Computer use and the browser

Two features let Claude act outside your files: a browser inside the app, and control of your computer. They are not the same thing and they do not carry the same risk.

The built-in browser

A browser in the Claude Desktop app, in a side panel, where Claude opens sites, reads pages, clicks, types and fills forms while you watch. It can sign in: you can import saved logins in one step, or sign in as you go, and it remembers them across sessions.

Two protections are worth knowing. It asks for permission before acting on a site for the first time, and high-risk sites are blocked. The desktop app has to be open and online for any of it to work.

Computer use

This one is broader. Claude clicks, types and opens applications the way you would, across your desktop, and it asks permission before using each application. You turn it on in the desktop app's general settings, and you can stop it at any point.

The sentence from the documentation to remember: computer use has no sandbox between Claude and your applications. Everything else in this course had a boundary. This does not, which is why it is the last feature to reach for rather than the first.

Which to use

The middle two are the real decision. A connector is server side and narrow. Computer use is broad and unsandboxed. Prefer the narrow one whenever it exists, which is what Cowork does on its own: connectors first, then the browser, then the screen.

Availability, which is genuinely confusing

Computer use is on Pro and Max only, and Team and Enterprise plans do not have it at this time. The built-in browser is on Pro, Max and Team, and on Enterprise where an owner has turned it on. Both need the desktop app.