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Comment by volsa | Hacker News Reader

> Or if you're on macOS, give Arc a try.

Tried it and immediately deleted the app again. Seriously, asking users to create an account which isn't skippable is just plain dumb?

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I disagree with this decision by Arc, and had the same reaction you did, but I just want to note that I'm very glad I gave it another shot months later – it really is a fantastic browser, much better than FF or Chrome.

..much better in what way?

As someone who hasn't used Arc, can you explain how it's better than FF?

I feel like the only actually cool feature of it is the way tabs are organized, but you can get the same thing (even better, actually) by using the Sidebery extension in Firefox. The only difference is that it doesn't look as pretty by default, but both Sidebery and Firefox support custom CSS so you can make it look like Arc if you really need to.

How about Orion?

I understand why you feel this way, but this seems to be the trend for all the latest generation of "polished" software and I think they do this so they can retain users. (Another example that comes to mind is Warp, the terminal written in Rust.)

To be fair, as an Arc user, by logging in, I can keep my tabs synced perfectly across my personal and work laptops, which is worth it for me.

> (Another example that comes to mind is Warp, the terminal written in Rust.)

Sorry, do you mean there's a terminal emulator out there which forces you to login? I'm hoping you mean it provides auxiliary (optional) functionality with a login.

> do you mean there's a terminal emulator out there which forces you to login?

Haha yes indeed that's what I meant, I suspect this is only going to become more common whether we like it or not

In proprietary software, perhaps.

Personally I'd never consider using a terminal emulator that isn't Free and Open Source software.

> [...] I think they do this so they can retain users.

They lost me as a potential user within the first 10 seconds and I'm probably not the exception here. No idea how you want to retain users if you lose them before they even get to test your software.

> To be fair, as an Arc user, by logging in, I can keep my tabs synced perfectly across my personal and work laptops, which is worth it for me.

I can do that with Firefox, Chrome, Brave or any other browser as well without being forced to create an account.

> I can do that with Firefox, Chrome, Brave or any other browser as well without being forced to create an account.

Oh I use Chrome too, I was under the impression that you have to sign into Google to sync bookmarks, but I guess your point is the login/account creation steps come afterwards?

No, I’m not even going to give it a try; mandatory login for a browser or a terminal app (!!!) is nonsense.

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