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Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome

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Re: Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome

#121

Post by noobcoder »

__rito__ wrote: post #99
Aurornis wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've tried to use Perplexity after reading all of the hype, seeing it praised by so many VCs, and seeing it appear on so many different lists of essential AI tools. Yet most of my Perplexity queries have produced poor results. It always feels like they optimized for minimizing latency and producing output that feels good instead of doing actual research. Most of the time it feels like the same quality of results I'd…

Hard disagree. Even during ChatGPT peak, when HN was buzzing with every other post being how ChatGPT/other LLM product replaced Google for them, I could not honestly switch, or meaningfully reduce my Google usage. Until Perplexity. It was the AI product that actually reduced my Google usage. Even with AI mode directly built into Google homepage now, Perplexity is still better. It has basically zero hallucination, eac…

But not every time it shows a source and doesn’t stop when it doesn’t find the data

Answers irrespective

Re: Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome

#122

Post by Ferret7446 »

jlokier wrote: post #25
riku_iki wrote: post #13

Why would they pay so much money for Chrome? They could just fork chromium for free? 34B is just for web address?

For the users, via the Chrome brand, and via being pre-installed on Chromebooks and Android. By far most users run Chrome, not Chromium forks, and this would continue after a competent acquisition. Whoever owns Chrome decides exactly what software most users run for web browsing, decides future web standards in practice, decides which kinds of extensions most users can use, decides the limits and carve-outs of adbloc…

If Google loses Chrome though, it will no longer be pre-installed on Chromebooks and Android. They will just fork Chromium, call it something else, and pre-install that. Sure they might lose some Windows users who miss the news reports and don't install the replacement and keep using Chrome, until their bookmark sync stops working since that relies on proprietary Google account integration.

Re: Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome

#123

Post by pbiggar »

chollida1 wrote: post #50

A $14B to $18B dollar company offering an all stock deal worth about 2x as much as its market cap. This isn't a serious offer, its a publicity stunt. Google would effectively own the entire company short of some mind blowing multiple expansion here. Watch for Perplexity to be raising money in the next 6 months. But given this stunt it looks like they think their growth is over and they've peaked as a company.

If it's worth $18B, and Chrome is worth $34B, then the new company is worth $52B. Google gets 34/52 = 65% of the merged company.

Re: Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome

#124

Post by matltc »

beoberha wrote: post #57

Anyone here use perplexity? I’ve tried numerous times, but once you get over the flashy UI, it feels like a lot of fluff.

I use it for very quick searches much like I would have used Google. Basically gives me the first page of Google results minus sponsored links plus a few-paragraph wiki for whatever.

I have Pro Claude plan, so I use that for deeper research. Not sure there's much difference now that Claude has web search. Perp is slightly more terse and also doesn't expend my tokens for Claude code

Re: Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome

#125

Post by AbstractH24 »

tuesdaynight wrote: post #7

These marketing stunts from Perplexity made me stop using their product. For me, it's an indicator that they don't believe in their product, so there's no reason for me to do it either.

A year ago it was useful. Now you are reminding me to cancel my subscription because it rarely is better that ChatGPT or Claude

Ever since deep thinking came out

Re: Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome

#126

Post by jlokier »

Ferret7446 wrote: post #122
jlokier wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the users, via the Chrome brand, and via being pre-installed on Chromebooks and Android. By far most users run Chrome, not Chromium forks, and this would continue after a competent acquisition. Whoever owns Chrome decides exactly what software most users run for web browsing, decides future web standards in practice, decides which kinds of extensions most users can use, decides the limits and carve-outs of adbloc…

If Google loses Chrome though, it will no longer be pre-installed on Chromebooks and Android. They will just fork Chromium, call it something else, and pre-install that. Sure they might lose some Windows users who miss the news reports and don't install the replacement and keep using Chrome, until their bookmark sync stops working since that relies on proprietary Google account integration.

> If Google loses Chrome though, it will no longer be pre-installed on Chromebooks and Android

That would depend on the contract.

For $34.5B, I would expect the contract to say Google agrees to continue pre-installing Chrome on Chromebooks and Android for many years, with financial penalties if they don't.

Re: Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome

#127

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

magicalhippo wrote: post #114
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in the EU, there's little difference in Chrome & Google market share on Android. It's almost as if people actually like Google's products.

You can use multiple browsers. Even my non-technical SO does, with no input from me.

That would show up in market share.

If you're assuming the vast majority of European users don't use Chrome except when tricked by Google to game MAUs - it would show up in usage that the vast majority of European Android users are regularly using a different browser.

There's hardly a difference compared to RoW.

Re: Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome

#128

Post by internetter »

ac130kz wrote: post #105

Are they out of their minds? How can a tiny startup without their own actual product (nowadays anyone can strap OpenAI/Anthropic API or fork open source models, such as Deepseek, on top of web scraping) buy the largest browser used by billions made by a company making trillions?

It’s simple, they can’t. This is a publicity stunt

Re: Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome

#129

Post by XCSme »

Aurornis wrote: post #54
tuesdaynight wrote: post #7

These marketing stunts from Perplexity made me stop using their product. For me, it's an indicator that they don't believe in their product, so there's no reason for me to do it either.

I've tried to use Perplexity after reading all of the hype, seeing it praised by so many VCs, and seeing it appear on so many different lists of essential AI tools. Yet most of my Perplexity queries have produced poor results. It always feels like they optimized for minimizing latency and producing output that feels good instead of doing actual research. Most of the time it feels like the same quality of results I'd…

Same experience. Maybe I was using it wrong, but it always returned some outdated results, not even completely related to my query.
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