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According to this article, Arc requires an account and sends Google's Firebase the hostname of every page you visit along with your user ID. Does this make Arc
by Borgz 2y ago
According to this article, Arc requires an account and sends Google's Firebase the hostname of every page you visit along with your user ID. Does this make Arc the least private web browser currently being used?
- causal 2y agoI trashed Arc immediately after install when I found out having an account was mandatory. That seemed so silly, like toothbrushes-requiring-wifi absurd. How much moreso now.
- scblock 2y agoTruly. I was looking for a privacy respecting Chromium-based browser to use for Web MiniDisc (https://web.minidisc.wiki/ https://web.minidisc.wiki/) and came across some enthusiastic praise for Arc. I downloaded it and it immediately wanted me to create an account to even use it. How can that possibly respect my privacy? It went right in the trash.
- timeon 2y agoWhat is also strange that I only found out about account after download. Like it was standard thing for the browser. (Sure there are optional accounts in others but login-walled browser?)
- roywiggins 2y agoWindows is practically login-walled[0] at this point so I imagine people are slowly getting to expect it. [0] witness the magic incantations needed https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/install-windows-11-without-microsoft-account https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/install-windows-11-witho...
- cozzyd 2y agoThis is so super annoying for shared lab computers
- mrguyorama 2y agoHilariously (in the absurd way), this affects my girlfriend, who prefers and uses the Microsoft account feature AND onedrive exactly how Microsoft would hope she would, and STILL gets fucked by their stupidity. Her laptop has a mediatek wifi card that doesn't have built in Windows drivers. Re-installing Windows requires you play the above game, so you can get into Windows, install the driver, and then immediately log into Microsoft.com.
- ziddoap 2y agoAnother strange thing about the account... They have a little section under "Security" FAQ (lol) that says: >"Why does Arc require an account to use?" The answer is: >"Here's a link to our forum that explains the rationale behind requiring an account to use Arc: Why do I need an account?" That link goes to here: https://resources.arc.net/hc/en-us/articles/19401542261911-Basic-Account-Details https://resources.arc.net/hc/en-us/articles/19401542261911-B... Which... Doesn't explain why you need an account!
- radicaldreamer 2y agoThey want an easy path to onboard you into paying for stuff.
- antifa 2y agoA while back they required login before download. That's when I noped out.
- DevX101 2y agoI did the same. Requiring an account for a browser is immediately disqualifying. I don't care how many features it has.
- jonny_eh 2y agoEven Chrome wouldn't dare
- macintux 2y agoI had the same response when I downloaded Dart and discovered that a programming language thought it was acceptable to send telemetry.
- rixed 2y agoIn 2024 it is considered normal for an _operating_system_ to require an account, an information that is potentially passed around to any app running on it.
- pndy 2y agoI had doubts already when submissions promoting the browser were added on hn while there was no way to see how it looks like or even test it out - for quite some time there was nothing but mail singup on their page. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35801529 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35801529
- AzzyHN 2y agoI think OperaGX wins that award
- mrweasel 2y agoI'm also left wondering: How broken would Arc be, if Firebase was to go down?
- diggan 2y agoI guess it's relatively easy to test, add the Firebase domain to your host file and point it to 127.0.0.1 and try to use the browser. Sometimes things like this handle connection failures better than "never-ending connection attempts", so you might want to try to add a throttle or something too for the traffic between the domain and the browser, might also trip it up.
- ARandomerDude 2y ago"Arc is the Chrome replacement I’ve been waiting for." [1] > https://arc.net/ https://arc.net/ I guess now we know why they frame it that way.
- kccqzy 2y agoChrome does not require an account to use. And Chrome by default doesn't send sites you visit to Google, unless you turn on the "make searches and browsing better" feature or the "enhanced safe browsing" feature. So the OP is right. Arc's privacy is worse than Chrome.
- qwertox 2y agoThey don't encrypt the data they send via Firebase? I mean, even Google suggests doing this with sensitive data.
- Saris 2y agoWhen I downloaded it a few months ago and it required an account to even use it, my gut feeling was that I should just stick with Firefox.