Thoughts on Arc Browser
chrishannah.me
chrishannah.me
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.
If they brought some new ideas to it, then maybe. But it’s likely that if a new browser engine did bring some useful new ideas it would be incorporated into chromium well before the other browser engine could achieve a fraction of Chromium’s market share.
Browser revolutions will most likely be built on the front end. By focusing resources on the parts where the browser makers can actually differentiate and not on the part that by definition must have the same output.
Try giving foobar2000 a spin or checking out some screenshots to get an idea for what I mean. Unlike Chromium, the browser should be extendable, at runtime, via a component system and editable layout tree. Runtimes, backends, common libs, fonts etc should be managed using a repository system.
Chromium requires recompilation (and know-how) in order to make any big change. Comparatively, a user should be able to completely reskin their browser, switch JavaScript engines, etc. on a per-domain, per-group or per-tab basis in seconds without restarting the browser.
Integration is relatively easy to solve. I did not use foobar2000 for a long time; I can compare instead with Emacs, where various packages are aware of various other packages and will integrate if a counterpart is present, but won't require that.
Security is much harder; the need to isolate pages means relatively smaller customizable API surface, and, most importantly, greater trust to the components. It's much like web extensions now: you have to think well before giving an extension access to your web mail or online banking web pages.
XUL was an attempt to build a very flexible architecture, and it was great, but the (lack of) security killed it.
But to your point the core browsing experience would remain the same. Would be cool if they opened that up to variability though.
We have a near-monopoly with Chrome, a very distant second Safari, and a nearly non-existent Firefox. Anything else (like Goanna or Flow) have literally zero impact.
Chrome's outsized influence is such that it no longer even pretends to care about consensus or processes at w3c and just ships random features at neck-breaking speed.
Web standards are supposed to be based on a) consensus and b) at least two independent implementations.
As an example, let's take a recent Chrome-only non-standard that made HN frontpage, WebTransport: https://web.dev/webtransport/
The status of this API? "Editor's Draft". That is, scribbled on a napkin [1]
--- start quote ---
These drafts have not received formal review and are not endorsed W3C.
These drafts MUST NOT be cited as W3C standards and may or may not become W3C standards.
--- end quote ---
Guess what its status is in Chrome? Already shipped, and advertised as available.
As with other such non-standards expect HN comments decrying other browsers as being "the new IE" because they are in no rush to develop this.
[1] Pushing through (user hostile) apis without consideration about others
Blink (Chromium) and WebKit are also closely related as the former is a fork of the later.
So there are effectively only two "independent" engines.
But in reality there is actually none. Both engines exist through Google money.
Given that most people can't even tell the difference between the internet and the web (hello, Arc developers!) and the web became the new all encompassing platform (like MS Windows was before) we have here a very dangerous concentration of power. Almost all private computing is controlled end-to-end by Google these days.
If Microsoft got almost split up for having way less power Google is long long overdue for a divestiture. Should this ever happen (I suspect the US would not give up control of personal computing all over the world so it's imho unlikely, but if) everybody would recognize quite fast how bad the mono-culture in the browser space really is…
WebKit itself forked from KHTML.
You don't lose adblocking with MV3. I have been using uBlock Origin Lite since it came out and I have not noticed any difference in actual blocking. I like having adblock extension that has significantly less security or privacy exposure, and I like MV3 provides that.
May I ask why?
But admittedly, this is a very power user feature set that makes it alluring to me, I would expect most people won't find those useful, and tab hoarders in particular will be VERY confused and frustrated when the archive feature vacuums up all the tabs they didn't pin in a space 12 hours after they last looked at it (the default, which can be extended but not disabled).
If you're not that high sprawl but organized type though, and are on macOS, I'd recommend Orion browser[0] if you still want a non-ugly and native vertical tab bar implementation with your browser that also supports webRequest API and is both fast and better with energy use since it uses WebKit. They also have a public bug tracker [1] and a responsive discord.
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?
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...
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.
Personally, I use 1Password for passwords & credit cards, and Raindrops.io for bookmarks, so jumping between browsers were fairly smooth for me.
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.
> Arc is currently free, and we'll always have some version of the product that is free. In the future, we'll charge for premium and team features.
Search engine kickbacks and clearly defined ads on the new tab/page links.
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.
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.
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.
Satisfied Vivaldi user
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
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?
> 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.
Actually, this is my favorite part about Arc. Most of the time when using Arc I'm working in fullscreen mode with 100% of the UI hidden. There is literally zero on my screen except the page itself. If I mouseover to the left (or hit cmd-S) I can see the sidebar/addressbar etc.
It's absolutely wonderful and really puts the focus on the content. I find it much better than how Chrome handles fullscreen.
Cmd+s in Arc just hides all the UI of the browser but does not change the size of the window frame. This is more akin to Chrome's add shortcut to desktop feature, except that it is easy to toggle on/off with a keyboard shortcut. So if you have a web app you want to just focus on, you can just do so.
Incidentally, this is why I love the macOS Safari "Compact Tabs" feature [0] -- this is the most compact browser UI I've come across.
[0] https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/21/22686070/apple-macos-safa...
0 - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta...
1 - https://gist.github.com/akersten/8fa7d36960b10c5ae18c01ada3d...
2 - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/auto-tab-disc...
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.
Vimium[0] has something like it with `shift+T`(searches active tabs) and `shift+O`/`o`(searches bookmarks, history, and active tabs).
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
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++.
Edit: Gone
edit: gone