Is one of those agents going to jerk off for you too? Who the fuck needs an agent to browse the web for them?
this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2026
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I see someone didn't use Ask Jeeves back then /s
It didn’t make sense then, and it doesn’t make sense now. Keyword searches with an understanding of search syntax was always king.
Keyword searches with an understanding of search syntax was always king.
Isn't that only because of the limitations of the available technology only being able to handle simple strings, though? Conversational computing has been a pipe dream since early sci-fi, where characters would talk to their computers as if they were human; George Jetson never spoke to Rosie in keyword queries.
I feel like keyword search syntax being "king" is more of a symptom, than an intentional choice.
You realise that the reason conversational computing is so popular in science fiction, is because it looks better on camera, right.
This is a very good point - in books/dramas it helps the exposition to have a character you can relay half the plot details to. Similarly in radio dramas, every conversation between characters starts with saying each others names and a full recap of whatever the subject is... But nobody in the real world does or wants to talk like that.
Real people just say "hey, is that thing fixed yet?", not "hello Chris, you remember yesterday we were discussing the il problem with the Thing, and you proposed Cornfootling it; what happened?"
When I want Alexa to turn on the lights, I want to just say "Alexa, turn on the lights", not have a goddamned debate. And when I want to search for whatever the hell Cornfootling is, I just want to type "Cornfootling" and hit search.
It's trying to solve a problem created by SEO slop. "Find me the cheapest car rental".... That's actually hard to do now bc SEO grift. Rather than building a more honest system, you get "agents" to do the searching for you
I loathe (couldn’t figure out a synonym more than that) the word agentic. It sums up everything bad and wrong about AI.
It will handle your socials, chats, your agenda, your website, your credit card, your vacations, your photos from the moment of activation to well after death....
All so you can spend more time generating value for your masters and overlords. Huzzah, we've eliminated the pesky scourge of free time!
Also so they can easily predict who is with them and who is against them. Who’s got the hot new ideas so they can beat them to market. Who might challenge the status quo.
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If they marketed “Agentic AI” as a way for someone to disappear from the internet entirely and be replaced by AI, I’d finally get onboard.
Basically don't know how to interpret "autobrowse" in any other way. Bit like "autopilot", you "should" have the hands on the steering wheel but...
Are you trying to tell me that my computer will remember me better than my kids?
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They want to push all this shit in browsers so that they can start automatically buying shit once they're selling ads
God, I hadn't thought of that. It's going to be like cancelling a cable subscription but worse.
This actually sounds interesting.
"Find all comments on lemmy that are wrong. Respond explaining how they are wrong."
That would save me a lot of work.
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"Let's give everyone an army of spambots! What could go wrong?"
I'm gonna start reading books again.
I don't know if he joking or not but seriously I started reading again regularly like a year ish ago and I think my attention span getting better. Just not spending as much time scrolling bullshit is a big W along with practicing a longer attention span weather it's reading or something else. Go get a terry pratchet book !
Chrome has added Auto Browse
sit down, lean back, and watch the internet scroll by /s
I love software that acts without my consent or knowledge while atrophying my brain and wasting tremendous amounts of resources
You know what this is launching just in time for?
Tax season.
Cue* 10 million people getting audited because they let their browser file their taxes for them.
Cue.
If they're auditing that many of them, there will be a queue, too.
Yeah, I realized that as soon as I posted it.
lol as if the IRS is going to audit anyone now.
They will if you're not a rich fascist.
they just don't have enough people. maybe they would target rich democrats, but in general audits are going to go way down out of necessity.
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Here's hoping they'll use the same model as their clients..
That does it, I’m never installing Chrome again. I haven’t in years anyway because it’s garbage spyware, but still.
I haven't in years anyway
Exactly why they can pull off anything like that. People who still stay with Chrome are mostly those who'll eat it up anyway.
These companies are all tone deaf
Its more than tone. They are just deaf dumb and stupid when it comes to what their users are saying.
save us vivaldi you're our only hope
Vivaldi is in big part closed source, so we literally don't know what it does behind the scenes
The minority of Vivaldi is closed source from what I have read actually - specifically the stuff they have that makes its fancy UI work, but someone can correct me with a citation if that is not true.
They state that about 95% of it is available to be read where 92% of that is open source from Chromium, 3% is open source from Vivaldi themselves, and the last 5% that is not available to be read is Vivaldi's UI.
https://vivaldi.com/blog/technology/why-isnt-vivaldi-browser-open-source/
Still far from open source or free software, but better than most people would think. I guess you would also have to trust them that it really is just the UI.
Exactly. Yes, I know they claim it's just the UI, and the sole purpose of closed-source code is to make it harder to steal innovative UI elements - but when it comes to something as sensitive as the browser, I'd like for these claims to be verifiable.
closed source due to the small team but they're also incredibly open about both the company the advocacy for the internet
closed source due to the small team
There are open source projects created and managed by a single developer. A "small team" is not a reason to be closed source.
Nah, Firefox. Anything based on the blink engine is vulnerable to upstream fuckiness.
Ladybird is also getting there.
Nah, Firefox. Anything based on the blink engine is vulnerable to upstream fuckiness.
so aren't firefox forks
and ladybird might be nice but the dev outed himself as a right wing bigot
Servo browser is the other big from the ground browser project. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servo_%28software%29
Firefox forks are less vulnerable purely due to the fact that the main browser engine isnt being developed by a self interested advertising company. (See the recent manifest V3 and discontinuation of V2 shitshow for a example of googles stranglehold causing problems)
& when it comes to browser engines I'll set politics aside even if someone has views in very poor taste. The project overall is FOSS and thusly is being developed by hundreds of contributors, I've contributed a few bits and pieces for it even.
Having an additional standalone browser engine serves as insurance against Mozilla doing a stupid and a bulwark against Google dominance.
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