[HN Gopher] Show HN: Browser MCP - Automate your browser using C...
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       Show HN: Browser MCP - Automate your browser using Cursor, Claude,
       VS Code
        
       Author : namukang
       Score  : 275 points
       Date   : 2025-04-07 16:25 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (browsermcp.io)
 (TXT) w3m dump (browsermcp.io)
        
       | amendegree wrote:
       | So is MCP the new RPA (Robotics Process Automation)? Like generic
       | yahoo pipes?
        
         | ajcp wrote:
         | No, since MCP is just an interface layer it is to AI what REST
         | API is to DPA and COM/App DLLs are to RPA.
         | 
         | APA (Agentic Process Automation) is the new RPA, and this is
         | definitely one example of it.
        
         | spmurrayzzz wrote:
         | I just view it as a relative minor convenience, but it's not
         | some game-changer IMO.
         | 
         | The tool use / function calling thing far predates Anthropic
         | releasing the MCP specification and it really wasn't that
         | onerous to do before either. You could provide a json schema
         | spec and tell the model to generate compliant json to pass to
         | the API in question. MCP doesn't inherently solve any of the
         | problems that come up in that sort of workflow, but it does
         | provide an idiomatic approach for it (so there's a non-zero
         | value there, but not much).
        
           | PantaloonFlames wrote:
           | It seems the benefit of MCP is for Anthropic to enlist the
           | community in building integrations for Claude desktop, no?
           | 
           | And if other vendors sign on to support MCP, then it becomes
           | a self reinforcing cycle of adoption.
        
             | JackYoustra wrote:
             | MCP is useful because anthropic has a disproportionate
             | share of API traffic relative to its valuation and a tiny
             | share of first-party client traffic. The best way around
             | this is to shift as much traffic to API as possible.
        
               | PantaloonFlames wrote:
               | First party client , meaning browser? User agent or ...
               | Electron app, or , any mobile app?
        
             | spmurrayzzz wrote:
             | Yea it certainly does benefit Claude Desktop to some
             | degree, but most MCP servers are a few hundred SLOC and the
             | protocol schema itself is only ~400 SLOC. If that was the
             | only major obstacle standing in the way of adoption, I'd be
             | very surprised.
             | 
             | Coupled with the fact that any LLM trained for tool use can
             | utilize the protocol, it doesn't feel like much of a moat
             | that uniquely positions Claude Desktop in a meaningful way.
        
             | asabla wrote:
             | > And if other vendors sign on to support MCP, then it
             | becomes a self reinforcing cycle of adoption
             | 
             | This is exactly what's happening now. A good portion of
             | applications, frameworks and actors are starting to support
             | it.
             | 
             | I've been reluctant on adopting MCP in applications until
             | there was enough adoption.
             | 
             | However, depending on your use case it may also be too
             | complex for your use case.
        
           | kmangutov wrote:
           | The interesting thing about MCP as a tool use protocol is the
           | traction that it has garnered in terms of clients and servers
           | supporting it.
        
       | buttofthejoke wrote:
       | Why use this over Puppeteer or Playwright extensions?
        
         | namukang wrote:
         | The Puppeteer MCP server doesn't work well because it requires
         | CSS selectors to interact with elements. It makes up CSS
         | selectors rather than reading the page and generating working
         | selectors.
         | 
         | The Playwright MCP server is great! Currently Browser MCP is
         | largely an adaptation of the Playwright MCP server to use with
         | your actual browser rather than creating a new one each time.
         | This allows you to reuse your existing Chrome profile so that
         | you don't need to log in to each service all over again and
         | avoids bot detection which often triggers when using the fresh
         | browser instances created by Playwright.
         | 
         | I also plan to add other useful tools (e.g. Browser MCP
         | currently supports a tool to get the console logs which is
         | useful for automated debugging) which will likely diverge from
         | the Playwright MCP server features.
        
           | buttofthejoke wrote:
           | Ooo, i like that. one of the most annoying points has been
           | 'not sharing' the browser context. i'll def check it out
        
           | cAtte_ wrote:
           | by the way, you can indeed access your personal context with
           | Playwright. just `launchPersistentContext()` and set the
           | userDataDir to that of your existing Chrome install:
           | 
           | https://playwright.dev/docs/api/class-browsertype#browser-
           | ty...
        
       | rahimnathwani wrote:
       | This is cool. I'm curious why you chose to use an extension,
       | rather than getting the user to run Chrome with remote debugging
       | turned on?
        
         | hannofcart wrote:
         | Not OP but I suspect it is because of this (mentioned on their
         | page):
         | 
         | 'Avoids bot detection and CAPTCHAs by using your real browser
         | fingerprint.'
        
           | tylergetsay wrote:
           | I don't think remote debugging by itself on a normal chrome
           | profile is detectable
        
             | parhamn wrote:
             | I'm sure its about the cookies/sessions but I do recall you
             | can load cookies from another browser?
        
             | omneity wrote:
             | Exposing Chrome CDP is a terrible idea from a security and
             | privacy perspective. You get the keys to the whole kingdom
             | (and expose them on a standard port with a well documented
             | API). All security features of the web can be bypassed, and
             | then some, as CDP exposes even more capabilities than
             | chrome extensions and without any form of supervision.
        
               | redblacktree wrote:
               | You're talking about exposing Chrome CDP to the wider
               | internet, right? Or are you highlighting these dangers in
               | the local context?
        
         | namukang wrote:
         | An extension is more user-friendly! I leave Chrome open
         | basically 24/7 and having to create a new Chrome instance via
         | the command line just to use Browser MCP just felt like too
         | high of a barrier.
        
       | neilellis wrote:
       | Well done, just tested on Claude Desktop and it worked smoothly
       | and a lot less clunky than playwright. This is the right
       | direction to go in.
       | 
       | I don't know if you've done it already, but it would be great to
       | pause automation when you detect a captcha on the page and then
       | notify the user that the automation needs attention. Playwright
       | keeps trying to plough through captchas.
        
       | johnpaulkiser wrote:
       | > Private > Since automation happens locally, your browser
       | activity stays on your device and isn't sent to remote servers.
       | 
       | I think this is bullshit. Isn't the dom or whatever sent to the
       | model api?
        
         | namukang wrote:
         | Of course, you're sending data to the AI model, but the
         | "private" aspect is contrasting automating using a local
         | browser vs. automating using a remote browser.
         | 
         | When you automate using a remote browser, another service (not
         | the AI model) gets all of the browsing activity and any
         | information you send (e.g. usernames and passwords) that's
         | required for the automation.
         | 
         | With Browser MCP, since you're automating locally, your
         | sensitive data and browser activity (apart from the results of
         | MCP tool calls that's sent to the AI model) stay on your
         | device.
        
           | johnpaulkiser wrote:
           | I think we need to be very careful & intentional about the
           | language we use with these kinds of tools, especially now
           | that the MCP floodgates have been opened. You aren't just
           | exposing the users browsing data to which ever model they are
           | using, you are also exposing it any tools they may be
           | allowing as well.
           | 
           | A lot of non technical people are using these tools to "vibe"
           | their way to productivity. I would explicitly tell them that
           | potentially "all" of their browsing data is going to be
           | exposed to their LLM client and they need to use this at
           | their own risk.
        
       | Fernicia wrote:
       | Any plans to make a Firefox version?
        
         | namukang wrote:
         | Browser MCP uses the Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP) to automate
         | the browser so it currently only works for Chromium-based
         | browsers.
         | 
         | Unfortunately, Firefox doesn't expose WebDriver BiDi (the
         | standardized version of CDP) to browser extensions AFAIK
         | (someone please correct me if I'm mistaken!), so I don't think
         | I can support it even if I tried.
        
           | krono wrote:
           | Just found this[0] implementation roadmap on Mozilla's wiki,
           | recently updated too! At least it's actively being worked on.
           | 
           | Not going to lie, this makes me happy.
           | 
           | [0]: https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebDriver/RemoteProtocol/WebDri
           | ver_...
        
       | 101008 wrote:
       | Good, just what we needed. More bots browsing the internet.
       | Somedays I think I am not 100% against of every website having a
       | captcha...
        
         | mgraczyk wrote:
         | It's a developer tool
        
           | 101008 wrote:
           | Then it should be limited to localhost or something similar.
        
             | mgraczyk wrote:
             | It can be, just do that when you install it
        
             | dalemhurley wrote:
             | What if you are using domain names for your local
             | environment or a cloud environment like IDX or you want to
             | automate the testing of the UAT environment?
        
         | handfuloflight wrote:
         | Not out of the realm of possibility that this very comment was
         | written by a bot prompted to write a negative response to a
         | given piece of content.
        
           | 101008 wrote:
           | Not, human tired of creating content to put online and being
           | consumed not by people but by bots or any other form of
           | mechanical consumption that I don't like. As the owner of the
           | content I think I have the right to set that preference,
           | don't you think?
        
             | brandensilva wrote:
             | Yeah this is definitely a bad English bot
        
       | DebtDeflation wrote:
       | In the Task Automation demo, how does it know all of the
       | attributes of the motorcycle he is trying to sell? Is it relying
       | on the underlying LLM's embedded knowledge? But then how would it
       | know the price and mileage? Is there some underlying document not
       | referenced in the demo? Because that information is not in the
       | prompt.
        
       | behnamoh wrote:
       | What I don't like about LLMs is that people keep re-inventing the
       | wheel over and over. For example, we've been able to control
       | browsers using GPT for about 2 years now:
       | 
       | - https://github.com/mayt/BrowserGPT
       | 
       | - https://github.com/TaxyAI/browser-extension
       | 
       | - https://github.com/browser-use/browser-use
       | 
       | - https://github.com/Skyvern-AI/skyvern
       | 
       | - https://github.com/m1guelpf/browser-agent
       | 
       | - https://github.com/richardyc/Chrome-GPT
       | 
       | - https://github.com/handrew/browserpilot
       | 
       | - https://github.com/ishan0102/vimGPT
       | 
       | - https://github.com/Jiayi-Pan/GPT-V-on-Web
        
         | ajcp wrote:
         | I think this is noteworthy in that it is using what is
         | increasingly becoming the dominant API protocol for LLM.
         | 
         | Just because the wheel exists doesn't mean we shouldn't strive
         | to make it better by applying new knowledge and technologies to
         | it.
        
       | BrandiATMuhkuh wrote:
       | This is really well done! Very cool.
       | 
       | I wonder if it's possible to add such plugins to election apps
       | (e.g.: Slack). It would be such a nice experience if I could just
       | connect my AI of choice to a local app.
        
         | decayiscreation wrote:
         | Good idea! I'm sure this is possible since it looks like
         | playwright can control electron apps.
         | https://playwright.dev/docs/api/class-electronapplication
        
         | chrisweekly wrote:
         | election -> Electron
        
       | icelancer wrote:
       | I just run into a bunch of errors on my Windows machine + Chrome
       | when connected over remote-ssh. Extension installed, tab enabled,
       | npx updated/installed, etc.
       | 
       | 2025-04-07 10:57:11.606 [info] rmcp: Starting new stdio process
       | with command: npx @browsermcp/mcp@latest
       | 
       | 2025-04-07 10:57:11.606 [error] rmcp: Client error for command
       | spawn npx ENOENT
       | 
       | 2025-04-07 10:57:11.606 [error] rmcp: Error in MCP: spawn npx
       | ENOENT
       | 
       | 2025-04-07 10:57:11.606 [info] rmcp: Client closed for command
       | 
       | 2025-04-07 10:57:11.606 [error] rmcp: Error in MCP: Client closed
       | 
       | 2025-04-07 10:57:11.606 [info] rmcp: Handling ListOfferings
       | action
       | 
       | 2025-04-07 10:57:11.606 [error] rmcp: No server info found
       | 
       | ---
       | 
       | EDIT: Ended up fixing it by patching index.js.
       | killProcessOnPort() was the problem. Can hit me up if you have
       | questions, I cannot figure out how to put readable code in HN
       | after all these years with the fake markdown syntax they use.
        
         | namukang wrote:
         | Thanks for the report and the update! I'd love to hear about
         | what you changed -- how can I get in touch? I didn't see
         | anything in your HN profile. Feel free to email me at
         | admin@browsermcp.io
        
         | deathanatos wrote:
         | > _I cannot figure out how to put readable code in HN after all
         | these years with the fake markdown syntax they use._
         | 
         | Not that HN supports much in the way of markup, but code blocks
         | are actually the same as Markdown: indent (by 2 spaces or more,
         | in HN's syntax; Markdown calls for 4 or more, so they're
         | compatible).                 print("Hello, world.")
        
       | serverlessmania wrote:
       | Did something similar but controls a hardware synth, allowing me
       | to do sound design without touching the physical knobs:
       | https://github.com/zerubeus/elektron-mcp
        
         | dmix wrote:
         | Oh good idea.
         | 
         | Imagine it controlling plugins remotely, have an LLM do
         | mastering and sound shaping with existing tools. The complex
         | overly-graphical UIs of VSTs might be a barrier to performance
         | there, but you could hook into those labeled midi mapping
         | interfaces to control the knobs and levels.
        
       | picardo wrote:
       | I like this. It would be interesting to use it for when I need to
       | use authenticated browser sessions.
        
       | washedDeveloper wrote:
       | Can you add a license to your code along with open sourcing the
       | chrome extension?
        
       | jngiam1 wrote:
       | Pretty cool, do you know of a version of this that supports the
       | new remote MCP protocol
        
         | omneity wrote:
         | We work on something similar and aim to be the huggingface hub
         | for automations you can run in your browser[0], with built-in
         | support for MCP SSE.
         | 
         | Use the pre-built Trails[1][2] as MCP servers or create and
         | publish your own with a familiar puppeteer-like API, powered by
         | your or your friends browsers.
         | 
         | 0: https://herd.garden
         | 
         | 1: https://herd.garden/trails/@herd/browser
         | 
         | 2: https://herd.garden/trails/@omneity/serp
        
       | qwertox wrote:
       | MCP seems to be JavaScript's trojan horse into AI.
        
         | ketzo wrote:
         | "Trojan horse"? 95% of people currently access AI via web or
         | mobile app; those are pretty JS-dominated, no?
        
       | tigrezno wrote:
       | this is the way
        
       | nonethewiser wrote:
       | Stuff like this makes me giddy for manual tasks like
       | reimbursement requests. Its such a chore (and it doesnt help our
       | process isnt great).
       | 
       | Every month, go to service providers, log in, find and download
       | statement, create google doc with details filled in, download it,
       | write new email and upload all the files. Maybe double chek the
       | attachments are right but that requires downloading them again
       | instead of being able to view in email).
       | 
       | Automating this is already possible (and a real expense tracking
       | app can eliminate about half of this work) but I think AI tools
       | have the potential to elminate a lot of the nittier-grittier
       | specification of it. This is especially important because these
       | sorts of workflows are often subject to little changes.
        
       | bhouston wrote:
       | So the website claims:
       | 
       | "Avoids bot detection and CAPTCHAs by using your real browser
       | fingerprint."
       | 
       | Yeah, not really.
       | 
       | I've used a similar system a few weeks back (one I wrote myself),
       | having AI control my browser using my logged in session, and I
       | started to get Captcha's during my human sessions in the browser
       | and eventually I got blocked from a bunch of websites. Now that
       | I've stopped using my browser session in that way, the blocks
       | eventually went away, but be warned, you'll lose access yourself
       | to websites doing this, it isn't a silver bullet.
        
         | DeathArrow wrote:
         | It might depend on the speed with which you click on the
         | elements on the website.
        
           | SSLy wrote:
           | it does, CF bans my own honest to God clicks if I do them too
           | fast.
        
             | omgwtfbyobbq wrote:
             | About five years ago, maybe more, Google started sending me
             | captchas if I ran too many repetitive searches. I could be
             | wrong, but it feel like most large platforms have fairly
             | sophisticated anti-bot/scraping stuff in place.
        
             | PantaloonFlames wrote:
             | SSLy the speed clicker
        
             | michaelbuckbee wrote:
             | I use Vimium (Chrome extension for using keyboard control
             | of the browser) and this happens to me as well since the
             | behavior looks "unnatural".
        
         | tempest_ wrote:
         | The caveat with these things is usually "when used with high
         | quality proxies".
         | 
         | Also I assume this extension is pretty obvious so it wont take
         | long for CF bot detection to see it the same as playwrite or
         | whatever else.
        
         | SkyBelow wrote:
         | What do you think they might be looking for that could be
         | detected pretty quickly? I'm wondering if it is something like
         | they can track mouse movement and calculate when a mouse is
         | moving too cleanly, so adding some more human like noise to the
         | mouse movement can better bypass the system. Others have
         | mentioned doing too many actions too fast, but what about
         | potential timing between actions. Even if every click isn't
         | that fast, if they have a very consistent delay that would be
         | another non-human sign.
        
           | tempoponet wrote:
           | Modern captchas use a number of tools including many of the
           | approaches you mentioned. This why you might sometimes see a
           | CloudFlare "I am not a robot" checkbox that checks itself and
           | moves along before you have much time to even react. It's
           | looking at a number of signals to determine that you're
           | probably human before you've even checked the box.
        
             | dalemhurley wrote:
             | When I am using keyboard navigation, shortcuts and
             | autofills, I seem to get mistaken for a bot a lot. These
             | Captchas are really bad at detecting bots and really good
             | at falsely labelling humans as bots.
        
       | tntpreneur wrote:
       | Thanks but idea is ok but it is not working smoothly.
        
       | cadence- wrote:
       | Doesn't work on Windows:
       | 
       | 2025-04-07T18:43:26.537Z [browsermcp] [info] Initializing
       | server... 2025-04-07T18:43:26.603Z [browsermcp] [info] Server
       | started and connected successfully 2025-04-07T18:43:26.610Z
       | [browsermcp] [info] Message from client: {"method":"initialize","
       | params":{"protocolVersion":"2024-11-05","capabilities":{},"client
       | Info":{"name":"claude-
       | ai","version":"0.1.0"}},"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":0}
       | node:internal/errors:983 const err = new Error(message); ^
       | 
       | Error: Command failed: FOR /F "tokens=5" %a in ('netstat -ano ^|
       | findstr :9009') do taskkill /F /PID %a at genericNodeError
       | (node:internal/errors:983:15) at wrappedFn
       | (node:internal/errors:537:14) at checkExecSyncError
       | (node:child_process:882:11) at execSync
       | (node:child_process:954:15)
        
         | cadence- wrote:
         | I was able to make it work like this:
         | 
         | 1. Kill your Claude Desktop app
         | 
         | 2. Click "Connect" in the browser extension.
         | 
         | 3. Quickly start your Calude Desktop app.
         | 
         | It will work 50% of the time - I guess the timing must be just
         | right for it to work. Hopefully, the developers can improve
         | this.
         | 
         | Now on to testing :)
        
         | namukang wrote:
         | Can you try again?
         | 
         | There was another comment that mentioned that there's an issue
         | with port killing code on Windows:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43614145
         | 
         | I just published a new version of the @browsermcp/mcp library
         | (version 0.1.1) that handles the error better until I can
         | investigate further so it should hopefully work now if you're
         | using @browsermcp/mcp@latest.
         | 
         | FWIW, Claude Desktop currently has a bug where it tries to
         | start the server twice, which is why the MCP server tries to
         | kill the process from a previous invocation:
         | https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/servers/issues/812
        
           | cadence- wrote:
           | It's working now with the 0.1.0 for me. But I will let you
           | know if I experience any issues once I get updated to 0.1.1.
           | 
           | Thanks, great job! I like it overall, but I noticed it has
           | some issues entering text in forms, even on google.com. It's
           | able to find a workaround and insert the searched text in the
           | URL, but it would be nice if the entry into forms worked well
           | for UI testing.
        
       | graiz wrote:
       | works better than puppet mcp for me but having issues with
       | keyboard events and actions on some websites.
        
       | xena wrote:
       | Do you respect robots.txt so administrators can block this tool?
        
         | randunel wrote:
         | Do user agents doing work for users need to respect robots.txt?
         | If yes, does chrome?
        
         | canogat wrote:
         | Should I be blocked if I ask Claude Desktop to lower the prices
         | in all of my Craigslist ads by 10%?
        
       | wifipunk wrote:
       | Setting this up for claude desktop and cursor was alright. Works
       | well out of the box with little setup, and I like that it
       | attached to my active browser tab. Keep up the good work.
        
       | ndr wrote:
       | WARNING for Cursor users:
       | 
       | Cursor is currently stuck using an outdated snapshot of the
       | VSCode Marketplace, meaning several extensions within Cursor
       | remain affected by high-severity CVEs that have already been
       | patched upstream in VSCode. As a result, Cursor users unknowingly
       | remain vulnerable to known security issues. This issue has been
       | acknowledged but remains unresolved:
       | https://github.com/getcursor/cursor/issues/1602#issuecomment...
       | 
       | Given Cursor's rising popularity, users should be aware of this
       | gap in security updates. Until the Cursor team resolves the
       | marketplace sync issue, caution is advised when using certain
       | extensions.
       | 
       | I've flagged it here, apologies for the repost:
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43609572
        
         | rs186 wrote:
         | I am surprised that the VSCode team hasn't gone after them for
         | mirroring the marketplace, as the Visual Studio team made it
         | very clear that they don't want anybody to do that -- it is
         | _their_ marketplace.
        
           | SSLy wrote:
           | It seems that there is one sane PM left at VScode who knows
           | that such move would only lead to MSFT losing more PR. And
           | anti-trust scrutiny?
        
             | JackYoustra wrote:
             | Why? This seems fine.
        
       | pknerd wrote:
       | So why do I need an editor(Cusror)? How does a non-coder use it?
        
         | rahimnathwani wrote:
         | If you're a non-coder, use it with Claude Desktop.
        
       | cadence- wrote:
       | How does this compare to Anthropic's Computer Use?
        
       | thenaturalist wrote:
       | Crazy, in looking up some info on the web and creating a
       | Spreadsheet on Google Sheets to insert the results, it worked
       | almost perfectly the first time and completely failed
       | subsequently on 8-10 different tries.
       | 
       | Is there an issue with the lag between what is happening in the
       | browser and the MCP app (in my case Claude Desktop)?
       | 
       | I have a feeling the first time I tried it, I was fast enough
       | clicking the "Allow for this chat" permissions, whereas by the
       | time I clicked the permission on subsequent chats, the LLM just
       | reports "It seems we had an issue with the click. Let me try
       | again with a different reference.".
       | 
       | Actions which worked flawlessly the first time (rename a Google
       | spreadsheet by clicking on the title and inputting the name) fail
       | 100% of subsequent attempts.
       | 
       | Same with identifying cells A1, B1, etc. and inserting into the
       | rows.
       | 
       | Almost perfect on 1st try, not reproducible in 100% of attempts
       | afterwards.
       | 
       | Kudos to how smooth this experience is though, very nice setup &
       | execution!
       | 
       | EDIT 2: The lag & speed to click the allow action make it
       | seemingly unusable in Claude Desktop. :(
        
         | otherayden wrote:
         | Such a rich UI like google sheets seems like a bad use case for
         | such a general "browser automation" MCP server. Would be cool
         | to see an MCP server like this, but with specific tools that
         | let the LLM read and write to google sheets cells. I'm sure it
         | would knock these tasks out of the park if it had a more
         | specific abstraction instead of generally interacting with a
         | webpage
        
           | mkummer wrote:
           | Agreed, I'd been working on a Google Sheets specific MCP last
           | week - just got it published here:
           | https://github.com/mkummer225/google-sheets-mcp
        
             | rahimnathwani wrote:
             | This is cool. You should submit this as a 'Show HN'.
             | 
             | Also consider publishing it so people can use it without
             | having to use git.
        
       | Gehinnn wrote:
       | Would be nice if it could use the Accessibility Tree from chrome
       | dev tools to navigate the page instead of relying on screenshots
       | (https://developer.chrome.com/blog/full-accessibility-tree)
        
       | throwaway81523 wrote:
       | Can these things automatically solve recaptcha? That's the only
       | AI browser feature that I have a real use for.
        
       | jayunit wrote:
       | awesome! For the Cursor / React / Click to Add 2 example, can we
       | also have it write a unit/e2e regression test?
        
         | jayunit wrote:
         | author replied on Twitter:
         | 
         | > that's a great use case! the aria snapshot that browser mcp
         | generates is enough to write tests for playwright using its
         | role-based locators, but i may add a get_page_html tool in the
         | same way that they're considering:
         | https://github.com/microsoft/playwright-mcp/issues/103
         | 
         | https://x.com/roadtoramen/status/1909356255866733044
        
       | otherayden wrote:
       | I literally started working on the same exact idea last night
       | haha. Great work OP. I'm curious, how are you feeding the web
       | data to the LLM? Are you just passing the entire page contents to
       | it and then having it interact with the page based on CSS
       | selectors/xpath? Also, what are your thoughts on letting it do
       | its own scripting to automate certain tasks?
        
       | andy_ppp wrote:
       | When I go to a shopping website I want to be able to tell my
       | browser "hey please go through all the sideboards on this list
       | and filter out for the ones that are larger than 155cm and
       | smaller than 100cm, prioritise the ones with dark wood and space
       | for vinyl records which are 31.43cm tall" for example.
       | 
       | Is there any browser that can do this yet as it seems extremely
       | useful to be able to extract details from the page!
        
         | mfkhalil wrote:
         | Hey, we're working on MatterRank which is pretty similar to
         | this but currently works on web search. (e.g. I want to
         | prioritize results that talk about X and have Y bias and I want
         | to deprioritize those that are trying to sell me something).
         | Feel free to try it out at https://matterrank.ai
         | 
         | Would also be interested in hearing more about what you're
         | envisioning for your use case. Are you thinking a browser
         | extension that acts on sites you're already on, or some sort of
         | shopping aggregator that lets you do this, or something else
         | entirely?
        
         | bravura wrote:
         | When doing interior decoration, I am definitely interested in
         | finding objects that fit very specific prompts.
        
       | justanotheratom wrote:
       | neat, but instead of asking me to install browser extension, can
       | you just bundle a browser in the MCP server?
        
       | StevenNunez wrote:
       | I feel like I slept for a day and now MCPs are everywhere... I
       | don't know what MCPs are and at this point I'm too afraid to ask.
        
         | jastuk wrote:
         | And the worst part is that it opens a pandora's box of
         | potential exploits;
         | https://elenacross7.medium.com/%EF%B8%8F-the-s-in-mcp-stands...
        
           | halJordan wrote:
           | At the risk of it sounding like i support theft; the
           | automobile, you know, enabled the likes of Bonnie and Clyde
           | and that whole era of lawlessness. Until the fbi and crossing
           | county lines became a thing.
           | 
           | So im not sure id give up the sum total progress of the
           | automobile just because the first decade was a bad one
        
         | oulipo wrote:
         | It's just a way to provide a "library of methods" / API that
         | the LLM models can "call", so basically giving them method
         | names, their parameters, the type of the output, and what they
         | are for,
         | 
         | and then the LLM model will ask the MCP server to call the
         | functions, check the result, call the next function if needed,
         | etc
         | 
         | Right now if you go to ChatGPT you can't really tell it "open
         | Google maps with my account, search for bike shops near NYC,
         | and grab their phone numbers", because all he can do is reply
         | in text or make images
         | 
         | with a "browser MCP" it is now possible: ChatGPT has a way to
         | tell your browser "open Google maps", "show me a screenshot",
         | "click at that position", etc
        
           | throwaway314155 wrote:
           | > with a "browser MCP" it is now possible: ChatGPT has a way
           | to tell your browser "open Google maps", "show me a
           | screenshot", "click at that position", etc
           | 
           | It seems strange to me to focus on this sort of standard well
           | in advance of models being reliable enough to, ya know,
           | actually be able perform these operations on behalf of the
           | user with any sort of strong reliability that you would need
           | for widespread adoption to be successful.
           | 
           | Cryptocurrency "if you build it they'll come" vibes.
        
       | sdotdev wrote:
       | Still slightly confused on what MCPs are but looking at this it
       | does look useful
        
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