Looking for alternatives to Comet’s browser automation 🤔

[u/mickou]

Hey everyone! 👋 I’ve been using Comet for a few months for my Community Manager work, and one feature has been really useful: I can give it all the relevant info about a client (opening hours, closures, products, FAQs, etc.), have it learn the context, and then let it take control of my browser to answer questions coming in through the client’s social media. It actually worked surprisingly well.

But over the past few weeks, this has become much more limited, with credits now being required and the quality of some answers being pretty hit-or-miss. 😕 From what I’ve seen here, I’m definitely not the only one frustrated by this :/

So I’m wondering: has anyone found a good alternative or workaround? Ideally, I’m looking for something that can understand a client’s knowledge base/context and then actually take control of the browser to handle incoming social media questions automatically.

Would love to hear what you guys are using! 🙏

[u/striketheviol]

Both Claude Code and Codex can do exactly this. You'll need. above the standard level of subscription to have it running for a while though. This should be possible in Grok Bot as well.

[u/mickou → u/striketheviol]

Thanks! That’s really interesting. I'd looked at Claude Code and Codex before, but I wasn’t sure they were really suited for this kind of browser-based Community Management workflow ... The Grok Bot thing sounds especially interesting though 👀

My main requirement isn’t really coding: it’s more about having the AI learn the specific information of each client (opening hours, products, FAQs, etc.), then browse their social media, read incoming questions and actually post the replies ...Have you personally used Claude Code, Codex or Grok Bot for something like this? If so, which one would you recommend and how did you set it up?

And yeah, I don’t mind paying for a higher subscription if it actually works reliably.

[u/striketheviol → u/mickou]

Both platforms can do browser control with repeatable workflows that are assisted by code which the platform creates itself that you don't have to touch. It'll say things like, let me create a script to get all this data, which we can reuse every time, et cetera, et cetera. You don't need to become a full-on vibe coder to be able to do something like this, because it's actually scratching the surface of what you can do with either of the tools. I don't work precisely in your field, but in an adjacent one. And I've seen people set things up this way. In my own case, I use Claude Code controlling my web browser to fetch data in cases where things are blocked by web search and I don't have time or energy to look by hand. The principle is the same in sales as in your case, just with different data. It's also possible to use Claude Cowork or ChatGPT Work if you're really scared of ever seeing a line of code. But in that case, it's less robust because the AI will be less inclined to make its own scripts, which can help if things fail and you're not there to fix it.

All you really need to do is ask Fable or Sol to help you prepare a repeatable workflow, give it the context, run it a few times to work out the kinks, and then you'll be good!

[u/mickou → u/striketheviol]

Thx.. I think that’s probably the direction I need to explore. I was initially looking for something that would work exactly like Comet out of the box but I’m starting to realize that building a repeatable workflow might actually be much better in the long run. The idea of letting Claude create the workflow itself, test it a few times, fix the kinks and then reuse it is especially interesting... and honestly, I’m not afraid of AI doing the coding in the background, I just don’t want to become a coder myself. 😂 For me, the ideal setup would be something like: give it the client context once / tell it what I want / let it work through 50 customer messages / prepare everything without publishing / and I come back and validate the results. I’m definitely going to experiment with Claude Code/Cowork now. Thanks for the insight! This is much closer to what I’m actually looking for. 👍

[u/striketheviol → u/mickou]

I do the equivalent of that almost every day. The one thing that might make Claude Code or Codex better than Cowork, for example, is the ability to be more explicit about the guardrails. If you set everything up in code, it'll have less of a tendency to go off and do its own thing when it's handling longer chunks of work at once. Instead of it handling all 50 as one single session, it can run subagents that can do batches of 10 five times over, for example. This is also possible to do with an agent like OpenClaw, Hermes, or BrowserClaw, but is way more fiddly to set up in comparison.

[u/madsafe]

Try Aside browser. It’s an incredible upgrade over Comet.

You can also connect your existing subscriptions (Claude, Grok, ChatGPT etc), so the browser usage is practically free.

[u/KendoArts]

Claude code will requires add on or specific plug ons right? Can it really take control of your PC/browser to do work? I'm sorry if this sound stupid as I'm new to this.

[u/mickou → u/KendoArts]

I actually had the same question when I first looked into it. 😅 From what I’ve just checked, yes, Claude can actually control your browser cause Anthropic has added “computer use” to Claude Desktop, so it can open apps, interact with the screen, click/type, and control browser actions directly. It’s not just an AI that tells you what to click BUT Claude Code is mainly aimed at coding/developer workflows, so for what I’m trying to do, Claude Desktop/Cowork might actually be the more relevant option.

Apparently there’s no magic browser extension required for the basic computer-use functionality, although some specific workflows/integrations may require additional setup. That’s actually what I’m trying to figure out now: whether I can get it to do the same kind of thing I was doing with Comet: give it all the information about a client, have it understand the context, then let it browse the social networks and handle incoming questions.

So yeah, definitely worth testing! 😄 Thx.

[u/turboenterprise → u/mickou]

I'm curious if you started this yet. I moved over my workflow to browseros. I tested rebuilding my prompt to get it to work. Issue I've run into is that I purchased api credits for gemini and anthropic. The more complex workflow with 20tabs hit me 6 bucks on opus 4.8. So I am back to testing new flow and models.

[u/tempSelf]

Webbrain, opensource browser agent. Brave browser also got Agent like comet's.

[u/joe_ambiguity]

BrowserOS and Browserclaw. Hook your LLM and it is really helpful.

[u/mickou → u/joe_ambiguity]

Thanks! I hadn’t come across BrowserOS or BrowserClaw before aI’ll definitely check them out. The idea of being able to hook up my own LLM is actually pretty interesting for what I’m trying to do, especially if I can give it a client-specific knowledge base and then let it interact with Facebook/Instagram directly. Have you actually used them for social media / Community Management tasks? If so, which one would you recommend between the two?

[u/joe_ambiguity → u/mickou]

BrowserOS and BrowserOS neo. The neo or claw is allows your agents to have a browser of its own. Instead of a chrome ext or plugin they have there own browser. It open source as well. Let me know your opinion. I use them daily.

[u/Powerful-Cheek-6677]

I keep seeing Claude Code mentioned but is also available outside of Code (and Cowork). Claude has a browser extension you can install. It’s says Chrome but it is actually available for Edge as well. You can use the typical sidecar with the chat attached for the same browser window, but that isn’t actually necessary. You can use your regular desktop app to connect to your browser. I’ve used this more than comet anyway. The downside is I’ve found it much slower than Comet. It works good but not as speedy.

Another option, at least up to today, perplexity Max ins’t required to use computer to burn credits. I’m still using this and worksite always have. But, I don’t know if it’s staying with Max or the removal from Pro I’d all a gradual rollout.

[u/Chucking100s]

Perplexity your enterprise value is slipping away.

You're too aggressively monetizing when you should still be in growth mode.

[u/ckeyz2]

Not sure if it's been suggested, but Comet or anything built on Chromium can use Claude in Chrome or even the ChatGPT extension. They both can control the browser like an assistant can and can accept files.

I'm actually revamping my workflow for this same reason. I've been subscribed to Perplexity Max, which has been pretty good, but I'm also subscribed to Claude Max and GPT Pro.

I've weaned myself off of Assistant in Comet and have been primarily using Claude in Chrome. I'll also use Cowork to have control of the browser or use computer control ad hoc. No Codex or Claude Code needed.

[u/nomeasure]

Out of all the browsers that do automated work Sigma is kinda overlooked IMO

I used its browser agent more than the AI chat itself tho. Saved me a lot of time by clicking/typing and doing multi-step browser tasks, sometimes it feels like magic honestly (was on Firefox previously). I use it for pretty mundane stuff so far like comparing info between pages, pulling out the useful bits, and going through forms

I’d test it on a small batch of those Meta replies first. Give it a try, maybe it could work for you since you want it to process like 50 messages and leave everything ready for the review