from Hacker News

Thoughts on Arc Browser

by chrishannah on 11/9/22, 11:13 PM with 83 comments

• by satvikpendem on 11/10/22, 1:44 AM

  I've used it, it's fine I guess, nothing super outstanding. I don't want to be that guy on HN, but the way they market themselves as being some revolution in browsing while simply wrapping Chrome like others like Vivaldi (which also has a lot of customization), Edge, Opera etc is not that interesting. It's even less so when I would lose adblocking due to Manifest v3 because, really, how long will these browser makers continue keeping a fork around before eventually giving up?

  A true browser revolution would be something written from scratch like the recent SerenityOS one. Of course, the average person won't use it, but that's what it would take to truly be revolutionary. In the meantime I'll continue using Firefox.

• by sf4lifer on 11/10/22, 1:13 AM

  I absolutely love Arc. The way I used chrome was I had a separate window with tabs for relevant workflows instead of one tab with 30 windows. I'd always lose where the tab was and just open a new tab basically until my computer required a reboot. With Arc I have 5 spaces each with the 10 most used tabs pinned. I now have 3 windows, Arc + Slack + Zoom. I know where everything is...

• by dang on 11/10/22, 1:13 AM

  Related:

  The Browser Company’s Darin Fisher thinks it’s time to reinvent the browser - 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 - May 2022 (125 comments)

  Others?

• by gleb-arestov on 11/10/22, 4:14 AM

  1. You may find interesting https://beamapp.co/. Browser + hypertext note-taking tool (webkit based)

  2. I was first engineer at https://meetsidekick.com you may find it interesting too. (as engineer with 14 years of experience in this area ready tell you about best way to architect js app in isolated environments like main/render process of electron, background/view pages in chrome extensions)

  3. > I am a big fan of relatively-small websites, personal blogs, and any website that is free of the usual bloat. I'm indie/solo making linkkraft browser (to make a living from it). To let myself observe intensive web in a non-intensive way. It could be useful for someone who make decisions (and money) from processing a lot of information from mass of tabs. (product managers, hr head hunters?)

  Linkkraft visualizes your steps as tree and auto-makes html snapshot for your each step. So, you can pause your research confidently (or part of it to free CPU/memory) and restore full context even offline. (Ping me if this would make you effective)

  linkkraft tree vs chrome tabs https://arestov.github.io/linkkraft-notes/comparing/linkkraf...

  offline snapshots for each step in twitter SPA https://arestov.github.io/linkkraft-notes/trails-tree-plus-o...

• by mmcclure on 11/9/22, 11:40 PM

  On the other side of this, I've been using Arc for ~4 months now, and there are definitely quirks, but overall I've been quite happy with it.

  One of the primary complaints in the post is password syncing, and I'm not sure that's a fair knock against Arc since it seems like OP would struggle to switch to any browser that's not Safari (and they say as much just generally in the conclusion).

  > I use iCloud Keychain for passwords on all of my devices, and of course, my bookmarks are synced via Safari. So when I tried to use Arc, nothing was in sync.

  My experience was much better since I use 1Password. The extension was a little clumsy at first, but I gave the feedback and things were improved in the next release and I haven't had any issues since. Really any third party password manager with a Chrome extension should work fine.

  Arc is weird, it's a different way of thinking about a browser. I've personally enjoyed it, but I can totally see why others wouldn't. The tl;dr of the post is "if you just want Safari you'll be happier with Safari" and I think that's a totally fair assessment.

• by tontonius on 11/10/22, 6:43 AM

  Got invited this summer and was a bit skeptic at first (been trying different browsers on and off for the last couple of years). I knew nothing about the browser and had no real expectations. I have to say I was a bit impressed by the onboarding, the UX, and the attention to detail. (Perhaps because I work in UX)

  Thought I'd try it for a week before eventually switching back to Chrome because of some missing feature or functionality – in reality it has been the opposite. I dread using Chrome again, and whenever I'm forced to, it feels like going back in time, but not even in a nostalgic way. Just a sense of "this is what we used before?"

  Anyway, I have 5 invites if anyone wants to try it out.

• by jimlongton on 11/9/22, 11:36 PM

  Giving all my passwords, bookmarks and possibly browser history and credit card information to a closed source browser from an unknown company sounds too risky for me. How do they even plan to make money?

• by hiidrew on 11/10/22, 2:42 PM

  The command palette is a feature I've been enjoying and wishing I could use in chrome on my work laptop. Another is using 'shift-cmd-c' to copy the current URL, small feature but one of my favorites!

  I don't use easels because I'm afraid of the company folding and me losing all my notes/easels. I wish they had something like Obsidian's set-up where it auto-generates .md files in a folder.

  I'll always welcome new browsers, even if they are just wrapped versions of Chromium. Another similar concept is https://sail.online/, they're doing the superhuman type onboarding but it's interesting, would describe it as a collaborative browser on a spatial canvas.

• by city17 on 11/10/22, 7:59 AM

  Had to get used to it initially, but now I really love Arc. On other browsers I always used to bookmark things and never look at them again, because it's such a hassle to remember where you put something. The 3-tier system of pinned items (frequently used apps like youtube, discord, slack etc), pinned items per space, and then normal tabs works great.

  I do think Arc will remain a niche browser though, because to get the most out of it you really need to use the command palette and I don't think the average user will bother with that.

• by ndimares on 11/10/22, 1:51 PM

  I knew I was a distractible person, but I never realised the degree to which having the URL and tabs at the top of my browser was a drag on my productivity until I began using Arc. Now, I basically always keep Arc in focus mode and it has had a really positive impact on my concentration. There are definitely things about the browser that bother me, but this one benefit has been enough to make it my new default.

• by nbzso on 11/10/22, 1:57 AM

  Tested it. Moved back to Brave. Wish I can hide the url field on chrome based browsers. This is the only thing that I like in Arc.

  In my view the problem with Arc is the UX. It is hidden and complex and as a result lacks a natural discovery flow.

  It seems targeted towards the small audience of specialists which will have no problem giving a lot of their data.

  And I hate the size of the borders:) Make them small or remove them completely.

• by Markoff on 11/10/22, 7:15 AM

  What's the point in writing about software which I can't download and install and Try button leads to some e-mail spam?

  Satisfied Vivaldi user

• by rambl3r on 11/10/22, 5:20 AM

  I've been trying on and off to give Arc a try for the past few months. I've had trouble for all the reasons that the linked article names.

  What brought me around was the Easel feature for scrapbooking pieces of multiple web pages onto a single page. For some kinds of research, being able to see everything at once beats anything I've been able to do with multiple tabs or window arrangements. I used to arrange screenshots onto a photo editor's canvas, but doing it in-browser is an easier workflow, and Arc makes it easy to get back from the clipping to the source.

  I believe that Beam is similar to this feature, except (pro) better support for daily notes, and (pro and/or con) clippings are in a list instead of arranged in 2D.

  That fact that these blocks can optionally be live also makes it useful for constructing ad-hoc dashboards.

  [1] "Arc | Collect Your Internet with Easel" https://youtu.be/ukquBSOpmTk

• by TranquilMarmot on 11/10/22, 3:27 AM

  I've been using Edge on Windows, macOS, and Android for the past year or so and have been really happy with it. I signed up for Arc and haven't gotten an invite yet but, looking at this article, it doesn't really seem to be that much of a game changer? At least not as much as the pretentiousness of "The Browser Company of New York" (gag) would have you think.

  Edge has vertical tabs with the exact same "pinned tab" system. You can also switch back to horizontal tabs if you so wish. It also has tab grouping, password/history/extension syncing etc. etc. With the huge added bonus that it's available on all of my machines and phones, syncing across all of them (and giving what I'm sure is an uncomfortable amount of data to MSFT...)

  The only "missing" feature would be the command bar which, even as a "browser power user", I don't see any use for. How is it any better than the usual omnibox?

• by amadeuspagel on 11/9/22, 11:51 PM

  Have never tried arc. Commenting on the article, not the browser.

  > For a moment I was mesmerised by its features, how it behaved, and the quirkiness of it.

  I think the most important job for a browser is to stay in the background and let the user focus on the website. Chrome does this beautifully. It's elegant, but not eye-catching. It takes up little space for its own UI, and leaves most space to the website.

  > At the start, I would use the command bar to quickly make a web search, open a new tab, (try to) launch an existing tab by entering the name of the page, and even perform actions like pinning the current tab.

  These are all things you can already do in the addressbar, except for opening a new tab, which is just as easy as opening the command bar.

• by bananarchist on 11/10/22, 12:51 AM

  I love that it deletes all the tabs I've opened and not interacted with recently. I needed that in my life. When FF incorporates that and putting tabs on the side, I'll switch back. I don't really care about the rest Arc's got going on.

• by Fnoord on 11/10/22, 4:55 AM

  Command palette is a feature I miss in my current browser. Though there's probably some Alfred extension for it, I use Firefox on macOS, Linux, Android, and Windows. There's Plotinus [1] for Gtk3 (Linux) but that won't work on Gtk4, nor is it cross-platform.

  Firefox also has a sidebar (I use TTS extension) and permanent pages (Pins) as well as containers e.g. against FAMAG tracking. TTS has themes. Its a bit annoying hiding top tabs but it can be done with some CSS.

  [1] https://github.com/p-e-w/plotinus/issues/45

• by wahnfrieden on 11/10/22, 1:57 AM

  Is there interest in a similarly innovative/functional browser that wraps WebKit for iOS/iPadOS/macOS? I see people complain about wrapping Chrome but don't know if the Apple ecosystem community values this.

• by KhuYam on 11/10/22, 7:17 AM

  > For a moment I was mesmerised by its features, how it behaved, and the quirkiness of it. Maybe it was because it was the new and shiny toy I wanted to play with. Regardless, the way in which I want to use a web browser doesn't quite fit with Arc.

  I had the same thing - at first you enjoy and admire it, but after a while it becomes uncomfortable and I went back to Safari - and it was like putting on my most comfortable shoes

• by tibbydudeza on 11/10/22, 6:15 AM

  It seems like another Flock browser - interesting but meh.

  Chrome has won the wars, even Microsoft saw the writing on the wall and making it better (I personally like Edge) - it is time to move on to solving interesting problems and not the same low hanging fruit like crypto blockchain, another overcomplicated JS framework or another replacement for C++.

• by sMarsIntruder on 11/10/22, 6:16 AM

  I mean, it’s fine to have other opinions, but seriously? Safari for “heavy”/professional usage? I personally love Arc and their dedication to add features that you would need a chrome extension for any of them.

• by nikolay on 11/10/22, 3:43 AM

  I keep waiting for the invite... it's becoming pathetic, honestly! Why would desktop software want to use an invite system?! It makes zero sense! And worst of all, to make people wait for months!

• by raydiatian on 11/10/22, 5:12 AM

  This idea has been on product hunt at least once before. Just different wrapper. Can’t remember the name. It looks neat and I’ll give it a shot, even though it isn’t exactly “new”

• by marban on 11/10/22, 3:54 AM

  I've 5 invites left: https://arc.net/gift/c5adb5f4

  Edit: Gone

• by nabilahsf on 11/10/22, 10:13 AM

  I still haven't got my invite :l

• by Rudeg on 11/10/22, 4:07 AM

  5 invites if anyone need:

  edit: gone