The Browsing Company’s unconventional browser Arc releases publicly on Mac

Post content hidden for low score. Show…

J.King

Ars Praefectus
3,348
Subscriptor
Isn't writing a browser in 2023 like writing an FTP client in 2001?
Why ever would you think that? FTP is a dead protocol. The Web is very much alive. There's definitely room for innovative entries to carve out a small niche, despite Chrome's dominance.
 
Upvote
38 (82 / -44)
When I need a Chromium-based browser on the Mac, I use Edge. Works like a charm.
Will check out Arc though, for curiosity's sake.
Edge initially was great, but in the past year it’s become a bloated, privacy-invading nightmare. Many of the new defaults and features send your browsing and typing input to Microsoft, and there are a gagillion sidebars and pop outs and other unnecessary features (like AI!).
 
Last edited:
Upvote
160 (168 / -8)
Using a feature called boosts, users can replace fonts for just about any text and change colors for any part of an individual webpage and save that state for later. They can even "zap" sections to remove them from view. You can get really heavy-duty with this by writing scripts, too, but you can still get a lot done without going that deep.
Sounds like a solution to chromium's artificial problem, "what next when Manifest v3 is mandatory?", and I frankly doubt their solution will work when v3 gets pushed upstream.
Apart from that, no source code, no thank you.
 
Upvote
40 (46 / -6)
Post content hidden for low score. Show…

SGJ

Ars Centurion
348
Subscriptor++
I've been using it for about three months. I love the simplicity and the keyboard navigability of it.
I've been using it for slightly longer and now find it difficult to go back to other browsers when using Windows. If you are using a Mac I recommend strongly that you give it a try.
 
Upvote
19 (22 / -3)
Post content hidden for low score. Show…
Yeah for me strike one was it being chromium based and strike 2 is the extension integration isn't great. Bitwarden works but it has some idiosyncrasies that mess up my workflow.

I've been hearing about it for a while and it has some big fans, but it brings back memories of Opera from back in the day. Great that you dig it, definitely not for me.
 
Upvote
43 (44 / -1)
Pushing more of the interface towards the side is a fine idea in the era of 16x9.

I hate to admit it, but I actually really like edge on Windows 11. It has a vertical tab bar which can autohide down into favicons with fast mouseover preview windows.

There's also a native splitscreen feature so you can put search results in an iframe & have links open in the dominant frame.

finally, it has an integrated package tracker populated when you buy stuff. I've been desperate for an email client that will pull tracking numbers & was happy to find this feature (you can prevent edge from narcing if that's important to you)
 
Upvote
21 (27 / -6)

KeyboardWeeb

Ars Tribunus Militum
2,364
Subscriptor
Seems interesting, but I think I'll keep Vivaldi for when I need a Chromium/Blink-based browser. I use mainly Vivaldi on my work Mac and keep my tab bar on the side, and use its workspaces feature for grouping (wiki and jira in the main group, lab-related tabs in another, usually).

Of course, for my personal browsing, on Linux, Windows, and Mac, I use Firefox, because Multi-Account Containers are the bee's knees.
 
Upvote
59 (59 / 0)

jimgettman

Smack-Fu Master, in training
54
Edge initially was great, but .., it’s become a bloated, privacy-invading nightmare ...
As happened to Chrome and Firefox (which actually reversed course a bit on bloat and invasion). How about some reporting on Arc's prospect to avoid the same fate. How about mentioning Brave in the same regard?

This article reads more like rephrasing a press release than actual investigation.
 
Upvote
1 (27 / -26)

dddddddd207

Seniorius Lurkius
48
Subscriptor++
Not only does it further the rendering engine monoculture and help Google consolidate ever more control of the web, it's also VC funded which means that it'll be great for a couple of years before the VCs decide they'd like their investments to return a profit, at which point it'll proceed to dive straight into the ground trying to appeal to advertisers
 
Upvote
137 (138 / -1)

pixelatedindex

Seniorius Lurkius
43
Subscriptor++
Why ever would you think that? FTP is a dead protocol. The Web is very much alive. There's definitely room for innovative entries to carve out a small niche, despite Chrome's dominance.
Nonsense. In the enterprise world, SFTP is still a big deal when you want to do things like sending daily transaction logs to all your clients.
 
Upvote
77 (87 / -10)
I like the idea of this but am hesitant if it’ll last the long haul. Don’t want to get invested in a new browsing experience that may not be long for this world. (Yes, a chicken-or-egg scenario)

Also, will my password manager work with it? [edit] it does!
Never in my life have I thought about using a password manager browser extension thing. Knowing me I'm probably the anomaly with that.
 
Upvote
-1 (14 / -15)

silverboy

Ars Scholae Palatinae
848
Subscriptor++
Killing irritating content on demand sounds like a ...killer... feature to me.

Hell, I find enough politicians offensive even to look at that I eventually came up with an add-on / plug-in that automatically deletes them, as well as rewriting away irritating phrasing (looking at you, Ouellette) and other tiresome nonsense.

I'll have to take a look at this Arc if it survives another few months.
 
Upvote
-16 (4 / -20)

Fatesrider

Ars Legatus Legionis
19,035
Subscriptor
I look at these kinds of things with a skeptical eye, largely because most salmon don't survive the swim upstream, against the current.

Still, there are so many fringe browsers out there that seem to find enough of a following to be sustained by their devs, and I don't see anything wrong with it. But for most folks, disruption and change in fundamental aspects of their lives might not be as well received as other things.

A browser is fairly central to one's online experience, assuming one is using a browser in the first place. I'm fairly sure that most folks use their phones, so anything that makes a phone easier to browse the Internet with would likely be welcome.

But for me, well over 99.9% of my browsing is on the computer. And I've been using the same general UI for over 25 years.

Given that, I need a much more powerful incentive to change my browsing habits, and my browser, than "it's new!", which sounds much like all this browser has going for it.

For some folks, that's going to work. For others, it won't. I also suspect the "others" will far and away outnumber the "somes".

People are new to the smartphone every day, and may prefer something "new". Time will tell whether this is going to take off, cruise at low adoption, or tank badly. It's not my cup of hemlock, but I ain't among those who will ultimately decide its fate.

I do wonder if it fades to black whether or not we'll ever hear about that, though. So many things like this come and go without making a ripple. It'll be interesting to see if this one makes a splash, instead.
 
Upvote
8 (15 / -7)