gemini has arrived thanks to a new Gemini button on the desktop browser. Here's a closer look at what this Gemini infusion brings to Chrome. The new features can be boiled down to three categories: online security, Google search, and tab/website organization.

10 new Gemini in Chrome features

• New Gemini button for enhanced browsing
• Agentic browsing assistant to complete tedious tasks
• Multitab organization and AI summaries
• AI prompts to find previously visited sites
• Integration with other Google apps like YouTube and Calendar
• Search AI mode right in the address bar
• Ask questions about content on a web page
• Enhanced Gemini Nano to stop scams and spam
• Block unwanted notifications and personalized permissions
• Change compromised passwords with one click

Gemini Assistant and Search

A new Gemini button will open up side tab where you can ask questions about content in your open tabs. On mobile, Gemini already works with Chrome, but in iOS it will be built into the Chrome app.

Google says that agentic capabilities are coming over the next few months to "handle tedious tasks" like booking a haircut or buying your food. You will tell Gemini what you want to do and it will act on web pages for you.

For those who have kept AI Mode turned on, you'll now be able to access it right in the address bar (or what Google has dubbed the omnibox). This mode is supposed to let you ask longer and more complex questions to receive AI responses.

In AI Mode, you can ask follow-up questions. This specific feature is supposed to launch before the end of September.

In normal search, you'll still get the AI Overview and you can follow up with questions about the content in the tab in AI Mode. There will also be contextual suggestions if you can't think of your own.

Tab organization

Google claims Gemini will be able to work across multiple tabs, meaning you could be doing trip research, while planning a flight and booking a hotel. Gemini is supposed to be able to consolidate all of that info into an itinerary if needed.

Or you could wait for the experimental Split Tabs feature to become a full-fledged release.

Additionally, Gemini is getting the ability to read your website history so you can give it prompts like “what was that blog I read on back to school shopping?" to find sites you previously visited.

Non-Chrome apps like Maps, YouTube and Calendar are getting Gemini integration that would let you schedule appointments, or look up a location without leaving the webpage you're on. Doing so involves asking Gemini in Chrome using the Gemini button.

Online security

A version of Gemini Nano is coming to Chrome as part of this AI expansion that would enhance the already existing Safe Browsing Enhanced Protection mode, which already uses Gemini Nano.

This mode IDs tech support scams to stop you from downloading potentially harmful software. The updated version is also supposed to stop malicious sites from hitting you with fake viruses or fake giveways to trick people into clicking.

Chrome will now use AI to learn your preferences to determine which sites are allowed to give you notifications while also blocking spam or scam notifications.

Lastly, Chrome will be getting an AI password agent that will let you change saved passwords with a single click, but only on supported sites. Examples provided by Google include Spotify, Duolingo and H&M. It's unclear how many websites will support this feature.

This is meant to expand on the password features that already exist in Chrome such as the ability to alert you about compromised passwords and login credentials autofilling.

When is this all coming?

Chrome is one of the most popular browsers in the world, so this Gemini integration is going to put AI features in front of more people in the coming weeks and months.

Not every Gemini feature announced by Google will be available right away. Some, as mentioned, are rolling out in the coming months while others like the updated AI mode are supposed to launch by the end of the month. Subscribers to Google AI Pro and Google AI Ultra will have already seen some of these features.

As with most Google rollouts, just because a feature launched today, it doesn't mean you'll get it right away. It could take a few days for you to see any of these updates in Chrome.

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When you have as many browser tabs and windows open at a time as I do, you’re always looking for new ways to organize them all and to be more productive at the same time. Well, I think I might have found my favorite one yet, and the best part is that you can enable it in Chrome right now.

You see, while others use Microsoft Office and other apps for their work, the majority of my research, writing and editing is done in Chrome as I’m a Google Workspace power user. This approach might not be for everyone, but given that I’m constantly switching from one computer to another while reviewing the best mini PCs, I love how once I sign into Chrome, my bookmarks and the rest of my work are right there waiting for me.

At any given time, I have at least three Chrome windows open, as I have two side by side on my ultrawide monitor up top and another for my work chats in Slack open on my portable monitor underneath it. I’ve gotten quite used to this setup over the years, but after trying Google’s latest experimental Chrome feature, it’s completely changed how I think about both browser windows and tabs.

Here’s everything you need to know about Chrome’s new Split Tabs feature, along with how it’s changed the way I use my browser and all the steps to enable it, so you can try it out for yourself.

What are Split Tabs?

From vertical tabs to tab groups and tab stacking, the big browser makers like Google, Mozilla and Microsoft, as well as the smaller ones like Vivaldi and Brave, have all been trying new things with how we view, organize and manage tabs.

For the most part, innovations like vertical tabs and tab groups didn’t really change my workflow. However, the same can’t be said for Split Tabs, as once I enabled this experimental feature, I immediately saw its potential.

I found out about them thanks to a new report from Chrome Unboxed. At first, though, I thought this was a Chromebook-only feature as that site does a fantastic job covering all the latest developments with ChromeOS and the best Chromebooks. In fact, a review from Chrome Unboxed was what convinced me to pick up a Lenovo Chromebook Duet 3 back when I first started at Tom’s Guide. Much to my surprise, when I opened the Chrome Flags menu on my Windows PC, I found the experimental Split Tabs feature right there and knew I had to try it out for myself.

With Split Tabs enabled, when you have two tabs open in the same Chrome window and right-click on one of them, a new option appears that reads “Add tab to new split view.” Clicking on this will take those two tabs and merge them into one combined tab. Basically, it appears as if you have two browser windows open side by side, but they're grouped together within the same tab.

From there, you can switch which website appears on the left or right side, resize the split panes to have one site appear larger than the other, separate the combined tab back into two traditional tabs and more.

One of my favorite parts of this new experimental Chrome feature is that within a Split Tab, you can have one site open on the left side and then open links from that site and have them appear on the right side or vice versa. Whether you’re comparing two sites to one another or doing the kind of research that would normally result in a dozen or so open tabs, Split Tabs are a game-changer in the truest sense of the phrase.

As part of its trial rollout of Split Tabs, Google has added a new menu icon to the right of Chrome’s address bar that lets you quickly swap which side a particular webpage is on. Likewise, you can also close one side or the other or separate a combined tab back into two standard tabs. And for those who don’t want to move their mouse up, you can access this exact same menu between your two Split Tabs at the bottom of a Chrome window, too.

There’s already a whole lot to like with this new experimental feature, and hopefully, Google adds even more to it once it rolls out as part of an official Chrome release. For now, though, here’s how to enable Split Tabs and try them out for yourself.

How to enable Split Tabs in Chrome

If you want to give Split Tabs or any other of Chrome’s experimental features a try, it’s really easy to enable them. To get started, head to your browser’s address bar and type the following: chrome://flags. This brings up Chrome’s Experiments menu, where, under a general warning about the risks associated with enabling them, there’s a full list of all of the current Experiments you can try out.

Given that there are hundreds of new ones to try out at any time, it’s a lot easier to use the search bar at the top of the page to find the particular one you’re looking for. With Split Tabs, for instance, you want to search for #side-by-side to bring it up. After toggling disabled to enabled on the right side of this Experiment’s description, all you have to do is restart your browser to test it out.

With two tabs open in a Chrome window, you’ll now have the option to merge them together into a single, combined tab. If you’re using an ultrawide monitor like myself, you can have two windows side by side, each with its own Split Tab. This almost makes it feel like you’re using a quad-monitor setup with four separate, full-sized sites visible at the same time.

Whether you’re doing research for a school project, planning a trip or even just shopping online, Split Tabs provides a whole new way to browse that, as a long-time Chrome user, has really impressed me so far. Hopefully, Google decided to make this experiment a full-fledged Chrome feature.

So, are you planning to enable Split Tabs and start using them? Let me know if there are any interesting ways you’ve incorporated Split Tabs into your own workflow or even just how you browse the web in the comments below.

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Let’s be honest. AI is all around us now, and it’s sort of turning the internet into an even more chaotic place to be. And instead of elevating your average web browser, it just seems to have added so many more layers of complexity and a requirement for scrutiny that what you see is actually true (looking at you, Google AI Overview).

But one browser is doing things differently — thoughtfully adding three key AI smarts in a way that doesn’t get in the way of you being the power user you are. Opera Neon was announced a short while back, and I’ve ditched Google Chrome to daily drive this browser for the past couple of months.

With my time using various systems from OpenAI and Google Gemini for the likes of getting answers to my questions, browsing the web for me, and creating apps to make my life easier, I was a little nervous going in. But now, I get it. This is the way to do it.

What you see here is a Developer Alpha test of all of Neon’s features, which are not final. Any bugs are quickly being worked on by the team in Norway. Plus, these AI services will come at a cost when they are publicly available. We don’t know what that price is yet, but will confirm when Opera announces it. You can sign up for the Alpha here.

Beyond browsing

We’ve seen Neon Chat in a few different versions of Opera’s browsers — my first experience was Aria AI in Opera One R2. And now, it’s a native AI that becomes a fantastic sidekick for those quick browser tasks.

First, like any LLM, you can get real-time answers based on fresh web searches wherever you are. These can be standalone questions or you can ask about the context of the webpage you’re on.

On top of that, you can ask it to analyze and generate images, translate written text and spoken word to different languages, and even organize your tabs with simple commands. All-in-all, this is definitely a fuller vision of how AI can really lend a helping hand to the traditional way you use a browser. But let’s be honest, you’re not here for just the traditional ways.

Smooth Operator

I’ve already talked about Neon Do when I was the first person outside of Opera to go hands-on with the company’s browser operator — the initial name for this tech. You’ve already seen versions of AI agentic browsing from the likes of OpenAI and the Rabbit R1, but this kind of came out of nowhere to be both faster, more accurate, and actually built into the browser rather than relying on cloud computing.

To catch you up on how it works, rather than the traditional method of taking a screenshot, analyzing with AI and deciding what to do next, Neon Do relies on an accessibility layer programmed into most websites to be faster and smarter. The end result is better logic and results.

Whether it was the oh-so typical demo of planning a trip abroad or something a little more specialist to my needs like pulling together an expert-recommended workout of compound exercises to work my chest, shoulders and back, this gets straight to work and produces great results.

Vibe coding

OK, so as someone who wants to ensure online security is kept at the front of your mind, let me be clear on something. If you want to use Neon Build to create something awesome, I’d err on the side of caution if you wanted to publish it and collect personal information with it.

While there isn’t any overt admission of guilt in some of these bigger data breaches we’ve seen, it always seems to be based on something coded in a way that a human dev would never decide to do. So with that in mind, I took to Neon Build and just created stuff for myself.

Out of everything I busily built, one thing came to mind. I’m a musical kind of chap — from playing piano as a kid all the way through to now I love creating soundscapes. So I asked Neon to make a 16-bit loop maker, which started with a Dieter Rams-style minimalist UI, but I changed my mind and wanted to shout out Windows95Man in the aesthetic of it.

You can leave it to run in the background, but I was particularly keen to see the planning and thinking that Opera Neon would do here. Bit by bit, you can watch it source all the materials it needs — the license-free 16-bit instrument sounds, the imagery for inspiration of the UI and lay it all out in a logical way. It took a few follow-up prompts to get the design just right, but it’s a quick bit of fun nonetheless.

Simply put, this would not have been possible without me learning more about coding beyond what I taught myself editing MySpace layouts. You can have a go with it yourself.

Outlook

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Microsoft is at it again with another ploy to stop Bing users from switching over to Google Chrome, this time with a full banner right on the search page.

As Microsoft Edge is Windows' default browser, many users often use it to download Chrome through the Bing search engine. Many will know that the browser often delivers a message stating why it's worth using Bing instead, but Windows Report has noticed a new comparison banner pops up.

When typing in "Chrome" using Bing on Edge, there's now a banner that takes up a big part of the page before web search results are shown. The report found a comparison between the two browsers, stating " Microsoft Edge offers the speed of Chrome with the security of Microsoft."

Notably, it also details what Edge offers and what Chrome doesn't, including Microsoft Rewards, a built-in VPN (although this isn't available in all regions), AI personalization and Microsoft's "recommended" for optimized browsing.

This is a "Promoted by Microsoft" ad, and a large one at that. It's yet another way Microsoft is urging users to stay on Edge, although I'm not sure if this will stop users in their tracks.

When trying this myself, I received another banner that showed the Microsoft Reward points to gain by trying Edge, with tiles showcasing Amazon, Starbucks, Xbox Game Pass and Roblox gift cards.

Either way, instead of just a small pop-up notification, there's now a full-on banner before reaching the list of search results for Google Chrome.

With Chrome continuing to be the most popular browser around, it comes as no surprise that Microsoft wants you to stick with Edge. According to statistics from analytics firm Backlinko, there are an estimated 3.69 billion users worldwide, compared to Microsoft Edge's estimated 292 million users.

Thankfully, those in the EU won't have to put up with Microsoft begging you to make Edge your default browser, thanks to the Digital Markets Act. However, the rest of the world will still get pop-ups to give Edge a go.

Interestingly, research has shown that Chrome is the hungriest browser around, with Microsoft Edge using far fewer system resources. However, Bing itself, which Edge uses, is only a few steps behind Chrome in the amount of data it collects.

With Microsoft Edge now being promoted as an AI browser, it still has a lot of competition in the market, with Perplexity AI launching its first AI browser, and Opera offering its own agentic AI browser.

We're sure to see more tactics Microsoft uses to turn Edge into the browser for all (instead of Chrome), but if you want to uninstall Microsoft Edge instead, that's always an option.

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• How to stop your personal data from appearing in Google searches

Perplexity AI, the fast-rising search startup backed by Jeff Bezos, Nvidia and SoftBank, just launched its first web browser.

Dubbed Comet, this AI-powered browser is designed to challenge Google Chrome’s dominance, which still commands over 68% of the global browser market.

But instead of rehashing what’s already out there, Comet aims to completely rethink how we interact with the internet, turning passive searches into real-time conversations.

What makes Comet different

Built on Chromium (just like Chrome and Edge), Comet integrates Perplexity’s conversational AI directly into every browsing session.

The standout feature is the Comet Assistant, a built-in sidebar that can answer questions about the page you’re viewing.

Whether you’re shopping online and want to compare products, booking a hotel or summarizing a news story, Comet handles it; all without opening a single new tab.

That means no more bouncing between sites or copy-pasting search queries. Users can ask or highlight text to get the answers they need.

Who can try it

For now, Comet is limited to Perplexity Pro Max subscribers, who pay $200/month, along with a small group of invite-only testers.

A broader rollout is expected later this summer, including Mac and Windows desktop support, followed by mobile.

Privacy promise

We live in an era of growing digital surveillance, which is a concern to users. Comet promises privacy by design. According to Perplexity, no personal data is used to train its AI models, and browsing activity is stored locally.

Comet represents a major shift in the way we use browsers. Instead of treating search as a separate step, Perplexity is embedding AI directly into the act of browsing itself.

As companies like Google, Microsoft and OpenAI race to develop intelligent assistants and AI-enhanced browsers, Perplexity is carving out a unique lane, betting that users want agents and privacy, not just answers alone.

Final thoughts

Comet’s next moves are worth watching. Desktop support will roll out first for Mac and Windows, with mobile apps expected to follow shortly after.

On the content side, Perplexity’s future could hinge on how it manages publisher relationships, especially as licensing disputes with major media companies remain unresolved.

And as browser wars heat up, the question remains whether Chrome’s AI Overviews will be enough to keep users, or if Comet’s fully integrated agent model will steal market share.

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Remember Browser Operator? Opera is taking all of this agentic AI tech and launching it in a new browser called Opera Neon.

But there’s more to it than that. With Neon, the Norwegian browser company is keen to build a one-stop shop for basically any sort of AI interactions — be it chatting to an AI agent or even getting it to build and code games while you sleep.

The official launch date is unknown (as is the subscription price), but a waitlist is now open for sign ups and will let you try the Alpha when it launches. Let’s get into what it can do, and how it compares to the likes of what ChatGPT and Google Gemini can do.

What can it do?

Its functionalities are split into three different categories – Chat, Do and Make.

• Chat: Think of this as your standard ChatGPT interaction – a prompt box that you detail what you want in and the AI will go out and find out. There’s also a multi-modality to it as well, as it’s not just a plain text box. It can also provide context about the webpage you’re on, and search the web to tailor its answer with the most relevant context.
• Do: This is the big agentic part. Taking the tech I got to test in Browser Operator, it can browse the web on your behalf, fill in forms, book trips and even do shopping for you – all while “preserving your security and privacy.” I’ll go into more detail on this in a minute.
• Make: Easily the coolest addition in my books – built into Neon is an AI engine that is able to understand whatever you want to build or code, and build it for you. It can even do so offline via a cloud computer, so you can go do other things while Neon gets to work.

So on paper, it seems like Opera has taken this nugget of great tech in Browser Operator and turned it up to 11 by making a big bet on what the future of web browsing will actually be.

It’s a bold take, and after testing the underlying tech myself a month ago, I do believe that an agentic assistant is core to the future of web browsing. But there’s a couple of questions to overcome first.

How does it work?

Let’s dig into this a little deeper, as I am the only person outside of Opera to have played around with the Browser Operator that runs underneath a lot of this.

Up until now, agentic browsers have taken screenshots of a website, interpreted them with vision AI and decided the next step. This required a remote desktop session, and has been demonstrably slow and clumsy in what it can do.

Opera Neon is set to do things differently – stripping away those UI elements that cause agentic AI systems to trip over so often and focus on the “textual representation of websites” to interact with them.

In my time using Browser Operator and talking to the Opera team, this is taking advantage of something web developers call the “a11y” level – the accessibility reader mode that a lot of websites have, which just so happens to make it a whole lot easier for an agentic AI to browse too.

And the end result is a dramatic speed boost over the more clunkier way of doing it. Pair that with the AI agent that looks set to work similarly to what we see in the chatbot overlay on Opera One R2, and that builder too, and this is looking like a pretty sweet package.

But will people pay for it?

That’s the ultimate question. Opera Neon is a “premium subscription product” in the company’s own words, and the word “premium” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

With the way this has been built around three core pillars that the likes of a ChatGPT Plus subscription or Gemini Advanced (giving you Gemini AI in Chrome) would get you, Opera needs to either aim for $20 or undercut the competition for the chance to really get out ahead here.

Speaking to Opera, the team assured me that the browsing part “will remain free of charge,” and the subscription covers the “AI agentic capabilities of Opera Neon.” So your browser isn’t just going to stop you from surfing if you’re unable to make the payment.

But this is going to be a good litmus test for whether people will invest in this future? Will people pay for the future of web browsers? Based on OpenAI’s numbers, it seems like the answer is a resounding “yes,” but it’s going to be an interesting few months while we find out for sure.

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With the release of Chrome 136, Google will finally address a long-standing privacy issue in its browser that allowed websites to determine your browsing history by using previously visited links.

Have you ever done a Google search for something and noticed that some of the links in the search results were purple? Well, this is because you previously visited those sites. As BleepingComputer points out though, those links are stylized as “:visited”.

If these purple links were only visible to you, this problem wouldn’t exist. However, since this color change is displayed regardless of which site you were on when you clicked a link, other websites could use creative scripts to leak your browsing history.

Over the years, security researchers have shown how this privacy issue could be used by hackers in a number of different attacks. Fortunately though, Google plans to finally address this 20-year problem with the release of Chrome 136 at the end of this month.

In the next version of Chrome, Google will use triple-key partitioning with “visited” links. That way, instead of storing link visits globally, the browser will partition visited links by link URL, top-level site and frame origin.

Once this change rolls out, it will ensure that a link will only appear as “:visited” on the same site and in the same frame origin. This will eliminate cross-site history links while protecting your privacy.

How to fix this privacy issue right now

If you don’t want to wait until the end of the month, there’s a way you can fix this issue now using Chrome Flags.

For those running, Chrome versions 132 to 135 (latest) you can enable the experimental feature :visited isolation right now. To do so, either head to chrome://flags and search for “Partition the Visited Link Database, including ‘self-links’” or you can just head to the following address: chrome://flags/#partition-visited-link-database-with-self-links.

Once there, you’ll see that the feature is turned off by default but if you click on the box on the right side, you can turn it on by selecting Enabled.

It’s worth noting that as this is an experimental feature, it might now work as expected in all situations. However, at least you have the option to address this privacy issue early.

For extra privacy though, you might also want to consider using one of the best VPN services while surfing the web since all of your web traffic and your searches go through a VPN server and can’t easily be seen by snooping websites and other third parties.

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Extensions are an often crucial addition to your browser that let you get more functionality out of the software you use to surf the web, whether that’s customizing certain features or adding useful tools.

For example, Dark Reader is an essential extension for me that forces dark mode for websites that don’t have one built in. Since I have chronic migraines and light sensitivity, it acts as an accessibility tool rather than just a preference.

However, not all extensions are created equal and some carry real risks. So the next time you’re searching through browser extensions, make sure you’re aware of the negative effects they could potentially have on your devices and with your data.

Malware and compromised extensions

Browser extensions can expose you to malware in multiple ways. First off, there are malicious browser extensions, which are meant to inject malware onto your system once installed.

For example, some malicious extensions install a trojan on your computer, which then executes scripts designed to target your Windows registry. This means that even if you uninstall the extension, the malware can remain on your system.

There are also malicious browsers that expose you to malvertising, steal account credentials, or use your system resources for crypto-mining.

In a post on the Google Security Blog, the search giant's security researchers said that in 2024, less than 1% of all installs from the Chrome Web Store included malware. However, this still translates to millions of impacted users.

Still, there are also times where legitimate extensions are hijacked by cybercriminals to launch phishing attacks or to steal data. For example, hackers compromised over 16 Chrome browser extensions in a campaign that was discovered back in December of last year. Likewise, even more compromised Chrome extensions were discovered in February of this year.

Data collection

In order to work, browser extensions need to access a range of permissions. Some permissions, however, allow these extensions to access a vast amount of data and sensitive information.

A study by the Georgia Institute of Technology found that thousands of browser extensions pose a significant privacy risk to users due to pervasive data collection. The study discovered that certain extensions accessed details such as a user’s name, email address, location, credit card, or physical address. Some of these extensions also did not detail the extent of data collection in their privacy policies.

Even though some permissions are required for certain browser extensions to function, this can still pose a risk to your privacy. If malicious actors hijack the extension, or breach the services where this data is stored, it can be used to target you with scams. So it’s best to assess whether the functionality of an extension is worth the potential privacy impact.

Performance issues

While most of us attribute slow performance in our browser to having too many tabs open, it turns out that browser extensions can also play a role.

Extensions can slow down your browser while running code. In isolation, a website may only lag by a few seconds. For example, if you’re using a coupon extension, it may slow down a page’s responsiveness when you visit a shopping site.

The real problem comes in when you are running multiple extensions that have an impact on performance. This can significantly slow down your browser’s performance when loading pages.

The impact on performance will depend on when the extension runs its code (before or after a page loads), how many extensions are running at the same time, and whether these extensions need to pull data from another source.

That said, some browser extensions can actually speed up page load times by blocking ads on websites.

What can you do to protect yourself?

With there being some substantial risks to installing browser extensions, what can you do to protect yourself?

When it comes to cybersecurity, make sure that you only download browser extensions from trusted sources, like the browser’s official extension store. Make sure to check the reviews of different extensions to see if users flag any issues or suspicious activity. This won’t completely eliminate the possibility of malicious or compromised browser extensions, but it does mitigate the risk.

At the same time, don’t grant an extension more permissions than necessary. You can adjust the settings for your extensions to exclude certain websites or disable the extension completely when you’re not using it. Make sure to also check the extension’s web store listing to see what information it gains access to if you do decide to install it.

Finally, you can limit the number of extensions you use with your browser. This is easier to do with browsers that have a significant level of customization. For example, on Opera I can force dark mode on pages as one of the built-in features of the browser. This would eliminate my need to rely on Dark Reader for the same purpose.

While I test certain browser extensions for work, I also make sure to delete them when I’m done with them. Over the years, I’ve significantly reduced the number of extensions I use, especially if they access sensitive content on a website. If you are no longer using an extension, it’s best to get rid of it.

There’s no denying that browser extensions play an important role in the way we use the web. Unless you find a browser that supports all the features you need, you’ll likely need to rely on a few extensions for your own daily use. However, you can reduce the risk that these extensions will negatively affect you by downloading from official sources, checking user reviews, managing extension permissions and sites, and only installing what you really need.

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Discovering your personal information in Google search results isn’t just unsettling—it’s a potential privacy and security risk. Sensitive details like phone numbers, home addresses, and financial data can sometimes appear online, leaving you vulnerable.

Recognizing these concerns, Google has upgraded its Results About You tool with key improvements. The revamped system proactively scans search results for your sensitive information and sends alerts when it appears. Instead of manually searching for your data, you can enable continuous monitoring, letting Google track and notify you of potential privacy risks automatically.

The new hub also makes requesting removals directly from search results much simpler, reducing the number of steps needed to protect your online privacy. Here's how to take control of your personal information in Google search results.

With your personal information now better protected in Google's search results, why not explore other digital productivity tools? For Chrome users, check out I use these 7 Google Chrome keyboard shortcuts every day to save me time. And if you're a Mac user, knowing how to use your Mac's built-in screen recorder or how to enable live captions on your Mac for better accessibility.

In the same way that malicious apps can end up on your phone, your browser and by extension, your computer can be infected after installing a risky extension in Chrome. Likewise, even legitimate extensions can turn malicious when tampered with by hackers.

As reported by The Hacker News, a dangerous new campaign targeting browser extensions has been spotted online. So far, at least 16 extensions have been compromised, with over 600,000 Chrome users now at risk of exposing their browsing data and account credentials online.

Here’s everything you need to know about this new campaign, including a full list of all the compromised extensions so far, along with some tips and tricks on protecting yourself from falling victim to these now malicious Chrome extensions.

From phishing to malicious code injection

The cybersecurity firm Cyberhaven was the first to fall victim after one of its employees was targeted by a phishing attack on Christmas Eve.

To make their initial phishing email more convincing, the hackers behind this campaign made it appear that the message came from Google Chrome Web Store Developer Support. The email tried to instill a sense of urgency by claiming that the company’s extension would soon be removed from the Chrome Web Store due to violating Google’s Developer Program Policies.

From there, the targeted employee was encouraged to click on a link to accept the search giant’s new policies. After doing so, they were redirected to a page that granted permissions to a malicious OAuth app named “Privacy Policy Extension.”

In a blog post, Cyberhaven explained that once the necessary permissions had been granted, the hacker in question then uploaded a malicious Chrome extension to the Chrome Web Store from the company’s account. After undergoing an obligatory security review, it was approved and then available to download for all of Chrome’s 3.45 billion users.

To its credit, Cyberhaven notified all of its customers about the incident on December 26th after removing the compromised extension from the Chrome Web Store. The cybersecurity company is also working with federal law enforcement to help track down the hackers responsible for injecting malicious code into its extension in the first place.

Delete these browser extensions right now

While Cyberhaven was the first, it wasn’t the only company that had its Chrome extension tampered with by hackers. The browser extension security platform Secure Annex is currently conducting its own investigation into the matter, and so far, it has found over twenty more now compromised extension,s which include:

• AI Assistant - ChatGPT and Gemini for Chrome
• Bard AI Chat Extension
• GPT 4 Summary with OpenAI
• Search Copilot AI Assistant for Chrome
• TinaMInd AI Assistant
• Wayin AI
• VPNCity
• Internxt VPN
• Vindoz Flex Video Recorder
• VidHelper Video Downloader
• Bookmark Favicon Changer
• Castorus
• Uvoice
• Reader Mode
• Parrot Talks
• Primus
• Tackker - online keylogger tool
• AI Shop Buddy
• Sort by Oldest
• Rewards Search Automator
• ChatGPT Assistant - Smart Search
• Keyboard History Recorder
• Email Hunter
• Visual Effects for Google Meet
• Earny - Up to 20% Cash Back

Although some of these compromised extensions have now been removed from the Chrome Web Store, if you have any of them installed in your browser, you will need to manually remove them.

You can do this by opening Chrome, clicking on the three-dot menu in the top right corner and heading to Extensions. Once there, select Manage extensions, navigate to the extension you want to remove and then select Remove to uninstall it. Finally, restart Chrome to ensure the offending extension has been fully removed from your browser.

If there are any you absolutely need and rely on during your day-to-day, check back on their store pages later and redownload them once any malicious code injected into them has been removed through a patch.

It’s also worth noting that Secure Annex’s investigation is ongoing. The firm has a spreadsheet (a public Google Sheet) with more information on the malicious extensions it has discovered so far, such as whether they’ve been updated or removed. At the same time, it is adding new malicious extensions to this list as they’re discovered.

How to stay safe from malicious browser extensions

Just like on your phone with malicious apps, the easiest way to avoid falling victim to a malicious browser extension is by limiting the number you have installed. Before installing any new extension, first ask yourself if you really need it. Chances are you probably don’t.

From there, you want to carefully inspect each extension’s listing page on the Chrome Web Store before you install it. Is the developer highly rated? When was the last time they updated their extension? What do the reviews say about this particular extension? From my own experience, Chrome users are very vocal when it comes to saying whether or not an extension really does what its developers say it should in their reviews.

Since even legitimate Chrome extensions can go bad, as we’re seeing in this new campaign, you also want to ensure that all of your computer's software (especially your browser) is up to date. The reason is that hackers love to go after users running outdated software on their machines.

As for staying safe from malicious extensions, you want to ensure you’re using the best antivirus software on your Windows computers and the best Mac antivirus software solutions on your Apple computers. Antivirus software can help if a rogue extension tries to drop malware on your PC. However, for additional protection, it might also be worth investing in the best identity theft protection services since they can help you recover any lost funds and your identity after a more serious attack.

Whether it’s apps or extensions, hackers are going to keep using extra software you install on your phone, computer or even your browser in their attacks. Malicious extensions may not be as common as bad apps. Still, since Chrome controls two-thirds of the global browser market share, according to Statista, Google’s browser is an easy and profitable target for hackers. This means it’s up to you to be extra careful when installing new extensions, even if they seem absolutely harmless at first glance.

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Google is improving its Memory Saver feature with three new modes that aim to help performance control.

Google Chrome remains one of the best web browsers that you can use, but it does take up a lot of memory. However, Google introduced a feature to help users better control their performance when surfing the web. In a recent post on its blog, Google revealed three new modes to the feature that all aim to help improve performance: Standard, Balanced and Advanced as well as a performance detection tool.

With the Performance Detection Tool, Chrome can proactively identify performance issues and offer solutions. For instance, deactivating certain tabs to help speed up the one you are currently using. When Chrome identifies an issue a popup will appear with an option to "fix now" improving the browsing experience. It is possible to turn this feature off in the settings if you would rather handle this manually.

The new modes for Memory Saver, meanwhile, are designed to help the feature speed up your browser. Moderate mode deactivates tabs based on your system's needs. Balanced mode measures both your browsing habits and system needs. Finally, Maximum mode deactivates tabs quicker once you stop using them.

The Balanced mode seems like the best option if you switch back and forth a lot and don't want to wait for the tab to reload. You can choose these settings in the Chrome settings menu under the performance tab.

Google Chrome is set for other major performance upgrades, including an upgraded version of Gemini. Part of this upgrade will be a new autonomous AI, called Project Jarvis, built into Chrome that can help perform various web-related tasks on your behalf. These include consumer tasks like shopping and travel booking and will likely see a December release alongside Gemini 2.

Chrome undoubtedly uses a lot of memory, but these new improvements will help us to better control this issue. To make sure you are getting the most out of your online experience we would recommend investing in one of the best VPNs as well.

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Starting today, you will soon be able to get dark mode when using Google Calendar alongside a refreshed UI with several changes. The update follows similar UI refreshes to other Google products, including Gmail, Drive and Docs. 

As part of the redesign, Calendar is getting rounded corners from the main view to the sidebars, which also adopt a new light blue background. It matches the look that other Google products have received.

In a blog post, Google noted other "Material Design 3" design changes: 

• Controls (like buttons, dialogs, and sidebars) that are more modern and accessible
• Interface typography that uses Google’s custom-designed and highly-legible typefaces
• Iconography that is legible and crisp, with a fresh feel

The big change is that Google Calendar is finally getting a dark mode that can be set as your default or toggled between with the standard light mode. The primary calendar is much darker than the menus and containers.

If you've received the update, it can be found in the theme options section under the Settings gear icon and then clicking Appearance.

Google does note that this update may affect Chrome extensions that alter the visual look of Calendar and Chrome.

"It may impact the experience of installed Chrome extensions that are active when using Google Calendar," the blog post warns. "As a result, these extensions might not work as expected. We recommend contacting the developers of those extensions to report any potential issues."

Additionally, the tasks.google.com site has received the same update.

As with most Google software updates, this is a rollout over the next few weeks. So you may not immediately have access to the refresh. Google says it is coming to “all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual Subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts.”

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I don't know about you, but I think I must spend at least 10 hours a day staring at an Internet browser.

Most of the time it's Google Chrome, which I started using long before I joined my team at Tom's Guide already using it for work.

I know Chrome isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I've always liked how easy it is to use with my existing Google accounts. The fact that I can now use it for work too makes everything nice and simple.

But recently a new Chrome feature started rolling out to Google Workspace users that made me take my hands off the keyboard and utter a Keanu-esque "whoa" out loud. It's an upgrade to the New Tab I so regularly summon that's streamlined my workday in such an intuitive way I'm surprised it's taken this long to debut — and I wish it would come to all browsers ASAP.

New Tab City

So here's what happened: I was puttering through my work and needed to add some data to a shared Google Sheet before a meeting that I knew was coming up today, but I couldn't remember when.

Naturally, I hit Ctrl + T to open a new tab in Chrome so I could mouse up to the bookmarks bar, click my bookmark for the spreadsheet and navigate to the page I needed.

Except suddenly, right under my mouse pointer, there's a helpful widget showing the last six files I opened in Google Drive along with details on who updated them last. The spreadsheet I'm looking for? Right on top.

Even better, just next to it is a similar Google Calendar widget showing me that my next meeting isn't until just after lunch—letting me know I had plenty of time to get my work done.

Maybe it seems silly to gush about browser widgets, aka Chrome Cards, but these little upgrades to Chrome have really made my day-to-day working life easier. They make me wonder how I worked this long without them, and that's gotta be the dream goal with productivity-minded features like these.

While investigating these new Chrome Cards I got reacquainted with Chrome's customization features, which now include the option to show or hide them on a per-card basis. Presumably that suggests we'll see more Chrome Cards coming in the future, though Google hasn't (to my knowledge) promised anything on that front.

What the company has said is that these New Tab upgrades began rolling out in late September 2024, according to a blog post, and will be coming to all managed users of Google Workspace this year.

Outlook

I'd like Google to bring these business-minded improvements to everyone who uses Google Chrome because it's just so damn useful to have my Google Calendar and Drive open and waiting for me whenever I open a new tab.

Sure, I know it's already as easy as opening a new tab, mousing up to the little grid icon in the top-right corner and using it to open the quick menu of Google apps, but life's too short to click my mouse three times when once will do the trick.

More than that, I hope every browser builder out there steals this feature (if they haven't already) and expands on it. Being able to open a new tab in Edge and see custom shortcuts to whatever website you want is nice enough, for example, but the browser would be so much more useful with similar widgets that put your most-used files at your fingertips.

But it feels like a pipe dream to believe companies like Apple, Google or Microsoft might work together to make these kinds of useful browser features inter-operable and commonly available. The best I hope for is that these New Tab features roll out to more Chrome users soon, so you can see why I'm so excited to get back to work.

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As VPN Editor at Tom's Guide, I often attend events to seek out the latest privacy innovations, and they're not always just from the developers of the best VPNs.

Very rarely are these held in my hometown of Bristol, UK, but this was the case for the second instalment of Opera's "Browser Days" – a two-day event showcasing its new and improved Opera One R2, and Opera GX.

Armed with some questions about Opera's browser VPN and general privacy practices, I made the (very short) journey to the Harbour Hotel Bristol in the town center to meet the team. I was lucky enough to speak to EVP of Desktop and Gaming, Krystian Kolondra, as well as spend a fascinating day learning about how Opera does things differently to the Big Three.

Privacy at the core

Since its inception, Opera has made pains to put the privacy and security of its users at the heart of its products. Something that the whole team is incredibly proud of is the fact that Opera is not a default browser, and using the software is an active choice. 

Opera has no ties to a wider ecosystem of products, and this means that compared to Edge, Safari, and Chrome, there's little that Opera stands to gain from tracking its users – something that can't be said for Microsoft and Google, at the very least.

History is on Opera's side, too. It was the first browser to offer a built-in ad blocker and browser VPN, as well as introducing the now-ubiquitous concept of tabs. If you're interested in learning more about the core features of the browser itself, I highly recommend you head through to my colleague Jason England's piece comparing Google Chrome vs Opera One R2.

"I've worked at Opera for 18 years," says Krystian. "There has always been a lot of thought about privacy, and a big reason for this is that our employees are also primary users. I know exactly how Opera is built, how it has developed, and I can check the code myself if I want to. In fact, I don't allow my family to use any other browser – and I couldn't bear to use something different myself!

"When it comes to privacy, many things are already regulated, but we are not a service that gathers personal data. We don't know your name, your phone number, what websites you're visiting, anything. We might know what features you're using, but that's it – and that's not useful in terms of exploiting personal data, only for making our product better. From that standpoint, I don't want to say we have an easy job when it comes to privacy, but we're not exactly a bank."

Shout it from the rooftops

Opera has recently had its VPN independently audited, confirming that it is a true no-logs VPN – but according to Krystian, this was largely an exercise in box-ticking rather than anything else.

"It's not really big news for us," says Krystian, nonchalantly. "We got the audit to prove our claims, but we've been no-logging since day one, so nothing has changed in the product. We just thought it might be worthwhile to reassure people that this is really the case."

This is something that I've noticed recently, too: while products may well have always been very secure and respectful of personal data, it's now being brought to the fore as a genuine selling point. This reflects how much more aware people are of how Big Tech abuses personal data, and have a desire to protect themselves.

"We're seeing that there is an increased interest in privacy, especially younger people. With Opera GX, for example, we're getting a lot of younger people, and it's just a case of being able to talk more about this." 

In fact, Opera limits features in certain jurisdictions to protect the privacy of all its users.

"Our users are all across the world, right? There are some countries that demand to see what our VPN users are doing. In that case, we don't provide our service there because we believe that it's much better to not provide it rather than share our users' data – because of course, law is law. If we don't believe that this is good for users, we simply don't offer a service there."

The cost of being free

Even the best free VPNs have to find a way to cover their costs, and as we all learned from the demise of Atlas VPN in April 2024, even huge companies like Nord Security can struggle here. 

A common way of preserving user privacy while still offering a free service is by using the "freemium" model. Providers like PrivadoVPN and Proton VPN both do this – they offer a free service that has all the privacy protections of the paid product, but have restrictions on some features to incentivize you to upgrade. 

These limits could include data caps, or perhaps relatively few server locations. Other providers – which I don't recommend in any way – may track your data, or serve you advertisements to keep the lights on.

However, while Opera does offer a paid VPN in Opera VPN Pro, it's a niche option that hasn't gained a huge amount of traction. So, how can it continue to offer a free VPN within its browser?

"The answer is very simple," says Krystian. "If our only business was VPN, it's true, finding the money to keep a free product alive could be an issue.
But our business is not VPN. The VPN is just a feature of the browser. 

"Many of the features Opera includes come with either a data center cost or development cost, and we factor this into the whole package. For instance, Opera Mini has large data centers all around the world. and we have enormous connectivity – we can transfer many petabytes of data.
But of course, people using Opera Mini aren't spread evenly across the globe. So that means that we have peaks of when we are using this network and we are not. 

"We can use this infrastructure in another way, and one of these is by building a VPN. For us, it is a cost, but we have scale, which means this cost doesn't bother us, and it offers great value for users.

"Obviously, for our free VPN, we have to limit it to our own data centers to make sure that we can offer it for free. So, you can only choose maybe, the Americas, Europe, or Asia. With Opera VPN Pro, which you pay for, you can choose from tons of countries."

Bottom line

It's clear that Opera as a whole has its users' privacy at heart, and the "choice factor" plays into this in a big way. Really, Opera wants nothing to do with your private data, and the side-effect is that it's an excellent choice if you're looking to stay safer online, away from the prying eyes of goliaths like Google and Microsoft. 

Seeing as many of us spend our entire time online within a browser, it seems like a good place to start.

We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example:

1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service).

2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad.

We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.

Google Chrome has long been the default choice of browser for most of the planet — no matter how many times Microsoft desperately pleads with you to use Edge on Windows 11.

But if you’re just reaching for Mountain View’s option because it’s got Google on the label, you’re missing out on some incredible browsers. One such one has just left its development beta, which is Opera’s One R2 — launching in the middle of October.

With it comes a redesign centered around a new way to consume content, a fresh take on tab management and all the latest AI capabilities rolled into one — while maintaining that same attention to performance and security.

However, I sound like I’m counting out Chrome before the battle’s even begun. There are many reasons why Google’s browser is a banger of a choice, from its simplistic design language to demystifying the many complexities of zipping around the web, to a huge ecosystem of extensions and all your Google Integrations.

Today is not a day to be coy though. No fence-sitting allowed. If we were to pick a browser between R2 and Chrome, which would it be? Let’s get into it.

Google Chrome vs Opera One R2: Design

Design is always a fascinating thing to talk about in web browsers, as I’m sure a lot of you will have looked at the same looking apps with a URL bar up top, some bookmarks and tabs and thought “what design?” 

Well, that’s because when it comes to designing something as regularly used across the planet as a browser, even the tiniest of tweaks to the functional UI could be a huge risk to the global understanding of how something so universal as a browser works.

That is why Google Chrome has been the way it has always been for years, and will continue to not rock the boat. And why should it? It’s a clean interface that can be malleable around however basic or complex your browsing needs are. 

Just need the simple browser bar and a login to your Google account? Sure. How about overflowing folders of bookmarks and all the extensions? Chrome can handle presenting these in a way that doesn’t feel overwhelming either. Just watch out for that ocean of tabs across the top, though, as it can be easy to get lost in it all.

What really jumped out at me when playing with R2 is the evolved Dynamic Themes that really set an aesthetic statement with gorgeous visuals and animations. On top of that, the evolved Modular Design demonstrates how much Opera takes elements of the way a desktop OS works and blends it with a lot of well-known web browser functional design ideals.

Firstly, any media you watch or listen to will appear in floating windows atop your content, and stashed in the sidebar. These open almost as apps and even behave like apps — pausing when you receive calls for example.

And second, we’re taking a trip to Tab Islands. You know the split screen feature you’re probably using on the regular on Windows and (after finally adding it to Sequoia) Mac? Well, Opera One R2 has something similar for those moments of quick switching between two windows.

Split Screen mode was a cinch to use and immediately made a significant impact on the way I browse. Before long, I quickly grouped two sets of tabs to flit between in wedding planning mode — from checking out venues on the left side and matching them with certain theme concepts we have in mind.

Just like any browser company right now, Opera isn’t reinventing the wheel. But with these changes, they are making multi-site browsing far easier for both the casuals and power users.

Oh! And we didn’t even talk about how recently visited tabs leave a subtle visual trace for you to find your way back, and how you can distinguish each tab with an emoji. This is a clear win for the one R2!

Winner: Opera One R2

Google Chrome vs Opera One R2: Features

Opera One R2 does indeed bring an impressive feature set. The aforementioned Tab Islands and Modular Design are great little tweaks on the UI that make browsing simpler.

But on top of that, being able to add markers on the scroll bar to refer back to on long pages, having a screenshot tool and battery saver mode in the toolbar has saved me in clutch moments. And the built-in VPN and ad blockers assure a more secure and cleaner browsing experience than having to go out and get these tools for Chrome (more on that later).

However, in terms of not just the huge, ever-growing list of features and their super simple integration into all you do, but the vast ocean of extensions to make Chrome your own, Google does take a lead here.

Particular shoutout to the multi-purpose address bar, which is context-aware of what you're asking and plugs into Google’s services to give you an answer without even having to press enter (calculating equations you type in or giving you translations right from the drop-down that appears).

And yes, I do know that in terms of extensions, Opera’s browser supports them with a Chrome extension add-on, but this is a clunky workaround at the moment on One R2.

Winner: Google Chrome

Google Chrome vs Opera One R2: Performance

First a quick disclaimer. I tested both of these browsers on my M3 Pro MacBook Pro — the base model sporting 18GB of RAM — and I’m connected to some mightily slow internet here (roughly 8 Mbps download speeds). These tests are a little rudimentary, but still an effective one.

Opening the Tom’s Guide page fresh without cookies on both of these browsers saw Chrome load it in 0.9 seconds, while Opera One R2 finished the job in 1.1 seconds. You won’t notice that difference, and the similarities in loading speed come down to the fact both of these are built on the same Chromium web rendering engine.

Then to put it under load, I started adding additional tabs and loading the same website on each. Once I hit 20 tabs on Chrome, I started experiencing those classic slowdown issues, whereas on Opera One R2 I managed to reach 23 tabs. This is a surprising result, given how much more complex R2 is in what it is loading in the background compared to a basic build of Chrome — especially with animated wallpapers.

So as you can see, each has its own benefits and drawbacks when it comes to effectively managing performance. Both are rather RAM-hungry nonetheless, so make sure you’ve got a system with at least 16GB to not feel any slow-down.

Winner: Tie

Google Chrome vs Opera One R2: Security

Given all of Chrome’s privacy and security oopsies over the past couple of years, this one is an easy win for Opera. With an Ad blocker, a no-log VPN (doesn’t track any of your information), individual site data settings control toggles and a private browser (that is actually private), Opera only takes anonymous usage data for its own app analytics — no user history is shared or identified.

Meanwhile, Google’s browser collects a lot of information to fuel its key businesses in ads and app ecosystem. Incognito mode has (thankfully) been changed to actually be anonymous browsing, but from your browsing history, location info, activity, Gmail data, photos and videos and docs, Google has its hands on a lot of your info. 

Plus it does not come with an Ad blocker and VPN included. We recommend picking up AdBlock Plus and taking a look at our list of best VPNs to help protect your data online.

Winner: Opera One R2

Google Chrome vs Opera One R2: AI

When it comes to AI-fuelled browsing, there are two very different approaches to it here — with Opera One R2 aimed more at the power user who has some knowledge of how to work their way around an LLM, and Chrome using it to enrich the features you already use most. Both have their strengths and weaknesses.

Starting with Opera, the Aria AI is a free-to-use multi-LLM engine that doesn’t require an account to use. Not only that, but you can even download and install one of the many versions of the LLaMA LLMs (3.2 is available now) for on-device usage. And accessing it is as easy as either clicking the Aria button on the left-side taskbar.

But the real superpower here is the command line — accessible by hitting Control+/ or Command+/. From here, you’ve got three modes: 

• Standard mode: A prompt overlay for answering strings of questions, or even taking specific browser actions with natural language.
• Page Context mode: Aria can process everything on a web page, summarize all the details, and answer any queries you have on the information.
• Writing mode: Whether you need help drafting emails, rewriting complex sentences or formulating ideas, the writing mode is here to give options based on any website context you add to it.

It’s quite a brilliant implementation, which I’ve loved using. However, I can understand that these come with a certain level of assumed knowledge on how to effectively use AI. Put simply, some form of experience using the likes of ChatGPT is essential — ranging from being a power user when it comes to picking the right local model for you.

Meanwhile, with Google Chrome, artificial intelligence is peppered in here and there to enrich the things you already use. Namely, outside of the fun generative features such as creating your own Chrome themes:

• You’ve got the search labs AI overview pulling together a snapshot of all the info you need from a Google search.
• Search Browser History means you can just ask a vague question related to something you visited a while ago but only have a faint memory of getting back to that page.
• The multi-purpose address bar uses AI to interpret your request with context to deliver the result within the bar drop-down (translating text to other languages, linking to files within your drive, etc).

It’s tricky to really call a winner between the two, as they offer different strokes for different folks. If you have the AI know-how, you can really make the most of Opera’s feature set. But if you’re a new starter who wants to dip their toes in without learning any new interactions, then Chrome takes it.

Winner: Tie

Google Chrome vs Opera One R2: Bottom Line

Overall winner: Opera One R2

It’s close when it comes to functionality and ease of use, but once the dust clears, the Opera One R2 stands head and shoulders above as the better browser of the two. With privacy at its core, an engaging AI-driven feature set and a utilitarian yet sleek aesthetic that makes power-browsing a cinch, this is a mighty option if you take the time to learn its optimizations.

But the biggest lesson I learned? Not only has this past week helped me find my next new browser, but it has opened my eyes to the world outside of Google Chrome.* 

*No, this doesn’t mean that I’ll give Microsoft Edge the time of day.

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Hackers are using malicious browser extensions to infect both Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge with dangerous malware that can steal your personal data and leave your computer at risk of further attacks.

As reported by The Hacker News, this recently discovered malware campaign has been active since 2021 and so far, at least 300,000 Chrome and Edge users have fallen victim to it.

What makes this malware particularly dangerous is the fact that it can achieve persistence on infected PCs. This means that even if you delete the malicious extension, the malware will reactivate itself the next time you restart your computer.

Here’s everything you need to know about this malware campaign and how you can actually remove the malicious extension used in it once and for all.

Using malvertising to push fake sites

Like other malware campaigns, this one uses malvertising to trick unsuspecting users into downloading and installing risky software.

The hackers behind it have created lookalike sites that impersonate popular software and services like Roblox FPS Unlocker, YouTube, VLC media player, Steam or Keepass. While potential victims think they’re installing legitimate software or extensions, they’re actually downloading a trojan that installs the malicious extensions used by this malware.

The digitally signed malicious installers used in this campaign register a scheduled task on vulnerable PCs that then executes a PowerShell script which downloads and executes the next-stage payload from a hacker-controlled remote server.

As part of this next-stage payload, the malware modifies an infected PCs Windows Registry to force the installation of Chrome and Edge extensions which are used for ad fraud by hijacking web searches on Google and Bing and then redirecting them through the hackers’ servers. To make matters worse, newer versions of this malware can even prevent browser updates from being installed, putting victims at risk of other attacks.

Fortunately, there is a fix but it does take some technical know how.

How to remove this malware from your PC for good

In a blog post detailing the findings of its security researchers, ReasonLabs provides further insight on how to properly remove this malware and the malicious extensions used in this campaign from your PC.

First things first, you need to remove the scheduled task from your PC. This is done by clicking on the Start Menu or pressing the Windows key on your keyboard and then searching for Task Scheduler. 

Once Task Scheduler is opened, you need to click on the Task Scheduler Library to show all of the tasks on your PC. While the task name used by this malware varies, you can identify it by clicking on tasks, opening them and then clicking on Actions. In the table below Actions, you can look at their Details and here, you want to look for a path to “c:\windows\system32” and a PowerShell script or a file ending with “.ps1”. ReasonLabs notes that the task name will often be similar to the PowerShell script name.  Once you’ve found the malicious task, right click on its name and then click Delete.

After this, you then need to remove the registry keys that are forcing the malicious extensions in your browser. This is more difficult but you can open the Registry Editor the same way that you did with the Task Scheduler. Keep in mind though that you shouldn’t mess with your computer’s registry unless you absolutely know what you’re doing. When in doubt, ask a friend for help or take your PC to a professional.

With the Registry Editor opened, you need to go to “Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome\ExtensionInstallForcelist”. In the right pane here, there will be a list of extensions with a numerical value as “Name” and Extension ID as “Data”. Then right click on the name and then click Delete. You also have to do this for this registry key as well: Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Policies\Google\Chrome\ExtensionInstallForcelist.”

As this malware affects both Chrome and Edge, you will need to repeat the same process for the Edge extensions at this path: “Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge\ExtensionInstallForcelist”.

While you could delete the malware files yourself, you’re much better off using one of the best antivirus software solutions to do it for you. If you do want to do so manually, you can find instructions at the end of ReasonLabs’ blog post linked above.

Going through the process of removing these malicious extensions and the malware they’ve dropped on your PC will likely be more than enough to ensure you think twice before downloading new software or browser extensions from untrustworthy sources. If you do want to download a new extension, do so from the Chrome Web Store or from the Microsoft Edge Add-on Store instead.

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It’s not every day that we come across a vulnerability that’s almost two decades old but cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new zero-day flaw that impacts all major browsers.

As reported by The Hacker News, the Israeli app security firm Oligo found what it’s calling a “0.0.0.0 Day” that can be exploited by hackers to access sensitive services running on local devices. The most surprising thing about this critical vulnerability though is that it has laid dormant in popular browsers for 18 years.

The 0.0.0.0 Day impacts all of the top browsers including Google Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers like Edge, Safari and Firefox. However, it’s worth noting that it only affects devices running macOS and Linux. The reason why the best Windows laptops aren’t affected is due to the fact that Microsoft blocks this IP address at the operating system level.

This critical vulnerability can be used to weaponize harmless IP addresses like 0.0.0.0 to exploit local services to allow for unauthorized access and remote code execution by hackers that are not on the same local network.

In a report on the matter, Oligo’s security researchers explain that public websites which have domains that end in “.com” are able to communicate with services running on a local network and execute arbitrary code by using the address 0.0.0.0. The vulnerability also makes bypassing Private Network Access (PNA), which prevents public websites from directly accessing endpoints on a private network, possible.

How to stay safe from browser-based attacks 

After discovering this vulnerability back in April, Oligo quickly reached out to the companies behind all of the major browsers so that they could implement a fix.

Instead of releasing a security update, Google, Apple, Mozilla and others plan to block the IP address 0.0.0.0 going forward. With the release of Chromium 128 last month, Chrome is already blocking access to 0.0.0.0 but Google’s full fix for this issue won’t be completed for all users until Chrome 133 is released. Meanwhile, Apple has already made changes to the browser engine WebKit which is used by Safari to block access to 0.0.0.0 and Mozilla has also blocked the IP address in Firefox.

When it comes to protecting yourself from other browser-based attacks, the first and most important thing you can do is to keep your browser up to date. I know this may get annoying given how frequently Google releases new updates for Chrome but they only take a minute or so to install and all of your current tabs will be reopened once an update is complete.

Since your browser can be attacked by hackers to infect your computer with malware, you should also consider using the best antivirus software on your Windows PC and the best Mac antivirus software on your Apple computer. Both Windows and macOS ship with built-in antivirus software but paid options provide you with even greater protection along with some useful extras like a VPN or a password manager.

New vulnerabilities like the one described above are discovered and subsequently patched every day which is why you want to stay on top of updates and not let them pile up if you want to stay safe from hackers.

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Ahead of Google announcing the new Pixel 9 phones and Pixel Watch 3, I’m feeling a little left out with not very many computing announcements coming out of Mountain View. Well, the company must’ve heard me, as Chrome for desktop is getting a dramatic upgrade.

Today, Google has announced three AI-infused features that are coming to Chrome: Google Lens (available worldwide), Tab compare and a new way to find websites in your search history (available starting only in the U.S.).

And I don’t mean to sound hyperbolic when I say this, but these seemingly small changes could be significant in making web browsing way better. Let’s get into them.

1. Google Lens comes to desktop

You know how useful Google Lens has been on smartphones, right? Taking a picture and providing important context by searching what’s in the image, such as any products you can buy, identifying plants or animals, exploring locations and menus, and more.

Well, this tech is coming in an important way to the desktop version of Chrome. Just click on the Google Lens icon in the address bar (or invoke lens from a right-click or three dot menu) and the familiar transparent color overlay will fade across the screen.

Beyond the usual suspects such as identifying objects in pictures, you can also select text or shop any items from videos you’re watching. On top of that, the sidebar that pops up allows you to engage in multisearch — giving you the chance to ask Google follow-up questions based on the initial context of your Google Lens results. Pair that with an AI overview response and this has great potential of simplifying your web browsing experience.

2. Talk to your browsing history

Say you visited a website, didn’t bookmark it, and now you’ve got the challenge of trying to remember the smallest details about that page to find it in your browsing history search. Now, with AI, you can just ask Chrome a question in the address bar to find the relevant page.

To get to this, type “search history” to prompt Chrome to respond to your follow-up question in the correct way. Any result Google picks will have that “AI Best Match” label next to it.

This is basically a browser-based version of Windows 11’s Recall, but done in a way that doesn’t pose a massive privacy risk by taking screenshots every so often.

Tab compare

Tab compare is a feature that will use AI to create an overview of several products you’re trying to compare and compile them all into one tab.

Having multiple tabs open and trying to check prices, specs and ratings, can be a pain, so this will be a huge help to the savvy shoppers out there.

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Chrome has always been a power consuming monster, but over the years Google has made a bunch of changes to reduce the toll it takes on your system — including an Energy Saver mode. But changes to Chrome’s Canary build are teasing the possibility of some big Energy Saver upgrades, which could help boost efficiency even further.

Chrome’s Canary build is the experimental version of the browser, where Google tests new features and updates long before they arrive on the stable or beta versions of the official Chrome browser. But that also means it can be a good indicator of what Google wants Chrome to be able to do, and the kind of upgrades we may say several months down the line.

Leopeva64, posting on X, found flags relating to a number of these potential upgrades, allowing for a little bit more customization of how Chrome’s Energy Saver mode works. Specifically the ability to “freeze CPU intensive background tabs” while the mode is switched on. An additional flag also lets users test this feature by forcing all tabs to behave like a CPU-intensive tab.

In the past Leopeva64 also uncovered settings that let you set how aggressive Energy Saver Mode will be, with options for Moderate, Balanced and Maximum energy saving modes. According to the menu text, these settings relate to how long it takes for tabs to become inactive. The more aggressive the energy saving, the less time it takes to essentially shut down those tabs and make users reload them from scratch.

Both of these are rather useful features to have in a browser like Chrome. The problem with the browser is that each individual tab is essentially its own window, and as long as it stays active it’ll keep eating up resources — gobbling RAM and using up power. So by giving users the ability to tell Chrome when those tabs should be put to sleep, it lets them gain some modicum of control over how Chrome tabs are treated. Giving them the choice between efficiency and ensuring all their tabs can reopen as fast as possible. 

Likewise, being able to identify which tabs are taking up the most resources, and actively preventing them from doing so unless absolutely necessary, should offer a major reduction in power consumption. Because who needs those resources being drained when they’re not actually being used?

Canary isn’t designed for the majority of people, but it is available to download and use if you want to check out these features for yourself — and are happy with the fact they may not work correctly. The rest of us can just wait until these features make their way to the official version of Chrome. Assuming they ever do, that is. 

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After four years of vague promises and actions that do not back up words, Google is pulling the plug on eliminating third-party cookies in Chrome. Announced in a blog post today, Mountain View is shifting focus to provide “a new experience in Chrome” that will give people the chance to “make an informed choice” about how they are tracked.

That’s all fair and good, but once you start going into the history of it (and you cut it with the context of this being a free-to-use product, which on the internet means that you are ultimately the product), you’d be right to be a little annoyed at this “shortsighted” decision. 

A decision that isn’t just going to throw the privacy trust issue back into the faces of users, but proves Apple's new dystopian ad was right.

Interpreting Google’s statement

Let’s go into some of the detail here. This all started in 2020, when Google announced it would eliminate third-party cookies from Chrome by 2022  — an admirable goal to get rid of something that was annoying at best and a privacy scare at worst.

This timeline was pushed back a few times because of pressure from advertisers and several big issues with regulators. These issues have surrounded what the alternative would be to transition too. In the blog post, Privacy Sandbox VP Anthony Chavez does say that while testing shows this different approach has “potential,” getting it all to work “requires significant work by many participants and will have an impact on publishers, advertisers, and everyone involved in online advertising.”

As Chavez mentions, this 180-degree has come at the hands of the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), alongside publishers, web developers and advertisers — feedback that has helped them to arrive at this so-called solution.

It’s not the end of Google's Privacy Sandbox work, as the company will continue working on APIs to create “privacy-preserving alternatives” to cookies, while also finally addressing the whole thing about Incognito Mode not being very “Incognito” by introducing IP protection.

A lot of places that have covered this news have called this a positive step in disguise, as it provides users a choice. But it’s missing the fundamental point here — that choice doesn’t exist, and the existence of this choice is all reliant on Google standing up to this pressure and coming through with its promises (something it has not done yet). 

In the meantime, we have vague promises of this elevated “user choice” in a new Chrome experience that we know nothing about, which will be revealed in more detail at an unspecified later date. That means we’re still stuck with stale cookies.

“Regulators, consumers, and even brands have recognized the privacy issues associated with cookies and have been working towards more privacy-friendly solutions,” Adam Schenkel, EVP, Global Platform Strategy and Operation, at GumGum commented. 

“Google’s decision is shortsighted, especially as it relates to privacy. The industry and Google should continue to broaden its toolkit to include less invasive methods of delivering ads.”

Unintended perfect timing from Apple

And this got me thinking about the ad Apple has started running about Safari — you know, the creepy one with CCTV bats that call the company’s app “a browser that’s actually private.” It’s very much the way the company operates now, as privacy has become a huge selling point for Apple products.

At this point, literally just a week ago, we were in a very different landscape. According to Google’s Privacy Sandbox report, eliminating third-party cookies had only been delayed to 2025, but it was still going to happen. 

But now, as Google kills these plans, this ad takes on a whole new meaning. IP protection in Incognito mode in Chrome vs IP address hiding as standard in Safari (provided you have an iCloud+ account), and tracking cookies sticking around for much longer show that the Cupertino crew were right all along.

Will this change anything in terms of the ad effectiveness? Possibly. I think people who use Chrome are probably aware of the whole third-party cookie cross-site tracking thing, but overlook it for the ease, convenience and feature set of using the browser. But you can’t ignore the fact that this is all playing nicely into Apple’s hands.

That’s a big old “yikes” from me

Look, let’s cut to the brass tax here. We are all in agreement that third-party cookies bring up privacy concerns — creating detailed profiles about each and every one of us. So why are we still even entertaining this being a thing?

On top of that, leaning back on my time working in digital marketing for a decade, it’s not even that effective of a tool. What you’re missing from a rudimentary profile built of sites you visit is deeper context. 

Why is that person on the site? What are they there for? Looking on a deeper content level rather than an overarching “this person has been on X website” gives you more understanding of how to target them with more relevant ads — something third-party cookies are unable to do, which made them a cheap but highly ineffective ad tool that I stayed away from.

I know that companies need to make money on the internet, and ads are usually the most direct way to do so. But this is not the way to go about it, Google.

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Google has revealed that it will no longer end support for third-party cookies in Chrome after working on a plan to do so for years.

As reported by 9to5Google, the search giant first announced its plan to “phase out support” for third-party cookies, cross-site tracking identifiers, fingerprinting and other methods used to track people across the internet back in 2020. According to Google’s original plan, the company wanted to replace these outdated methods with a more privacy-conscious alternative without overly disrupting businesses that specialize in online advertising.

Unfortunately though, the plan — which was originally supposed to be complete by 2022 — was postponed to 2023, then to 2024 and a third delay announced in April of this year pushed it back all the way to sometime in 2025.

Google did make some headway on its plan in January when it started testing its new Tracking Protection feature in Chrome. It limited sites from using third-party cookies to track Chrome users as they browsed the web. 

Now though, it appears that the deprecation of third-party cookies in Chrome is completely dead. Here’s everything you need to know about this major reversal and how it will affect you if you’re using Chrome.

IP Protection is coming to Incognito mode

In a new blog post, Google’s VP of its Privacy Sandbox initiative Anthony Chavez provided further insight on why the company has now abruptly canceled its plan to phase out third-party cookies in Chrome and explained what it will do instead.

Although the search giant’s Privacy Sandbox APIs have the potential to improve online privacy while preserving ad-supported content, implementing them would require “significant work by many participants and will have an impact on publishers, advertisers and everyone involved in online advertising.” 

For this reason, Google instead plans to “introduce a new experience in Chrome” that will allow users to make an informed choice when it comes to third-party cookies. It’s worth noting that Chrome users will also be able to adjust this choice at any time. 

As part of its additional privacy controls in Chrome, Google also plans to launch a new feature called IP Protection that will work in Incognito mode. Essentially, this feature will anonymize your IP address to help protect it from being used by third parties for things like web-wide, cross-site tracking.

Much like many of the best VPN services, IP Protection will use a two-hop privacy proxy to anonymize Chrome traffic. However, it won’t be available as a default setting in Chrome until next year.

We’ll likely hear more from Google on the matter as the company works to improve its Privacy Sandbox APIs while improving privacy protections in Chrome.

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• Apple tells over a billion iPhone users to stop using Chrome — here’s Google’s response

When it comes to using an iPhone, there are several browsers to choose from but the vast majority flock to either Chrome or Safari. It’s a competition that has heated up in the midst of a complicated relationship between Apple and Google.

Well, Apple’s latest scary attack ad is not going to make that relationship any less complicated. While it doesn’t overtly tell people to stop using Chrome, it is a rather blatant shot at Google’s browser for the ton of tracking cookies it uses — claiming that Safari is “a browser that’s actually private.”

Why now?

Currently, 30% of iPhone users are running Chrome as its default browser, and Google wants to up this to 50%, according to a report from The Information. That would equate to another 300 million iOS devices, and in a time when keeping people loyal to apps is the most direct path to revenue, Apple does not want to lose this majority grip on iPhone browser usage.

So the company seems to have hatched a plan to prey on the two key problems with using its competition:

• Chrome’s hunger for tracking cookies: You’ve seen it all across the internet — those pop ups that ask whether you accept third-party cookies. Once you go into the privacy settings of Chrome, you’ll probably be stunned by the many thousands of sites tracking your whereabouts on the internet. Even worse, they look set to be around until 2025 according toGoogle's Privacy Sandbox report.
• Incognito mode is not private: This is one of a few different features of Chrome where the Mountain View company has said it cares about privacy, but its actions are a little different. For example, Google promises security in its Incognito Mode, but then had to admit this privacy shield isn’t really that private in a $5 billion class-action lawsuit.

These are things that Safari stomps out from the get-go — including preventing cross-site tracking by default, and hiding your IP address (provided you have an iCloud+ account on the latter). That makes this fertile ground for Apple to advertise on and drum up fears about its main competition.

Google's response

We reached out to Google for a response to this latest ad campaign, and the response doesn't necessarily answer the issues rather bluntly hinted at here by Apple. 

A Google spokesperson told Tom's Guide that: "Chrome is built with the goal of keeping your data safe by default and ensuring users can control when and how their data is used in Chrome to personalize their web browsing experience. We believe users should always be in control, which is why we've built easy to use privacy and security settings directly into Chrome."

Will people actually ditch Chrome?

The browser war on iPhone is very much Apple’s to lose rather than Google’s to win, and the Cupertino crew are going in hard on the weak spot of Chrome here. And from the perspective of someone who used to work in advertising, this dystopian setup is a rather effective way of getting the message across.

Current Chrome users won’t necessarily be blind to these cookies, but may have come to terms with them and the subsequent risk. However, new iPhone users and those who weren’t necessarily aware of just how much is learned about you through Chrome browsing activity may scare them into switching.

We will be following up with Google to get their comment and reaching out to security experts for more context. Stay tuned. 

Opening a webpage inside of an app can be an arduous process, but it may be getting a little easier with a new Chrome update for Android apps. The new Chrome M124 update is adding the ability to open in-app webpages in a sort of picture-in-picture mode. This will let users swap between the app and the webpage without losing the browsing session.

Google announced the new Tabs feature on the Chromium blog is for Android apps that use the Chrome Custom Tabs feature. It allows developers to provide custom browsing experiences within their apps. 

The example the Chrome developers gave is clicking a link in the Gmail app which opens up a browser window. Apps that utilize Chrome-based mobile browsers like Gmail will have a new icon when the browser window opens. Look for a down arrow next to the URL bar. It’s very minimal and easy to miss.

Upon clicking the arrow, it takes you back to Gmail but leaves a small floating window toward the bottom of the screen showing the open browser tab. Click that and you can be back in Chrome.

It’s unclear if the Chrome M124 update has rolled out to most, or any users. We tried testing this feature on an older but up to date Samsung Galaxy S22 and the feature did not yet appear available. The Chrome blog did not indicate when the M124 update would hit all devices. A previous blog from earlier in the month did indicate that the larger M124 update is rolling out to various devices over the course of the month.

When the feature becomes available it does seem pretty handy. The ability to quickly return to an app or browser without closing either or having to navigate around Android to return sounds great.

As mentioned, it’s only available in apps that use Chrome-based mobile browsers, but this would be a nice feature to see all of the place. Especially Samsung phones that like to default to Samsung’s “Internet Browser”.

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Browser maker Opera is collaborating with Google to bring Gemini AI to the Opera browser. Specifically, they are working with Google on Google Cloud. 

As Neowin reported, Google and Opera will collaborate on Opera's Aria browser AI. 

Opera’s Aria uses multiple large language models (LLMs) to curate an AI experience in the browser. Some LLMs that Opera uses in the Composer AI engine include Meta’s Llama and Mixtral from Mistral AI. It also already uses local LLMs like Google’s Gemma or Vicuna. 

“Our companies have been cooperating for more than 20 years. We are excited to be announcing the deepening of this collaboration into the field of generative AI to further power our suite of browser AI services,” Per Wetterdal, EVP Partnerships at Opera, said in a statement.

From Opera’s press release, it appears the big features coming to Aria are around image generation and voice output. 

Google’s Imagen 2 model will power generic image creation. Google just announced Imagen 3 during IO 2024, but it hasn’t reached the masses yet. It’ll be interesting how soon Opera gets access to Imagen 3 for the browser, if at all. That said, the Imagen 2 model just launched less than three months ago.

“We believe the future of AI will be open, so we’re providing access to the best of Google’s infrastructure, AI products, platforms and foundation models to empower organizations to chart their course with generative AI,” said Eva Fors, Managing Director, Google Cloud Nordic Region.

With the newest AI features, Aria is supposed to be able to read responses in a “conversational-like fashion” based on Google’s text-to-audio model.

Opera has been pursuing a modular AI model since June of last year when Opera One launched. Aria was introduced and was powered by OpenAI’s GPT model. ChatGPT was added to the browser in February of last year.

Opera is no stranger to following the latest computing trends. In 2022, It launched one of the first blockchain web browsers designed to make it easier to exchange “Ether.” It’s unclear if Opera is still operating in Crypto, though, since it hasn’t had any updates on that front in a year.

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Google Chrome is the most popular web browser in the world. As of April 2024, it had over 65% of the global market share, per Statcounter. That also means that there are many extensions built on top of Chrome to ease the user experience. However, some of those extensions may be slowing the browser down.

A recent report from the development team at DebugBear analyzed 5,000 extensions to see how they affected the Chrome browser. Based on the findings, a number of extensions are power hogs and may be slowing down websites. It all depends on how the extension processes data and what kind of websites are being visited. 

As an example, the Honey Automatic Coupons and Capital One Shopping apps don't do much on news sites. However, when visiting something like Ikea, those extensions start running. It makes sense, but it does cause a slowdown. Honey added 1.5 seconds of processing time when on the Ikea homepage. Airline rewards programs like American Airlines and Alaska Airlines shopping tended to have performance impacts as well. 

It may not be surprising, but with the rise of AI tools, AI extensions popped up in the top 15 processor-heavy extensions in many of the tests. 

Individually, all of these extensions might not slow a website's responsiveness, but what happens if multiple intensive extensions run at the same time? DebugBear’s tests don’t seem to explore what happens when multiple extensions slow things down at once.

Interestingly, some of the slowdown can be explained by when an extension runs its code. For comparison, the Merlin AI extension doesn’t start running code until after a web page has been displayed. So, it doesn’t delay the website's load time. Since it is processor-heavy, it might cause delays when clicking on things within the page, but the initial load isn’t affected.

The Monica AI extension, on the other hand, starts running code as soon as the page starts loading, adding “1.3 seconds of processing time,” which reduces page load speeds.

For the end-user, you can’t fix the extension; that’s up to developers. Beyond uninstalling offending extensions, you can restrict them to only run on certain websites or to only run when you click on the extension icon, though.

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