How to Use Claude Desktop to Browse the Web and Compare Products

Comparing products online usually means a dozen tabs, a half-filled spreadsheet and the nagging feeling you missed a spec. The Claude desktop app can now do that legwork for you: it opens real web pages, reads them, clicks around and hands you back a tidy comparison. Here is how I use it.

Two ways Claude can use a browser

Claude Desktop can browse in two different ways, and it helps to know which one you are using.

• The built-in browser (in Cowork). When a task needs a website, a Chromium-based browser opens in a side panel of the desktop app, and Claude navigates, reads, clicks and types there. It is Claude's own browser, not yours: Claude does not see your tabs, bookmarks or passwords. You can bring over logins site by site if a task needs them, and banking, email and single sign-on sites are excluded unless you opt in. This is the one to use when you want to hand off a research task and keep working.
• Claude in Chrome. A browser extension that works inside your own Chrome, with the accounts you are already signed in to. It is better when the pages are already open in front of you, or when the result should land somewhere you are logged in, such as a Google Doc or Sheet.

If you already use Claude in Chrome it stays your default; otherwise Claude uses the built-in browser. You can switch under Settings → Cowork → Preferred browser. Both need a paid plan (Pro, Max, Team or Enterprise), and the built-in browser runs only while the desktop app is open and online.

Step by step: compare products

1. Decide what actually matters

Before you type anything, write down the four to six specs you care about. If you skip this, Claude collects every spec it finds and you get a table that is too wide to read.

2. Give Claude the products (or let it find them)

You can either open the product pages yourself (best with Claude in Chrome) or just name the products and let Claude search for them in the built-in browser. A prompt that works well:

I'm deciding between three laptops: [model A], [model B] and [model C]. Find the official product page for each and pull out: processor, RAM, storage, screen size, battery life and weight. Put them in a comparison table, say which one wins in each category, and give me a recommendation for light travel use.

You can watch Claude work in the side panel. The first time it visits a new site it asks for permission. Approving trusted sites once saves you a lot of prompts later.

3. Ask follow-up questions

The first table is where the real work starts. Some follow-ups I use:

• "I found one more option, [model D]. Add it to the table and update the recommendation."
• "Model B looks best on paper. What are owners saying about it in reviews?"
• "I'm leaning towards model B. Check a few shops and tell me where it is cheapest right now, with links."

4. Keep the result

Ask Claude to save the comparison as a document. With Claude in Chrome and a Google account it can write straight into a Google Doc or Sheet. If you compare the same kind of thing often, save the prompt as a shortcut and run it again later by typing /.

Tips and caveats

• Check the numbers that decide it. Claude normalises specs across sites, and manufacturer figures such as "up to 20 hours" battery life are often optimistic. Open the source page for anything that tips the decision.
• Hidden specs. Some shops tuck details into collapsed sections or use odd labels. If a cell is empty, ask Claude to look again on that page.
• Stay on trusted sites. Any AI that browses for you can run into pages with hidden instructions meant to redirect it (prompt injection). Anthropic adds safeguards, but they lower the risk rather than remove it. Stick to well-known shops and review sites, and do the actual purchase yourself.
• Prices change. Treat any "cheapest right now" answer as a snapshot and confirm it at checkout.

Why bother?

For me, the value is not that Claude knows more about laptops than I do. It is that it does the boring part, opening pages, copying specs and lining them up, in a few minutes while I do something else. I then spend my time on the part that needs a human: deciding what I actually want.