I admit it: the new Arc browser discouraged me from the start.
On the one hand, there is the name of the manufacturer: The Browser Company of New York. Are we supposed to imagine the browser being designed in a converted blacksmith’s forge in Brooklyn, offering farm-to-table HTML? And it was designed for the Mac. Then there was my attempt to try the beta several weeks ago: the browser froze while I was trying to create an account and wouldn’t let me through. A request for assistance went unanswered.
But that’s not really fair. So when *sigh* The Browser Company of New York has announced that its free Arc browser is finally ready for Windows users to try alongside Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and others. I tried it. And you know what? Actually, it’s okay.
The problem I face, however, is that Arc Browser wants you to learn its methods. I don’t mind the quirks, but I’ve never liked the “you just don’t understand” attitude. And there’s definitely a bit of that throughout Arc.
Full disclosure: I have never spoken to The Browser Co. and have never been offered a presentation or press briefing. This is good, because it puts me in the shoes of an average user. From the start, the experience is familiar: you’re asked to download a small installer, which downloads a more complete package.
Unfortunately, Arc is part of the new generation of browsers that require a username and password, period. There is no anonymous option, at least when it comes to Arc. To use it, you will need to provide an email address, as well as a username and password. For mobile, Arc is limited to iOS support – not even a true mobile browser, but rather some sort of weird sidebar. Android users are out of luck at the moment.
Mark Hachman / IDG
Mark Hachman / IDG
Mark Hachman / IDG
As you might expect, you have the option to import bookmarks and passwords from another browser; However, I was only able to select one browser at a time. (I have a version dedicated to work and another linked to my personal account, and I had to select one.) You can import from other browsers later, via the Settings menu.
And then there’s this thing: a weird badge. Is this some sort of clandestine gadget?
Mark Hachman / IDG
Mark Hachman / IDG
Mark Hachman / IDG
Once you open Arc, you’re faced with something unusual: a blank page. Whiteness. I’m used to browsers offering me content or suggested web pages when I open a new tab, so this white void was…peaceful? Zen? Proof that TBCoNY hasn’t polished Arc all the way yet? Maybe.
The other major change proposed by Arc is the removal of the search bar, or “omnibar,” at the top of the page. If you’re on a web page like pcworld.com, you’ll see “pcworld.com” at the top of the page – and that’s it. The user interface is extremely minimal: forward and back buttons, a way to copy the link (?), a “control center” describing the basic attributes of the site, and a “split screen” icon at the top right that opens two windows side by side. side windows. That’s it.
Mark Hachman / IDG
Mark Hachman / IDG
Mark Hachman / IDG
My instinctive reaction was to point the mouse at the address bar, much like grabbing a handrail if you tripped on the stairs. But there isn’t one – and there isn’t a row of tabs either. Arc places tabs in a vertical column on the left, usually an option on other browsers. It’s just a little jarring when Arc makes this the default.
If you TO DO want to open another website, you will need to click on the site address at the top of the screen. This opens what Arc calls the “Command Bar,” which is a floating URL window with a list of recent sites. It works just like the search/URL bar you’re used to, but there’s nothing really telling you there either. Even the menu option to get there is obtuse: you have to open the Settings menu by clicking the little “A” in the upper left corner, then navigate to Tabs > Open Command Bar to find it.
And the bookmarks? On the one hand, Arc brings everything together into what it calls “Spaces,” a collection of bookmarks and tabs that you can organize into their own groups. Again, I’ve seen this in other browsers.
But it’s all in the even column: your favorites And open tabs. Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, and other browsers typically provide one or three lines: one for your bookmarks, one for current tabs, and one for the URL bar itself. Arc simply provides a seemingly endless column of information. Arc may think its way is…better, but I’m not a fan of letting aesthetics get in the way of functionality.
Mark Hachman / IDG
Mark Hachman / IDG
Mark Hachman / IDG
But how does Arc work? Pretty good. The browser opened a PDF, imported and inserted my passwords into a few random sites I tried. (It doesn’t yet support passwords, though.) And when you prompt it to open a web page, boom! It simply is.
Arc is a little different from most browsers because it uses a version of Swift, rather than Chromium, to render a page. But it’s hard to call Swift or Arc a superior browser without running benchmarks, which I didn’t do. The one thing that I think makes a huge difference is that Arc seems to natively integrate uBlock Origin, a great ad blocker that, when enabled, gives you the content of a web page and very little else . Arc therefore renders pages in just a fraction of a second – just like Edge or Chrome if you also add uBlock Origin to it.
Is it effective? According to Task Manager, even 100 tabs (sorry) open in Microsoft Edge consumed 2.3 GB. Twenty-two tabs in Vivaldi consumed 474 MB and 13 tabs in Arc consumed 391 MB. But wait, I only had three tabs open in Arc! I’m not sure what Arc (or Windows) was trying to do here.
Arc also lacks sophisticated AI features that other browsers have started to implement, such as the ChatGPT integration in browsers like Brave, or the new image generation feature that Opera added this week. It remains to be seen whether TBCoNY views AI as essential or just another element to be pruned.
Mark Hachman / IDG
Mark Hachman / IDG
Mark Hachman / IDG
I’ll keep an eye on Arc, of course. But I don’t plan to use it much. Other browser makers are simply more advanced, and I’m just not inclined to chase a UI that forces me to adjust my browsing behavior. That said, there is always room for competition and some good ideas. If Arc ends up releasing a flagship feature, I would expect its competitors to adopt or improve upon it. We can all support such improvements.
