Archive for October 22, 2025

Wednesday, October 22, 2025

ChatGPT Atlas

OpenAI (MacRumors, Reddit):

Today we’re introducing ChatGPT Atlas, a new web browser built with ChatGPT at its core.

[…]

With Atlas, ChatGPT can come with you anywhere across the web—helping you in the window right where you are, understanding what you’re trying to do, and completing tasks for you, all without copying and pasting or leaving the page. Your ChatGPT memory is built in, so conversations can draw on past chats and details to help you get new things done.

[…]

ChatGPT Atlas is launching worldwide on macOS today to Free, Plus, Pro, and Go users. Atlas is also available in beta for Business, and if enabled by their plan administrator, for Enterprise and Edu users. Experiences for Windows, iOS, and Android are coming soon.

Alas, it doesn’t support AppleScript and has System Settings–style preferences.

Nick Heer:

Atlas, like Perplexity’s Comet, is a Chromium-based browser. You cannot use it without signing in to ChatGPT.

[…]

The company says it only retains pages until they have been summarized, and I am sure it thinks it is taking privacy as seriously as it can. But what about down the road? What could it do with all of this data it does retain — information that is tied to your ChatGPT account?

Matt Birchler:

The new tab page is predictably a text box that intelligently does what you ask it to do, routing your queries to perform web searches, start a standard ChatGPT chat, or simply load a website from your bookmarks or history. You can, of course, also just paste in the URL and go.

[…]

I’m also a big proponent of the “show full URL in address bar” feature in all browsers, and I’m happy to see this is here as well. It’s a little thing, but I’m always worried it’s on its way out.

[…]

The app does not have an agent mode as of yet, but it sounds like that will be coming in the relatively near future. My experience with these modes in other browsers has been a major letdown, so we’ll see if OpenAI can do any better, but I’m not holding my breath here.

Nicolas Magand:

I use the ChatGPT app at work, and I actually like having a separate window for all A.I. shenanigans: I can switch apps quickly, I can close it, and I can call it with a keyboard shortcut. Sure, it’s way more limited, and I need to jump from one app to another more often, but I actually see this as a feature.

This is not just about Atlas; I haven’t read about any cool use case of an A.I. browser, whether it is Dia or Comet. Maybe this new browser will change things, maybe it will reach more people and we will see good examples, but so far, it feels like even folks at OpenAI struggled to find compelling use cases. Or maybe I was too bored by the video to pay attention?

Previously:

Update (2025-10-23): Lukas Valenta:

I can confirm there is an agent mode - alas, it is hard to find (at least to me) - it is hidden in “chat rectangle” preferences.

I’ve tried it for two tasks - finding ticket and filling the whole booking for me (worked great), and then create a new identifier + app in Apple developer / AppStore Connect. Had to manually step in once (didn’t change account), had to confirm once.

I think with correct prompts, this may be the way to optimize these tasks we don’t like anyway.

Certainly interesting, but I’m skeptical about giving an LLM this sort of access to my accounts.

Thomas Claburn:

OpenAI’s brand new Atlas browser is more than willing to follow commands maliciously embedded in a web page, an attack type known as indirect prompt injection.

Prompt injection vulnerability is a common flaw among browsers that incorporate AI agents like Perplexity’s Comet and Fellou, as noted in a report published by Brave Software on Tuesday, coincidentally amid OpenAI’s handwaving about the debut of Atlas.

[…]

A spokesperson pointed to a lengthy X post published Wednesday by Dane Stuckey, OpenAI’s chief information security officer, that acknowledges the possibility of prompt injection and touches on various mitigation strategies.

Update (2025-10-29): John Gruber (Mastodon):

After giving it a try over the last week, to me Atlas feels like … Chrome with a chat button bolted on. I do not see the appeal, at all, despite being a daily user of ChatGPT. Atlas offers nothing to me that’s better than using Safari as a standalone browser and ChatGPT’s excellent native Mac app as a standalone AI chatbot. But, for me, my browser is not “where all of [my] work, tools, and context come together”. I use an email app for email, a notes app for notes, a text editor and blog editor for writing and programming, a photos app for my photo library, a native feed reader app for feed reading, etc. My web browser is for browsing pages on the web. Perhaps this sort of browser/chat hybrid appeals better to people who live the majority of their desktop-computing lives in browser tabs.

Update (2025-11-05): Adam Engst:

Read Hart’s article for more details on the security and privacy concerns plaguing agentic browsers, but in short, they’re all somewhat vulnerable to “prompt injection“ attacks, in which malicious instructions are concealed within content read by an AI. These instructions could be hidden in HTML comments, white text on a white background, or in the page metadata. They might trick the chatbot into requesting personal information or instruct the browser to download and execute malware.

Radiccio 1.0

Crispy Crunchy Computerware (Mastodon):

I wanted to go back to a simpler time. I wanted a music app that gives me easy access to my music – organized the way I want – and provides a comfortable, peaceful environment to listen to it. I wanted an app that provides an abundance of useful tools, but doesn’t insist upon using them a certain way. I wanted an app that could help me remember the joy of collecting and listening to digital music.

[…]

Radiccio supports playing music from multiple types of sources, including files on your Mac, Apple Music, Plex, and Jellyfin. It includes features both new and familiar, including Librarian, pins, favorites, auto skip, journal, and more.

You can use Radiccio with one “On My Mac” source and an Apple Music source for free, with no time limit. If you want to add additional sources, we offer a paid subscription called Radiccio Plus!, and a free trial is available for eligible customers.

[…]

This is also important to me: Your files are yours. Your data is yours. Radiccio doesn’t modify your audio files. The Librarian data file also belongs to you; that’s why I put it out in the open, where you can easily find it. […] I designed Radiccio to be the opposite of lock-in; I want you to feel like you can leave at any time.

[…]

I have done my best to provide the best Apple Music experience I think I can. However, it was quite a challenge. In fact, Apple Music was the most difficult part of building Radiccio, by far. There were several times that I thought the Apple Music experience in Radiccio could not reach my personal standard of software quality, and I seriously considered shipping Radiccio without it. In the end, I was mostly able to make it work, but not without some significant limitations.

I’m really excited to see development in this space, and I’ll be following Radiccio with interest, but at the moment it doesn’t seem like the app for me. Radiccio seems to be at its best when using the Librarian feature and On My Mac sources, but I prefer to use an Apple Music source (i.e. music managed by the OS, even if you don’t subscribe to the Apple Music service) so that my music and metadata will sync to my iPhone and be available to third-party apps there such as Marvis. Apple Music sources rely on MusicKit. In theory, this is supposed to let Apple handle the syncing and other hard stuff while third-party apps focus on the user experience. But the reality is that MusicKit has all sorts of problems and limitations. I feel like I’m still locked into Music.app until either MusicKit improves or someone makes a complete system (Mac, iPhone, watchOS, CarPlay) that’s compelling enough to get me to leave Apple’s world (though I would still use Music.app for purchasing).

Previously:

Update (2025-10-31): dmd:

Other players seem like they want to take control of your files; to abstract away the details of the filesystem, so that you don’t have to think about it. Radiccio takes the opposite approach: It leans into the filesystem, expecting you to manage your files the way you want, while adding a layer on top that provides music-specific tools. As I mention frequently on this web site, Radiccio does not modify your files; that is a policy I intend to continue. In this way, Radiccio works alongside Finder, as a complementary tool, rather than a replacement for it.

[…]

The first thing most people notice about the UI is the large space set aside on the right side of the screen for album art, now playing info, and playback controls.

The biggest reason for this is that I wanted to see album art more clearly. For me, the album art is a significant part of the experience of enjoying music. I’ve never understood why most modern Mac music players relegate it to such a tiny, often literally thumbnail-sized area.

[…]

I also feel that the auto-scrolling, marquee-like effect that you see in some apps has usability problems. What reason is there for making me wait for an animation to complete just so I can read a few words of text? Moreover, what is it about a music player that justifies such unique treatment of a line of text, the likes of which you would find nowhere else in any software?

I love posts like this that explain why certain design decisions were made.