Perplexity's Comet is a browser with an AI assistant built in, rather than bolted on as an extension. It launched as a paid product, but it is now free to download for Mac and Windows, with a free Android version too, and you can browse without an account. The free tier has limits on advanced assistant queries, so the trick is knowing which jobs belong in Comet and which are better done elsewhere. This guide walks through setting it up, the workflows that are genuinely useful on the free tier, and how to stay inside its limits.
Step 1: Download and set up Comet
Download Comet from Perplexity's website and install it like any other browser. You can start browsing immediately without signing in. Signing in with a free Perplexity account is worth doing, though: it unlocks saved history, sync across devices, and additional AI capability that anonymous browsing does not get.
Because Comet is built on Chromium, migration is painless. It supports extensions from the Chrome Web Store, so your password manager, ad blocker, and other essentials come with you. Import your bookmarks and history from Chrome during setup, set Comet as your default browser only after a few days of testing, and keep your old browser installed until you are sure Comet covers your daily routine.
One practical note: Comet is heavier on memory than a bare browser, especially with several AI-assisted tabs open. On a modest machine, keep your tab count low and close assistant sessions you are finished with.
Step 2: Learn the Assistant's three jobs
The Comet Assistant lives on every new tab and inside every page. It does three distinct jobs, and separating them keeps your free allowance going further:
- Answer questions about the page you are on. Open an article, ask the Assistant to summarise it, and follow up with questions about specific sections. This is the cheapest, most reliable use of the free tier.
- Search with cited answers. Ask a question in the address bar or a new tab and you get a Perplexity-style answer with sources, rather than a page of links to click through.
- Carry out multi-step tasks. Tell the Assistant to compare products across tabs, gather information from several pages, or draft an email based on what you are reading. These agentic tasks use more of your allowance, so save them for jobs that would otherwise take you half an hour of clicking.
A good rule: if you can answer it by reading one page, use page summarisation. If it needs several sources, use a cited search. Only hand the Assistant a multi-step task when the manual version is genuinely tedious.
Step 3: A daily free-tier workflow
Here is a workflow that fits comfortably inside the free tier:
Morning research in one tab
Start the day with a single new tab. Ask the Assistant for a briefing on a topic you follow, such as an industry or a product category, and read the cited answer instead of opening ten tabs. Follow up once or twice to narrow it down, then stop. Two or three exchanges give you most of the value; twenty exchanges burn allowance for diminishing returns.
Reading long pages faster
When you open a long article, report, or documentation page, ask the Assistant for a summary first, then ask about the one section that matters to you. This turns a twenty-minute read into a two-minute triage, and you only read the full text when the summary shows the page is worth it. For documents you must understand properly, read the original after the summary: the Assistant can miss nuance, and summaries are a starting point, not a replacement.
Comparing products without tab chaos
Shopping and tool comparisons are where Comet earns its keep. Open the product pages you care about, then ask the Assistant to compare them on price, key features, and trade-offs. Because it can see the tabs you have open, it grounds the comparison in the actual pages rather than generic knowledge. Check the prices it quotes against the pages before you buy: listings change, and an assistant answer can lag behind the live page.
Drafting from what you are reading
If you are researching and need to write something up, ask the Assistant to draft from the pages you have open: a summary email, a short brief, or a list of follow-up questions. Edit the draft yourself before sending it. The value here is speed of first draft, not finished quality.
Step 4: Stay inside the free limits
The free tier gives you basic browsing without an account and additional AI capability with a free account, but advanced assistant queries carry a daily limit, and heavier agentic use is where the paid Pro plan comes in. Pro costs around $20 per month and adds higher assistant limits, advanced models, and broader research features. You do not need it to use Comet well; you need a few habits:
- Batch your questions. Write down what you actually need before asking, and ask once with the full context instead of five vague follow-ups.
- Use page summaries over agentic tasks. Summarising a page you already have open is lighter than asking the Assistant to go and research a topic from scratch.
- Do the easy half yourself. If you already know which page holds the answer, open it and ask about that page rather than launching an open-ended research task.
- Save heavy tasks for when they matter. A multi-tab product comparison or a research brief is worth the allowance. Asking the Assistant to find a fact you could have searched in ten seconds is not.
If you hit the daily limit, the browser still works fine as a browser. That is the safety net: Comet degrades to a capable Chromium browser with your extensions, not a locked door.
Step 5: Privacy and safety habits
An agentic browser sees more of your browsing than a normal one, so set boundaries. Do not let the Assistant complete payments, share credentials, or submit forms containing sensitive data without checking each step yourself. Pages can contain hidden instructions aimed at an agent rather than at you, so treat any action involving money or personal data as a manual step, even if the Assistant offers to do it.
Review what your Perplexity account stores: saved history and synced data are the price of the free account's extra features. If you are researching something sensitive, use a private window or skip the Assistant for that session. These are small habits, but they matter more in an AI browser than in a conventional one, because the assistant's whole point is acting on your behalf.
When to upgrade, and when not to
Upgrade to Pro if you run agentic research tasks every day, need advanced models, or regularly hit the free daily limit on work that earns its keep. Do not upgrade just to browse with AI summaries: the free tier covers that comfortably, and paying $20 a month for summaries you could get free is the most common waste with this kind of tool.
Comet's real value on the free tier is not that it replaces your browser. It is that it removes the tab-hopping from three specific jobs: triaging long reads, comparing products across pages, and drafting from research you have already done. Set it up, learn those three jobs, keep the heavy tasks for when they count, and you have a genuinely useful free AI browser rather than another subscription.