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Arc Browser 1.0
- jeron 3y agoI’ve been using Arc as my main browser for the last few months and it is phenomenal. Congrats to the team
- ffreire 3y agoAgreed. It's mainlined a lot of plugins that I used to use in Chrome and default keyboard shortcuts that I would have chosen myself. Window management, spaces, and automated tab lifecycles are by far the most valuable features I use.
- presbyterian 3y agoHave they added proper bookmarks yet? That was a deal breaker when I used it last. You could pin/favorite tabs and such, but I could never find a way to store the bookmarks that are not regularly used, but I may need to bring up from time to time. I assume this is just a philosophical disagreement between myself and the Arc devs about how one should use a web browser
- _Parfait_ 3y agoYes, you can make folders and put the tabs in there. Those will now function like bookmarks.
- presbyterian 3y agoBut where do those folders appear? Are they still visible in the sidebar? Because the whole purpose of saving those bookmarks, to me, is to remove visual clutter while still having them available when needed.
- renewiltord 3y agoIf I wanted to keep using Arc but found this feature critical, I would make a Space with a single pinned folder that I put all the bookmarks under. Not super ergonomic, but just suggesting an idea to a fellow user.
- presbyterian 3y agoYeah, that's the option I was recommended when I was trying to use Arc. But to me that kinda feels like getting an Android phone and putting a launcher and skin on it to look like iOS. If I'm gonna switch, I want to switch because it works for me, not because I can coax it into behaving close enough to the way I want, you know? Especially for as radical change as Arc is proposing. So I just decided it wasn't for me, even if I like a lot of their other ideas.
- mr-debil 3y agoIn my main space there's an "Imported Bookmarks" folder in the side bar. Yes it takes up 1 "tab space" but it's there, and doesn't really bother me. If you change spaces it's not there, so you can have "bookmarks" for each space, which is unique and beneficial if you use spaces for specific things. That said, I primarily use Safari still, until other browsers adopt the SMS autofill of two factor codes it's going to be tough to leave Safari for personal use. Professional use I generally use chrome, as it's tied to our work google account.
- _Parfait_ 3y agoSo the feature you want is to hide bookmarks, because you can just put as many as you want under one folder. The bookmarks exist and you're making it sound like they dont.
- presbyterian 3y agoI'm not making it sound like they don't, the bookmarks feature as it exists in every other major browser, doesn't exist in Arc, as this thread has affirmed for me. That's fine, if that's how they want their browser to work, but it makes it incompatible with how I use a browser, which is why I was asking if that had changed or not.
- pzo 3y agoThis was also the only reason that made be almost to bail until someone on reddit mentioned they are using raindrop.io extension as a bookmark manager that is cross platform. I pinned raindrop.io so that i can easily access it with a button and search in similar way as in firefox. Otherwise without it Arc experience is bad: 1. importing ~5k of bookmarks (yes I use bookmarks as some link I might potentially find useful 1 year later and just tagging them like: "ml, model, ai stable, diffusion" so I can easily search for it even few years later) take very very long time 2. they all endup in folder as tabs and such big amount of bookmarks keeps left bar very slow 3. arc seem not to import tags from firefox 4. there is no bookmark manager were you can easily search by title, keywords, tags or sort by date
- ianyanusko 3y agoA step in the direction of a personalized software future. Congrats, Arc team - rooting for you.
- mhh__ 3y agoToo many things called arc out there.
- capableweb 3y agoDammit, I thought this was about Arc language (the language/platform that HN uses, http://arclanguage.org/ http://arclanguage.org/). Guess I'm stuck with using Anarki still. More on topic, seems it's still a waitlist? I go to their page and see "Join Waitlist" and "Coming in Winter 2023", so maybe page hasn't been properly updated yet?
- lycos 3y agoA browser that requires an account to use? No thanks. The "why do i need an account" popup doesn't properly explain it to me either, syncing should be optional - let me use, or at least try, it without an account first.
- bronxpockfabz 3y agoWhy? Of course so they can have their "registered users" count as high as possible to get another round of VC funding, so that they can drag this thing all the way to the IPO and get a nice and fat exit :)
- dizhn 3y agohttps://thebrowser.company/values/ https://thebrowser.company/values/ I don't think I want to have anything to do with this company. Super cringe. I get the impression that Arc will be a form over function product reflecting someone's understanding of good design and insisting on it. Not that I'd use a closed source browser anyway.
- 79a6ed87 3y agoAlso, in that link you posted, the Homepage button is at the bottom and opens in a new tab. Terrible design decision.
- tiltowait 3y agoThey're definitely very ... spirited. The browser is good, though, and I know some people who say it's their favorite. It's got some neat power features, and I'm happy to see innovation in the browser space. Their spaces feature is very slick and the main thing I miss when using Orion. I wish them success.
- warent 3y agoYeah, I'm not reading all that. ChatGPT, please summarize this bombastic article
- shippintoboston 3y agoNote that the word "privacy" doesn't appear once on that page. Not surprised coming from yet another chromium browser.
- bschwindHN 3y agoI dunno, that was pretty well written for a company values thing. Not sure about the browser, but the people behind it seem nice and earnest.
- amelius 3y ago> That thing that compels you all to obsess over the details others overlook, and do it with gusto — that’s heartfelt intensity. It's also known as moving at crawl speed, unless you have serfs doing the real work for you.
- itslennysfault 3y agoOff topic, but clicking that link and seeing the "X" logo is really jarring to me. I heard it happened, but actually clicking a link in the wild and seeing that big dumb as-is Special Alphabets 4 "X" as a "logo" still shocked me.
- JohnFen 3y agoTheir website still doesn't tell me anything useful enough about the browser to let me know if it's something that would interest me. It's all just marketing-speak.
- aquova 3y agoAgreed. I don't use a Mac anymore, but I've been hearing about this browser and how excellent it is, but their website does such an awful job of conveying anything that I'm surprised anyone ever started using it. Actually, to give them some credit, they seem to have redone the site somewhat, and it now actually has screenshots. Last time I visited it barely had a description of the product, so I guess they're headed in the right direction.
- notatoad 3y ago>I've been hearing about this browser and how excellent it is from real people, or probably-paid articles on tech blogs?
- aquova 3y agoThe Youtuber MKBHD has a podcast[0] where they have mentioned that many in their office has switched over to it. I'm not sure I quite understand their enthusiasm for it, but I don't think they're paid shills. [0] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEcrRXW3oEYfUctetZTAWLw https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEcrRXW3oEYfUctetZTAWLw
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- timeon 3y ago> Youtuber Are you sure it is not product placement?
- notatoad 3y agothe venn diagram of people who say Arc is good, and people who say NordVPN is good, is a circle. maybe not everybody who says arc is good is being paid to say that. but they are all people who accept money to say things like "arc is good". MKBHD included.
- mikelward 3y agoAppears to be macOS only?
- zer0zzz 3y agoAll the browser chrome etc are written in Swift. They are working on a port to Windows but it is not ready yet.
- catboybotnet 3y agoYes, there's a Windows waitlist, and possibly Linux far, far down the line? Not sure how interested I am in a browser where I need to sign in to use. An insane decision, imo.
- cowsup 3y agoI feel like a lot of these features would bode well on the operating system level, rather than the browser level. If I’m someone who uses the same device for both work and personal use, I’m going to want more changes than just which bookmarks I use or which sites are logged in. That’s why both Windows & Macs have their Focus modes, or, for even more advanced use, different Users altogether, to separate all of my programs (or “apps”) depending on what I’m doing. Changing the color of my browser isn’t really something I find worthwhile. Nor is moving the URL bar to the left; my monitor is more wide than tall, so it’s easier on my eyes and for moving my mouse to just look up as opposed to the left for navigation. Competing against Chrome is interesting, although it’s still powered by Chromium, so nothing changes there. They are still at the mercy of features Google decides are worth pursuing, rather than W3C. Otherwise… Good luck.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Sebastian_09 3y agoit isn't mentioned anywhere but it's chromium based — which is of course is practical, but I wonder how dependent on Google that makes them and other browsers using it
- presbyterian 3y agoNot particularly. Almost every browser out there other than Firefox and Safari are using Chromium, Including Edge, Opera, Brave, and Vivaldi, so there's a large enough base that a fork could conceivably be created and maintained if needed.
- fnfjfk 3y agoMaybe I’m misunderstanding, but why is this practical? It’s a Mac app, WebKit already ships with the OS and can be easily used with WKWebView. Bundling Chrome is a much bigger app size and much more complicated build setup than importing a class that ships with Cocoa.
- ihattendorf 3y agoPractical because they're also working on adding Windows support. Although it sounds like they're writing everything in SwiftUI and trying to port most of the Swift code to run on Windows? So not necessarily the most practical approach there either.
- imbnwa 3y agoExtensions
- chomp 3y agoRuns on Chromium. Sorry, that's a deal breaker for me. Using Chromium gives more power to Google's quest for web sanitization for advertising.
- KomoD 3y agolol, I like how their homepage says "Join Windows Waitlist" when I'm on Linux
- dmak 3y ago"Arc is the Chrome replacement I’ve been waiting for." I can't leave Chrome until I can replace Google's single sign on
- KMnO4 3y ago> Arc is built from the ground up to be private and secure. We don’t know what sites you visit or what you search for. Immediately following this is a form for me to enter my email address so I can receive a download link. Sorry Arc, that’s not a trade I’m willing to make.
- ithkuil 3y agoweird, I just clicked on a download link and downloaded the browser; they never asked for my email EDIT: ah ok, they ask for an account after you have downloaded 300MB of junk.
- underlines 3y agoBinaries aren't available for Windows. They show a "Join Windows waitlist" button that leads to an Email form.
- dekatron 3y agoI think they show different buttons depending on your platform. If you visit from a mobile browser, it shows a "Get download link" button which asks for your email. They presumably do this so that people can download it later from desktop using the emailed link. It's easy to mistake it as an attempt to harvest email IDs. The website could definitely use some text which indicates that it's Mac only at the moment.
- mdaniel 3y agoview-source shows the actual dmg URL: https://releases.arc.net/release/Arc-latest.dmg https://releases.arc.net/release/Arc-latest.dmg -> https://arc.net/release/Arc-latest.dmg https://arc.net/release/Arc-latest.dmg -> https://releases.arc.net/release/Arc-1.0.1-40233.dmg https://releases.arc.net/release/Arc-1.0.1-40233.dmg
- enumjorge 3y agoYeah their messaging is a bit strange. Perhaps someone with more info on Arc can clarify, but their landing page makes a strong point about them being privacy-conscious, and their summary of their own terms of service is "TLDR: we won't spy on you", but at the same time you must log in to use the browser. What is their monetization strategy? If something is VC-backed and free, it's hard to believe that they aren't ad supported in some way, which almost always relies on some amount of tracking.
- chrisoconnell 3y agoIt unfortunately requires an account to use the browser at all. A browser, un no circumstances, should be log-in walled. Seemed like a great user experience as a browser, but unfortunately I uninstalled it as soon as I launched it to a sign in screen.
- JohnFen 3y ago> It unfortunately requires an account to use the browser at all. It does? Well, that's a showstopper right there. At least I know I can safely ignore this browser from here on out, though. Thank you!
- 1123581321 3y agoI remember you! You posted something similar about Arc a few months ago in a thread I started. I hope you can ignore it this time. :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35086116 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35086116
- JohnFen 3y agoYou're so right! I'd forgotten. It will probably happen again -- I'll forget about Arc and then reinvestigate it. Apologies for the redundancy. :)
- distortedsignal 3y agoI think this is the Ouroboros of curiosity - discovery, investigation, disappointment, amnesia. If it doesn't catch, we don't really remember it. This seems very human.
- 1123581321 3y agoI'm like that with a couple of hole-in-the-wall restaurants in the area that people hype, but aren't actually good. I forget their names and visit every few years.
- bambax 3y agoFrom https://www.protocol.com/browser-company https://www.protocol.com/browser-company > Agrawal decided early on not to try and rebuild the whole browser stack, and based Arc on Chromium like everyone else. Ladybird this ain't. More like YACI (yet another chromium implementation).
- olliej 3y agoSeriously the fact the "I made a chrome wrapper" is apparently worth millions in VC funding remains absurd to me.
- fragmede 3y agoThere's value on the wrapper around the rendering engine. Presumably you don't use the raw engine, and use many of the UX features provided by your chosen wrapper (of which there are many). Things like tabs and extensions, hell even having history, settings, cookies, and a back button are UX niceties a raw engine doesn't necessarily provide. So the wrapper is important; making a better wrapper is thus a worthwhile endeavor. Extensions only go so far, and if ManifestV3 ever lands, and stops ad-blocking extensions from functioning, it's easy to see a hypothetical consumer-focused browser that restored that functionality, or had it natively would easily be worth millions. The only question is if they can actually make money, and the kind of money that VC investment demands at that. Opera, the browser company had revenue of around $380 million last quarter, but if you don't use their browser, which is also "just" a chrome wrapper, you'd never know it. To put it another way, Linux distros; Red Hat, Debian, Ubuntu, Arch, etc, are all "just" wrappers around the Linux Kernel. Yet "I made a Linux Kernel wrapper" is worth at least a billion, in the case of Red Hat. If you never come near that distro, you might not even see a reason for its value, but you can't argue with their sales numbers.
- tazjin 3y ago> it's easy to see a hypothetical consumer-focused browser that restored that functionality, or had it natively would easily be worth millions And where would those millions come from? Make the browser paid? It could work if it's really that good, and it'd likely be targeted at Apple users who won't mind paying. Seems risky though, eventually if you're too popular, Google will just copy some superficial stuff you're doing and people will forget about you. > and the kind of money that VC investment demands at that Sure they can, losing money is easy.
- Decabytes 3y agoI thought this was the 1.0 release for the scheme that Hacker News was built on at first lol.
- jm4 3y agoIt's disappointing that there's no Linux version. It's a little silly for them to build on top of a multi-platform browser and then eliminate support for 2 major platforms. I had been looking forward to trying this.
- mthoms 3y agoThey haven't "eliminated" support for other platforms. They are actively working on them. It seems they wanted to get an MVP out and chose MacOS first. It might be annoying for Windows/Linux users but there's nothing wrong with the approach.
- KomoD 3y agoSo don't say "Goodbye, waitlist." if you still have waitlists for the other platforms, say "Goodbye, macos waitlist."
- mthoms 3y agoThat has absolutely nothing to do with my point that they haven't eliminated those other platforms so I'm not sure why this is directed at me. You sound sore. Maybe you should take it up with the company rather than a random person on the internet?
- timeon 3y ago> chose MacOS first. But why? Safari is already syncing no need another account and app.
- karaterobot 3y agoI tried this many moons ago. Mostly because I like when people try out new UI ideas. It was interesting and well done, but ultimately did not replace Firefox for me. I don't know who it is for: it's good but not obviously better than the big players, so what are their plans for it?
- 1123581321 3y agoIt is obviously way better. It’s for people who think that, anyway. Over time maybe there will be less of a use case as other browsers copy the UI and features.
- dlitvakb 3y agoBeen using since March, have not looked back. It removes a lot of tab anxiety, and helps me organise actual useful links from things that are interesting for just now.
- CharlesW 3y agoI want to like Arc but I found the onboarding to be very weak. How did you learn to use it in the way the designers intended? Where is the "Master Arc in 5 Minutes" video?
- sthatipamala 3y agoI just started using Arc yesterday and they have such a video. Maybe added since you last tried it.
- CharlesW 3y agoThat's very possible since I've had it for months, but I wasn't able to find it in the 1.0 app. It mystifies me why their marketing team wouldn't post these publicly to encourage people to try it.
- satysin 3y agoI couldn't agree with you more. I've been using Arc for the past month or so and it's okay but my god it has a lot of 'stuff' to learn. They have a few videos on their YouTube channel but they're not well made imho. They lack a proper script and are far too long because of the lack of proper structure. I am surprised they released v1 without a few polished videos explaining their USPs.
- renewiltord 3y agoI've been using this browser all through the waitlist period and it's great! Some of the decisions I don't like (my Bitwarden button is hidden by default which makes password filling hard - I don't have it fill automatically on page load), but overall I've enjoyed using it. My favourite features: - split tabs (I prefer this over tiling in the WM) - little arc - PiP works very well for video calls - I have a bunch of apps pinned (ChatGPT / Gmail / Calendar / Github) and a bunch of tabs below that - I like the single action bar on Cmd-T Overall, big fan, and I'd pay some amount for it probably.
- ckluis 3y agoI just wish the split tabs would work horizontal and vertical at the same time (for one of my large monitors).
- flogoe 3y agoI tried arc for a while and I didnt stick with it just because of the tiling. I just miss the flexibility of being able to have more than 3 windows visible in a useful orientation. For me it simply didnt work on a huge screen.
- jFriedensreich 3y agoMy biggest issue is still that i cannot export all the data in case i want to switch to something else or they fail. Apart from this the UI concept is really what we need to move browsers forward and the new approach to tabs vs windows vs bookmarks is genius.
- jer0me 3y agoYou can export bookmarks, history, and passwords just like any other Chromium browser.
- jFriedensreich 3y agothat does not include everything a space contains.
- jFriedensreich 3y agoi just tired it and its even worse: they dont use the chrome bookmarks store at all so you can export it but the bookmarks will just be completely empty!
- zzo38computer 3y agoDo they need a different schema for the bookmarks? Even if they do, they ought to document it so that you can export it.
- BeetleB 3y agoNot seeing a reason to use this over Firefox. Sorry.
- jccalhoun 3y agoFor Mac only right now...
- ppetty 3y agoYou can’t please all of the people any of the time. Arc is great in its rethinking of several aspects of how we’ve come to believe a browser should work. Bookmarks, because of the way Arc archives tabs, are very different in Arc … but no worse than the abyss in other browsers. I seldom peruse the 2500+ bookmarks & tend to just search. If a search product could search that abyss & the web I’d be in an echo chamber; it’s a fine line … but all browsers could do better especially the ones run by a search company. Arc has some features I’ll probably never use, too; but they’re not in the way. Hopefully the competition bodes well for end users with open minds.
- mthoms 3y agoArc's tab management philosophy is really interesting; Tabs are transient unless pinned. But, discarded tabs can still be easily found in an archive if necessary. Mini-Arc is browser pop-up window that is tab-less and (mostly) without any browser chrome for quick, read-once pages. Their whole approach is great for minimalists (especially for someone like me with ADHD) but will probably be hated by the many tab hoarders on HN. If nothing else, I hope Arc inspires other browser makers to think outside the box with stuff like this.
- thejosh 3y agoIt's another Chromium wrapper(?), and calling yourself "The Browser Company" is, IMHO, sketchy at best? Requires sign in on launch... https://i.imgur.com/89Oegnf.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/89Oegnf.jpeg
- zzo38computer 3y agoIt should not be required if you do not want sync across devices, bug reports, etc (or if you just want to copy the configuration by yourself instead). However, apparently it requires anyways, and that is no good. It also should not require an internet connection if you are only going to view local files and/or LAN.
- luplex 3y agoIn my view, the name "The Browser Company of New York" feels cheerful and evokes an old-timey, skilled craftsmen feel. They do care a lot about storytelling and their brand, and their relationship to their users.
- ahurmazda 3y agoSolid experience over the last 6+ months. Very few crashes if at all. Transparent weekly updates (yay Thursdays). Can’t get enough of my split views and spaces. Kudos to the team
- Brajeshwar 3y agoThe Arc Browser Company raised $18M so far (via Crunchbase[1]). It has been a while when I got the Arc Browser but I could not get myself to get used to the excessive feature. I personally am unable to figure out what to think about it. A younger me would have loved this browser but now, I'm (very personal) more of sticking to the basics/native and spend extra time learning the tips/tricks and the internals to be able to use a tool/system more effectively. 1. https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/the-browser-company https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/the-browser-company
- danpalmer 3y agoArc has been a pleasant browser to use, has helped me rein in my hundreds of tabs, and has boosted my productivity. As a set of features, I feel like it's pushing forwards what browsing can be. However, not every feature is a hit for me. I use the tab management extensively and enjoy the quick action toolbar. I don't see much of their quick-action integrations with particular websites but when I have seen them they've been nice to haves. I don't use the "easels" at all and don't see any need for them or problem they solve for me. I don't find the personalisation all that useful. This does all lead me to wonder if Arc is designed for me, or just happens to currently align well enough with my needs for me to find it valuable. Will they move in a direction away from what I need in the future? Maybe. I hope this is just a feature-maximalism strategy and that it continues to be useful for many in the long term, but I fear that it may become to the web what Hey is to email, where what I want is a more traditional Mimestream/Mail.app. It is not pushing forwards what the web can be, as I feel many people in these comments are wanting or hoping for, and to be honest I think that's fine. It doesn't need to. We have Mozilla, Google, and Apple, each pushing forwards what the web is in their own ways, in healthy tension with each other.
- neontomo 3y agoI've been using it a few months now. It does some things really well - others not. Great: - Picture in Picture mode automatically when switching tabs from YT, Soundcloud, etc - Swiping the trackpad with two fingers to switch profiles instantly - Clean interface - Clicking links opens a small window for you to quickly check the content, and if you want to continue you can maximise it, or you click the page in the background to return to the page you were on. Speeds up quick reads for me - Much thought into where to put UI elements - Some great shortcuts, like copying current URL (Command + Shift + C), clearing tabs (Command + Shift + K) Bad: - The sidebar design doesn't always play nice with websites - The way you pin extensions is a bit annoying - I bump into bugs sometimes since it's early days - I have no interest in using their Notes, Easels or Download system (easily ignored tho) - Settings have a very "startup-hype" membership card that serves no purpose, while also not having many settings for customisation. Weird choice imo - No interest in the auto-archive feature, but impossible to turn off Overall, I'm happy using it right now, and you can tell they put lots of effort into their updates, so I think it can become something quite good.
- thiht 3y ago> The way you pin extensions is a bit annoying Agree with that one. They’re struggling a bit to find a good place to put extensions. The latest iteration is fine, but still not great.
- thund 3y agoprivacy: would be nice if it didn’t send the UA header, does it? I think it’s time to get rid of any server side logic based on UA and this could be an opportunity to start
- MrAlex94 3y agoIf I'm not mistaken Arc is also a closed source browser. The company has raised $18M since 2020. How are they expecting to make that RoI for their investors? Monetisation for browsers is incredibly hard, and doing it in a way that respects the end user is even harder. Curious to see their play.
- toyg 3y agoThe way some people can raise tens of millions on absolute vaporware, in 2023, continues to astonish me.
- basisword 3y agoIt’s a fully functioning publicly released product. That’s the opposite of vaporware.
- toyg 3y agoThey started raising in 2020 for a browser, a no-hope project in a commoditized consumer market dominated by giants with strong network effects. The software might not be vapor but the money will definitely be.
- fragmede 3y agoOpera Browser had revenues of $87mm last quarter. You and I might get buy with Chrome for free, but it's not zero hope. https://investor.opera.com/news-releases/news-release-details/opera-reports-both-revenue-and-adjusted-ebitda-above-guidance https://investor.opera.com/news-releases/news-release-detail...
- asadotzler 3y agoIt's not hard. Put a search box or three in the browser and make google and bing money. If you get users, you get money, it's that simple. Arc's problem isn't a business model, it's a user base. Firefox makes half a billion dollars a year in search revenue and a browser 1/10th that size could pay off $18M in debt in a few months.
- sammy2255 3y agoAnother Arc? Im using Arc to track my gps data
- dbcooper 3y agoAnyone tried Kagi's WebKit based browser? https://browser.kagi.com/ https://browser.kagi.com/
- fredsir 3y agoIt’s great at least on macOS and iOS. Profiles on the macOS version made me switch to it from Safari as my daily driver.
- chrisoconnell 3y agoI've been waiting on their implementation of Compact Tabs. While controversial for some, I personally feel that the new compact tab designs in Safari are a far better user experience and use of space. Kagi's CEO completely disagrees with this, and they're implementing a design similar to Internet Explorer 9. I really want to use Kagi, but I think that their design principals are antithetical with mine and may others. But, I think it's great for a lot of people, particularly those that seek alternative browsers.
- fredsir 3y agoJust tried the compact tabs in Safari and that’s a great design!
- pshirshov 3y agoYes. It doesn't run on Linux.
- satysin 3y agoI've not heard of this before so just checked it out. Looks quite nice. Amusingly this Orion browser has a far more slick and user friendly first run experience than Arc which is a huge complaint I've had about Arc.
- zzo38computer 3y agoMany of the ideas looks like good idea. Zero telemetry is good. A suspend feature, like the low power mode, is good idea. To edit text on page, I think that the web developer menu is many browsers would be suitable for such a purpose, and a separate menu for that seems unnecessary to me. Allow copy/paste is good, although I would do it a bit differently. Similarly like many spreadsheet programs have the option for manual or auto calculation, to do that for web pages also; if set to manual calculation mode then nothing is calculated or sent to the server until you push send or recalculate, and most events are suppressed, so it cannot prevent you to copy/paste, nor can it spy on data that you have entered but chosen to not send yet. It would also improve speed and less power, and avoid problems with some forms that will put in a number automatically if you erase the number and make it difficult to enter the correct number due to that. So, it would solve ten problems at once. "Open Page in Internet Archive" may be useful, but seems to me should be an extension rather than a built-in feature (although it could be an extension which is included by default). However, some things that would be good to have in a web browser would be: User controlled request/response headers (this can make many other settings unnecessary, e.g. language, as well as anything that can be controlled by the Content-Security-Policy header, etc). Add user styles and user scripts (without needing to package an extension). Be able to use native code extensions (which must be installed manually and cannot be installed from the web service). Relative location bar mode. ARIA mode.
- pshirshov 3y agoCan't find a download link for Linux.
- rmdashrfv 3y agoThis is going to sound like a negative comment but I promise it's not ... Something really gets under my skin with the way they talk about Arc on their website. There is nothing on their website that means anything. Previously the headline of their website was literally "Arc is a browser". Are you kidding? It then went on to say that it's everything I care about. Really? How is that? What do I care about? Are you sure you know what I care about? Then finally it asks me if I'm ready to let go of the old internet. If you're going to say stuff like this, I think most of us at least on HN would expect them to be doing something where the benefits are very apparent. Or at the least, they'd have rebuilt the browser from the ground up. It's built on Chromium and therefore will have similar issues and limitations. I don't think there's anything wrong with Chromium, I'm happy to use such a browser but I think it's time Arc decided to explain what their goal is using English, or something we can actually understand.
- dekatron 3y agoI see it as marketing that tries to make you feel like you want the browser, without telling you what actually makes it great. You can attract users with hype and FOMO, but I'm not sure how long those users will stay...
- ryanolsonx 3y agoI love Arc. They've built a browser that's truly so pleasant to use.
- awill 3y agoI dislike when companies gives themselves names like this "The Browser company" Just like the hotel in Las Vegas called "The Hotel". Is it arrogance, or ignorance?
- pndy 3y agoI'd say it's arrogance with genuine belief that they have this breakthrough idea about web browser UI/UX - hard to say technology because as others spotted, this thing is based on Chromium. And this belief perhaps justify enough naming themselves in some "we're the ones, the truly original" somewhat hipster fashion. I don't see anywhere mentioned this browser having access to Chrome extensions so for me, even if I'd be slightly interested in testing this (and it would be still possible on my Intel Macbook) it's a hard miss. Not being able to block ads and tracking elements in 20s is out of the question and no fancy annotation or vertical tabs feature with grouping compensates this. Guess this thing aims at those who don't mind their privacy being violated - perhaps all sorts of influencers. The only thing they got are Boosts which seem to be kind of user scripts feature
- fevangelou 3y agoAs YouTuber Chris Titus would very eloquently say, "it's pointless". Chrome with a bunch of plugins could probably replicate the same experience. It's also kinda patronizing to say "here's how the browser should work" as if people are morons in 2023 and have no clue how to use a browser, let alone their supposed target audience. I'm not even touching the "sign up to continue" issue others mentioned... The news should actually be they got $18M in funding for this (FFS).
- fragmede 3y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863
- dns_snek 3y agoHow is "The browser company" planing to make a return for their VC investors? In other words, when is the rug pull coming and what is it going to look like?
- 1023bytes 3y agoI believe they want to monetize business customers, adding features for collaboration
- asadotzler 3y agoIn the end, when all the other attempts fail, they'll settle for what all the other browsers do, direct some search traffic to Google or Bing to get a fraction of those ad dollars. With enough users, this is a completely reasonable strategy for now.
- thiht 3y agoI’ve used Arc as my main browser on my work laptop for the last few months and I love it! It solves pain points I’ve actively tried to solve with Firefox, but couldn’t. It’s no surprise HN is skeptical about « yet another browser », so here’s what I like specifically about Arc: - it supports tab tiling. I can see 2 tabs next to one another easily. This is NOT solved with window tiling, it’s clunky and clutters the space. - it’s vertical tab support is good, and beautiful. Firefox also has vertical tabs via Sidebery and TreeStyleTab, but it’s pretty awful. It hacks on side panels to implement something looking like tabs, but the look and feel honestly sucks - theming is very easy and beautiful. Also it works by « space » - lots features dedicated to avoiding tab cluttering: 1. Tabs can auto close when inactive 2. Links that should open a new tab don’t open a new tab by default, they open a pop-in that I can expand to a dedicated tab if I want 3. Links outside of Arc (in a mail client, in a terminal…) don’t open a new tab, they open in a unique Arc window (Little Arc), and I can expand them in a dedicated tab if I want 4. Spaces and profiles allow to organize the tabs properly - it also integrates with a few websites, for example it can display infos directly on some non-open tabs. On my GitHub tabs, it shows the number of PRs awaiting my review. If I hover on my Google Agenda tab, it display a small agenda for the day without opening a tab I’m sure I forget a few things that I like. None of these features individually would make me switch to Arc, but seeing all of it at once made me try it, and I don’t regret it. Also their release notes are fun to read.
- prmoustache 3y agoWhy would you want your browser to manage themes and window management (tiling, links outside of web) while it is the job of the OS/desktop environment?
- dang 3y agoRelated: Arc from the Browser Company - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34795780 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34795780 - Feb 2023 (3 comments) What's Good About the Arc Browser - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33932045 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33932045 - Dec 2022 (6 comments) Thoughts on Arc Browser - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33539549 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33539549 - Nov 2022 (83 comments) The Browser Company’s Darin Fisher thinks it’s time to reinvent the browser - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33414565 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33414565 - Oct 2022 (90 comments) Arc Browser Company: Chrome and Safari face a new challenger - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31544988 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31544988 - May 2022 (125 comments)
- esafak 3y agoI got both Arc and SigmaOS and ended up splitting my time between the status quo, Firefox, and SigmaOS. SigmaOS is fast and has an interesting concept but I have two decades of muscle memory with Firefox and SigmaOS uses a completely different set of shortcuts, which are admittedly reasonable on paper.
- headsupernova 3y agoyeah the shortcuts for Sigma are a total dealbreaker
- MahyadGhassemi 3y agoSigmaOS now supports traditional Shortcuts, and also let’s you remap each Shortcut to whatever key you prefer :)
- zamadatix 3y agoDoes anyone know what the revenue model is?
- Triangle9349 3y agoIf something is free, you're the product.
- samcat116 3y agoThey've said in the past its an enterprise/business version with collaboration features and such.
- tibbydudeza 3y agoThey decided to use Swift - it will need to be ported to Windows to gain traction and justify the VC funding. The problem is that the Swift for Windows platform is not really a thing.
- twleo 3y agoHard Pass for closed-source browser.
- Terretta 3y agoIn case you are interested in a wrapper for WebKit instead of for Chromium, but one that lets you use your favorite Chrome and Firefox extensions: Orion Browser by Kagi: Very fast. Zero telemetry. Lightweight, natively built with WebKit, made for you and your Mac. Industry-leading battery life, privacy respecting by design and native support for web extensions. Orion supports Firefox and Chrome browser extensions natively. Whether you prefer getting them from the Chrome Web Store or Firefox Add-Ons... as well as bringing support for as many as we can to iOS… https://browser.kagi.com/ https://browser.kagi.com/
- unshavedyak 3y agoCan't wait for Orion to support Linux. As a Kagi subscriber it makes me feel salty, even though i understand focusing initial scope haha.
- webmobdev 3y agoTry Palemoon - it is a decent multi-platform hard fork of Firefox with better privacy preserving options.
- app4soft 3y agoTry Falkon[0] by KDE. [0] https://www.falkon.org/ https://www.falkon.org/
- przmk 3y agoIt's really hard to see why would anyone use it. At least epiphany is getting a lot of new features.
- skrowl 3y ago[dead]
- app4soft 3y ago> Zero telemetry. Q: Is Orion open-source? A: We’re working on it!...[0] Q: Is Orion truly safe if it’s not open-source? A: The idea that "open-source = trustworthy" only goes so far...[1] [0] https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html#oss https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html#oss [1] https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html#ossprivacy https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html#ossprivacy
- rswerve 3y agoThe best way to learn about a browser is to use it. No article is going to convey whether it will feel right to you. If needing an account is a dealbreaker, the consider the deal broken and move on. I've tried out a bunch of browsers over the past year, and Arc has been my default for a few months now. Being able to easily swipe between sandboxed profiles is great, and I like the rest of the UI. They also have a YouTube channel[1] that will give you some idea of how it behaves; scroll to the earlier ones. [1] https://www.youtube.com/@TheBrowserCompany/videos https://www.youtube.com/@TheBrowserCompany/videos
- Timshel 3y agoSo what we are supposed to shut up and move on ? Not criticize that : - "won´t ever sell your data" is an empty promise - "We never sell your data, and we’ll only share it in the following circumstances: With our Service Providers" O yeah they don't sell just share ... (with a list of what a Service provider may be but not what it may not be). - "Why do we collect personal data? Protect against fraud" strange would have not listed that first. And no amount of using it will change anything for those points.
- CharlesW 3y ago> So what we are supposed to shut up and move on ? Only if you have better things to do. I've personally cleared my day to work on a "CharlesW DESTROYS Arc Browser SaaS Model for 43 Minutes" YouTube response.
- Timshel 3y agoWell I certainly come to HN because some people take the time to criticize. Share the link when you are finished with your video it might interest me since with a quick perusal of the website I couldn't find anything on their SaaS model.
- prmoustache 3y ago> "won´t ever sell your data" is an empty promise Especially if they don't mention who do they milk money from. You'd have to be very naive to install this.
- Cupprum 3y agoI played around with it a bit. Seems like a nice browser, very clean. However this also raises some issues. For instance sometimes when i want to click some button on a website which is close to the border, the top or left bar pop up and i miss click.
- spondyl 3y agoAs someone who has used Arc for just over a year now, I have a love/hate relationship with it. There are some features like the ability to "peek" into a webpage or Little Arc which is really handy for SSO popups without changing full focus to the browser that makes other browsers feel like a step down. That said, and maybe this will change post-1.0, there were a lot of basic bugs that popped up over time like tabs disappearing from the sidebar, tabs "syncing" into the void because the browser blindly copied state from another browser, tabs that can't be closed and so on. Generally these are fixed and don't happen all at once but when they do, it rubs up against the new features being touted to make you feel insane. "Boosts are great but I just want the browser to stop interfering so I can do some work" Anyway, it's a bit like stockholm syndrome sometimes. I love it and anything else is a downgrade but it also keeps hurting me but nowhere near enough to outweigh the benefits. As far as support goes, it feels bit like they're a victim of success. Almost every ticket used to get a response but now I rarely hear anything which makes the canned "We value your feedback" feel hollow. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Support has changed. It's just a somewhat unavoidable outcome when you start as part of a niche and the userbase rapidly grows, making replying to everything untenable. In all, I'm glad there is a new entrant. Would a new engine be nice? Sure but differentiating a browser and building a full rendering engine at the same time is a bit of a tall order off the bat. Perhaps if they had a cash generating machine already like Google did. It'll be interesting to see if that changes in future (I assume it won't be who knows) and they're doing a lot of interesting work porting Swift to Windows (their strategy for porting Arc) I'm still a daily user since things have been solid for the last little while but I do wonder how things might degrade (enshittify) given a future need to return VC investment. You can learn a bit about their monetisation thinking here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=eVda3zFLlhc https://youtube.com/watch?v=eVda3zFLlhc Lastly, I'll plug their YouTube channel which is interesting: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheBrowserCompany https://www.youtube.com/c/TheBrowserCompany Particularly the videofile series which talks a lot about their internal workings, metrics and so on. There are times that I've had bad bugs or a new feature was ill received and then the next videofile confirms they've seen that reaction in bulk too
- racl101 3y agoI bailed as soon as it presented me with a prompt to create an account. lol
- smcleod 3y agoLooks like it’s just another chrome wrapper.
- ktosobcy 3y agoI was interested I trying it out, downloaded it, run. It started with odd animation and then prompted me to sign up. The rationale was to "sync" (not interested) and bug reports (can submit data while doing it). It feels worse than chrome while being obnoxious about supposedly being "groundbreaking"... arc can go shaft itself
- samcat116 3y agoBeen loving Arc for the past several months. No way that I can go back now.
- gcanyon 3y agoI've used Arc probably 90% of the time for the past two months. One thing that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere (even in their literature): it's very lightweight on memory usage. I've noticed recently that Safari uses 1/3 to 2/3 of a gigabyte for each youtube tab, or gmail, or <many other sites>. Arc uses roughly 25% of that. Also, Arc's efficiency as tabs build up seems to grow faster than Safari's although that's harder to quantify. But in concrete terms, Safari puts my M1 Air's memory into the yellow in activity monitor almost immediately. Arc regularly stays green with 20-30 tabs open. There are other nice things to consider, but that's huge for me.
- lrae 3y agoInteresting, I made the opposite observations on two different Macs. Safari, Edge, Chrome & Brave are all less resource hungry for me than Arc, including way worse energy impact / battery drain, unfortunately. And I'm not alone either, looking at Reddit & Discord in the past. Made me also switch away again recently. Would love to see them focus more on that instead of all those gimmicks. (Actually expected that before seeing them ship 1.0.) Also, the way they handle extensions and especially the recent changes getting rid of the extension bar top right are/were also not great.
- gcanyon 3y agoOkay, that’s weird. M1 macs? It’s not like I was very methodical about it, but the results were as plain as day. I mean, yellow vs. green isn’t hard to see. I’ll try the exact same sites/tabs from a fresh boot for safari, chrome and arc and report back. I haven’t been in reddit since June — Apollo user, and old.reddit.com just sucks so hard. What about extensions? I only installed a couple, but I had no problem. That
- notorandit 3y agoThey want me to give my email.to get a download link... They know exactly what is needed for good browsing experience, don't they? :/
- jrflowers 3y agoLove submitting my email to get a link to the privacy browser
- H12 3y agoI've been using Arc for a few months now and find myself really missing it when I use other browsers. This is due to a number of things, like the degree of UI polish and a UX I personally find very intuitive, but I think the biggest factor comes down to their features around tab management. Namely the following: 1. Tabs closing automatically by default unless explicitly pinned 2. Being able to group pinned tabs into folders 3. Pinned tabs remembering their original state (e.g. if I pin a tab, then navigate to some other page, I can click the favicon to return to the original page I pinned) 4. The ability to rename tabs to make them more meaningful 5. Organizing tabs into an easily-collapsible sidebar 6. Having multiple spaces for different "contexts" These features may not be particularly novel, and I'm sure they could be easily replicates w/ extensions or add-ons, but the fact that things work like this by default and are super easy to manage feels pretty fantastic. As an example, I recently started rewriting my neovim config, and created a new space called "neovim config" so I could quarantine the tab clutter away from my normal browsing. Then I pinned the GitHub page for my old config so I could reference it easily. And lastly I created folders for "installed plugins", "required plugins" and "optional plugins" to help me organize the GitHub pages of all the plugins I've already installed, plan to install, or merely want to test out. Then if I run into any bugs or need to reference Lua syntax I can open a bunch of ephemeral tabs to stack overflow or whatever and easily clean them up once I'm done. I know I'm probably sounding like an Arc shill at this point, but I do genuinely feel like Arc is helping me get this work done more efficiently whereas I feel like just about any other browser would be getting in my way. The simplest way I could describe it is it's almost like Trello and Safari had a baby that somehow inherited the best qualities of each, with none of the drawbacks.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jachee 3y ago> Enter your email and we’ll send you a download link No. Never. Put the download link on your website.
- albertop 3y agoWhy I need to create an account before I can even try it?
- ddtaylor 3y agoI absolutely refuse to touch anything that requires an email link to even download.
- wkdneidbwf 3y agoi’ve tried arc a couple times and never got to the “aha!” moment. in a lot of ways arc reminds me of software from the early 2000’s that tried to do everything. i think they’re doing some interesting stuff, but i just couldn’t find features or workflows that were safari-killers for me.
- Chevalier 3y agoCtrl+F "Vivaldi" -- no relevant comments? Vivaldi is impossibly excellent. How is Arc getting so much more attention? Want vertical tabs? Vivaldi. Side bar? Vivaldi. Workspaces? Vivaldi. Mouse gestures? Vivaldi. Vertical space? Vivaldi. Customizable speed dial? Vivaldi. Keyboard commands? Popout mini-browser? Encrypted sync? Page tiling? Chrome extensions? Multiple types of tab groups? Excellent tools for inspection, screenshotting, etc.? Total anonymity? Everything comes up Vivaldi. And what's more, Vivaldi actually works for the USER. They spoof their ID (due to Google sabotage) that lets us use Bing Chat without switching to Chrome. They don't even ask for your email address, unlike Arc. They'll GIVE you an email system for free. Vivaldi's openly committed to rejecting Google's Manifest v3 that cripples user control over what information is collected by Google and what extensions a user can use in their own browser. And yet Vivaldi receives virtually no attention or praise. And Arc has been showered with it for years, despite never shipping a product until today. It's... very strange. This browser is everything I could ever dream of, and it doesn't get a fraction of the attention that Firefox, Brave, or Chrome gets. Link for Vivaldi, from the same people behind the original Opera: https://vivaldi.com https://vivaldi.com
- pzo 3y agoThanks, I used to use Vivaldi many years ago (switched by to Firefox eventually). I just tried it again and unfortunately their user inteface is very cluttered and not polished by default - comparing to Arc. In Vivaldi 1. Everything is very very tiny. You have to google there is zoom ui slider - but after changing to 130% I finally have nice padding but it scales all UI so now I endup with very big and fat icons and fonts. What's worse those icons, font looks like are just rasterized and because of that not sharp 2. Default selected tab and tab colors are very cluttered 3. Their command panel cmd+e is very cluttered and need to learn about new shortcut (I don't want to create notes, search history, bookmarks, I want to only search current open tabs, search engine, execute command or open by url. This panel also very tiny 4. Trash button doesn't work for me - doesn't do anything. I expected it will nuke all open tabs - last time I used vivaldi many years ago this was the final straw for me - closing like 50 tabs was taking like 5+ seconds.
- Chevalier 3y ago
- peter_d_sherman 3y agoList of Desktop Web Browsers (over 200): https://github.com/nerdyslacker/desktop-web-browsers https://github.com/nerdyslacker/desktop-web-browsers List of Headless Web Browsers: https://github.com/dhamaniasad/HeadlessBrowsers https://github.com/dhamaniasad/HeadlessBrowsers List of Open Source Web Browsers/Browser Engines: https://github.com/ZeroX-DG/awesome-browser https://github.com/ZeroX-DG/awesome-browser