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When a task needs a website, a browser opens in the side panel of the desktop app and Claude drives it. Anthropic's design decision is the whole story: it is Claude's browser, not the user's, so it never sees their tabs, bookmarks or passwords. Rolling out to Pro, Max and Team over the week from August 26.
Anthropicverified
Both drive a web browser, both stop before the step that cannot be undone, and their lists of stopping points are nearly the same. The difference is what each assumes about the session it runs in: one is built on the accounts you are already signed into, the other tells you to give it a browser with no credentials in it. That single assumption decides which of the two belongs anywhere near your work.
Google, Anthropicverified
August 19 brought two changes to how Claude operates someone else's screen. The computer use tool moved to general availability as computer_toolset_20260801, with no beta header, actions grouped into a single turn, and zoom enabled from the start. Alongside it came browser_toolset_20260801, a separate set of 31 tools that works inside a browser you run yourself rather than across the whole desktop. The important difference is that this set reads the page accessibility tree and returns element references, so a click targets a reference such as ref_2 instead of a point in pixels — and that survives a layout shift.
Anthropicverified