October 13, 2023
Much to my surprise, I’m still using Arc as my daily driver browser. I really respect how big of a swing this is for that team. It’s honest-to-god browser UI/UX innovation, in a way that it feels like bigger established browsers could never would never. It’s just fun to watch their journey. Browser engines are also doing great lately, and I’m sure Arc doesn’t hate riding that wave.
Status report:
- “Little Arc” is great. There is a good chance when I’m clicking a link that it’s just a fling. I need to do a quick thing or two, then close it. Little Arc makes that feel good. All open websites don’t need to be official tabs. Sometimes clicking links within tabs open as a modal (not sure if that’s officially Little Arc or not), and I like that too. Feels like Arc does a good job of knowing when I would want that. Promoting to a “real” tab is easy enough.
- Split screen is great. It’s really about window management. The chances that I want to be referencing another website when working in another website is like… 25%? Other browsers don’t prevent that, but it means opening two separate windows, and I’m on my own for positioning them. Arc makes it terribly easy by keeping it all in one window and splitting it (with a resizer). The mental model of just option-click whatever to split is perfect.
- Syncing is working great again. It felt busted to me for a while, but it turns out they decided to just not sync any non-pinned tabs?? Weird, but now that all tabs sync again, I find it good. I do use several different computers and I love keeping my browser identical. The mobile app is OK, at least I can access my tabs from there in case I need to. Makes me wish more things in Arc synced, like extensions, customized commands, all settings, etc. Speaking of which, I don’t care for the auto-archiving of tabs. “Never” should be an option.
- Another one that most people like that I don’t care for: workspaces. I think if I primarily used a trackpad I’d like them more, but since I’m a mouse guy, I don’t find the interactions for switching workspaces nice enough to use. I don’t think that’s the whole story though. I just don’t have enough open tabs that I feel like I need another high-level sorting mechanism.
- Command-Shift-C copies the current URL. Ughkg. I use it a million times a day. It’s honestly the hardest thing not to have when using another browser.
- I’ve turned into a command bar lover. I’m on Raycast and loving that. I use the one in DevTools. I use VS Codes. Our secret new version of CodePen has a command bar. And Arc! I probably use Arc’s most of all. Not sure you have much of a choice really.
- I like that “Capture Full Page” is a command. I use that pretty regularly. And that I can (and have) given it a keyboard command.
- I suspect “tabs on the side” is the thing people can’t get used to. I’m long over it. I think it’s better. I also like the whole area is easy to hide with command-S, and the handling of shortcuts like that which might interfere with what the website uses is nice as well (press it again! configurable!). I do also always have the “Toolbar” open too because I do prefer the very basic browser controls at the top (back/forward, URL, extension buttons).
- I don’t like any of the new AI features (sorry!). The link previews don’t work consistently, the renamed downloads and tab names are chaotic and usually super wrong, and the one that just sends me to the OpenAI website feels like a silly tack-on. Still, an interesting stab at things. I would pay for Arc (probably), especially for cool bonus features, if they could be nailed.
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