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Arc is almost 3 (4?) years old and was the darling child of dev influencers for the better part of 2 years. It's not a niche browser, especially amongst devs th

Arc is almost 3 (4?) years old and was the darling child of dev influencers for the better part of 2 years. It's not a niche browser, especially amongst devs that are likely to work at Cloudflare.

littlestymaar 2y ago
It's definitely a niche browser. I think I heard of it once on HN over the past few years, and I'd be surprised if there was actually more than a few thousands of people using it.
- InsideOutSanta 2y ago
  Its subreddit has 52k members. There are probably hundreds of thousands of users. Still a niche browser, but it's pretty commonly used on Macs.
  - littlestymaar 2y ago
    > Its subreddit has 52k members. There are probably hundreds of thousands of users. I don't get your reasoning here, you shouldn't even expect more than a fraction of the reddit users to have even installed and tried the browser, let alone using it regularly.
    - InsideOutSanta 2y ago
      Why would you join a subreddit for an obscure browser if you never even bothered to run it?
      - littlestymaar 2y ago
        You vastly underestimate how many “just curious” lurkers there are on any subreddits !
        InsideOutSanta 2y ago
        You're asserting that they are curious enough about a free browser to join a subreddit, but not curious enough to download it?
- oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
  I would be surprised if it were that low; the arcbrowser sub Reddit has 50 thousand members. Still, regardless of the actual figure, I think there's a broader point which avoids the need to agree on an absolute threshold: should cloudflare block access to websites using a blacklist or should it grant access using a whitelist? Especially since it's trivial to spoof your user agent.
  - littlestymaar 2y ago
    I'm not defending Cloudflare on any way, blocking niche browsers is sad. I'm just saying that it doesn't make sense to say it's not a niche browser.
    - oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
      That's fair. I'm sure it's not as well-used/known as Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or Safari. Probably not even Opera, although I'd be interested to see their respective "new users" numbers. I think it's in the same ballpark as Brave — definitely known, just not one of the big 5.
bdhcuidbebe 2y ago
It is a niche browser with no hype going for it.

Arc is almost 3 (4?) years old and was the darling child of dev influencers for the better part of 2 years. It's not a niche browser, especially amongst devs that are likely to work at Cloudflare.

littlestymaar 2y ago

It's definitely a niche browser. I think I heard of it once on HN over the past few years, and I'd be surprised if there was actually more than a few thousands of people using it.

InsideOutSanta 2y ago
Its subreddit has 52k members. There are probably hundreds of thousands of users. Still a niche browser, but it's pretty commonly used on Macs.
- littlestymaar 2y ago
  > Its subreddit has 52k members. There are probably hundreds of thousands of users. I don't get your reasoning here, you shouldn't even expect more than a fraction of the reddit users to have even installed and tried the browser, let alone using it regularly.
  - InsideOutSanta 2y ago
    Why would you join a subreddit for an obscure browser if you never even bothered to run it?
    - littlestymaar 2y ago
      You vastly underestimate how many “just curious” lurkers there are on any subreddits !
      - InsideOutSanta 2y ago
        You're asserting that they are curious enough about a free browser to join a subreddit, but not curious enough to download it?
oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
I would be surprised if it were that low; the arcbrowser sub Reddit has 50 thousand members. Still, regardless of the actual figure, I think there's a broader point which avoids the need to agree on an absolute threshold: should cloudflare block access to websites using a blacklist or should it grant access using a whitelist? Especially since it's trivial to spoof your user agent.
- littlestymaar 2y ago
  I'm not defending Cloudflare on any way, blocking niche browsers is sad. I'm just saying that it doesn't make sense to say it's not a niche browser.
  - oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
    That's fair. I'm sure it's not as well-used/known as Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or Safari. Probably not even Opera, although I'd be interested to see their respective "new users" numbers. I think it's in the same ballpark as Brave — definitely known, just not one of the big 5.

bdhcuidbebe 2y ago

It is a niche browser with no hype going for it.