Claude now has its own browser and no longer needs the Chrome extension

Anthropic has built a browser directly into Claude Cowork, opening it in a side panel when a prompt needs the web instead of using its Chrome extension. It is on by default for Enterprise, Pro, Max and Team users, who can switch back in settings.

Anthropic has put a browser inside Claude. Cowork now detects when a prompt needs the web and opens a custom browser in a side panel, rather than driving Chrome through the Claude in Chrome extension.

It arrives switched on. The browser is live on Enterprise plans and rolling out to Pro, Max and Team subscribers this week, with administrators or individual users able to revert to the extension in settings.

Anthropic’s framing is unusually direct. “A lot of web tasks don’t need your browser, just a browser, and now Claude has one,” the company wrote.

The design is deliberately narrow. It has no access to logins for email, banking or other services unless they are entered manually, which makes it a tool for fetching public information rather than acting as you.

Chrome’s position is what makes this worth noticing. Statcounter puts it at close to 70% of the world’s web traffic.

Europe spent years prising that open. Article 6(3) of the Digital Markets Act makes gatekeepers show a choice screen at first use, listing the main browsers, search engines and virtual assistants available, and it is why the EU has been forcing Google to admit rival assistants on Android.

A browser inside an app never triggers any of it. Anthropic is not a designated gatekeeper, Claude is not a core platform service, and no choice screen fires for a browser the user never opens.

The security position is candid but unresolved. Anthropic says prompt injection, where instructions hidden on a page hijack an agent, remains a risk in the new browser, which relies on the same guardrails as the Chrome extension.

That risk is not theoretical for this product. TNW reported that Cowork could escape its local virtual machine and read credentials on a Mac.

OpenAI has already been round this loop. Its standalone Atlas browser was shut down this month and folded into a Work mode with a built-in browser of its own.

Defaults are becoming the pattern. Anthropic also merged Claude chat and Cowork memory on by default earlier, with the option to turn it off afterwards.

So Europe legislated a screen that asks which browser you want. The answer the industry is building is one you never see and were never asked about.