It’s still built on Blink so it is not a true Chrome alternative.
Available for anyone to download… only available for Mac/iOS… Windows waitlist… No linux mention…
Okidoki.
Isn’t arc a chromium fork thus subject to Google’s shenanigans?
Yes
And you’re forced to create an account to use it. At least it did a few months back
Yup, anti freedom, and also closed source so extremely privacy invasive as well.
No, it’s not a fork. A fork is when you take the Chromium browser and change it.
This uses the same rendering engine as Chromium - but the browser itself was built from scratch, uses a completely different architecture, and on other operating systems it doesn’t use Chromium at all.
As for “forced to create an account” Arc is temporarily free. Longer term you’ll have to pay a subscription to use it. So it makes sense that you need to sign up.
Except for the millions of Windows users…
Or Linux users
and Linux users
Eh, just another Chromium browser.
It’s chromium, it does that ambient color changing shit I hate, it “anticipates my needs” instead of just waiting my my instruction. This is a browser designed to make me angry.
I tried it for a bit, even daily drove it on my laptop for a while. It has a pretty slick interface, and uses containers so you could, for example, have one container that you are logged into your google account for (say, Youtube), and the rest of your containers you can not log into Google.
The downside is that 1) It’s still not mature as of a month ago. They are making massive changes and adding new features constantly, and 2) It’s still Chromium, so all of the downsides of that are still present.
If they switch to using Firefox or another open-source foundation, I’d be all over it.
Sandboxing/containerizing stored session data like that is really nice. Firefox Multi-Account Containers is an extension maintained by Mozzila and was really the reason I stuck with Firefox even when it really kinda sucked there for a while.
The issue is that Firefox is, as far as I know, much much more difficult to simply use as just the “rendering engine” for some other customized browser.
There’s the arcfox experiment thing that tries to make firefox look and feel the same as arc, but if arc isn’t mature, then this thing is just simply unusable to almost everyone. It’s still probably easier to do than to make a completely new browser using firefox as a base though.
Firefox already has containers. I still have yet to see a browser that beats stock Firefox in functionality, customization and privacy
On mobile I’d suggest Fennec instead of stock Firefox since you can use add-ons without limitation, and don’t need workarounds such as the Firefox nightly.
It’s basically stock with enabled add-ons, and following the official release cycle with 2-3 days delay. Maintained by the original developers of the F-Droid store, so also a highly trustworthy source IMHO.
Thanks for the heads up. I run FF on all my mobile devices so it will be nice to have access to all the addons.
I’d venture out there and say Vivaldi in functionality and customisation.
Privacy probably not, though Vivaldi does quite well.
Sadly it’s a Chromium browser.
Edit: a simple comparison.
According to this Vivaldi protects you from tracking about the same as Chrome and Opera, and both of those provide less tracking protection than even Edge.
Chrome is run by a massive corporation with a reputation for for invasions of privacy. Opera is run by a nation state with a reputation for invasions of privacy.
Vivaldi is far better than either of those.
I’m talking about first and third party websites tracking you. I don’t use Chrome or Opera, but I’d rather only have to trust a browser of my choice, than having to place my trust in thousands of different websites.
The point is, if you care about tracking and privacy, you shouldn’t be using Vivaldi in the first place.
PrivacyTests makes it look like Brave is the only browser you should be using simply based on how good it is at blocking trackers by default. Brave is good, but it has it’s fair share of flaws from UI and terrible syncing to built in crypto and NFT stuff.
This is the key. There are a few projects that can beat it in one way or another, but not all 3. Every project that beats FF in a functional way ends up sacrificing privacy. And those that somehow beat it in privacy are underdeveloped and run into weird compatibility issues or are missing support for key plugins.
It’s not like Firefox doesn’t collect user data at all. Vivaldi is hard to seriously fault in that area.
Unfortunately, Firefox lacks some features that make it a little clumsy at times. But for general use it is great. I keep it installed and use it almost every day because I believe in the browser engine and the need for diversity in that area. It’s just not for every need. At least not for me. That’s where Vivaldi and Edge have to help.
That’s what I’m using now. I think Arc does a better job of organizing containers and tabs, but it’s not worth the privacy/advertisement issues that come along with Chromium.
what about privacy?
From what I gather, while they track feature usage, they claim they won’t track your sites. They still won’t help protect your privacy from other apps, companies, and pages.
From the article:
“The company is also thinking about how to integrate AI into the browser.”
LOL - how absurd. I can’t even tell if this is a real product or just a meme?
I hate it already! ~Strawberry
AI AI AI Generative AI
Have you heard about AI yet??
I’m not surprised. Edge has it integrated already and it’s annoying.
It seems like every app is trying to force integration of a version of ChatGPT. It would make way more sense if the OS just had their “assistant” use AI, and just let it recognize the app your using and help out if needed. No need for an AI integration with every app.
While you’re not wrong, the implementation there is very complicated. My solution, which works quite excellently, is if I want to use GPT, I go use GPT
I agree with you. I personally don’t want ChatGPT on my OS either. I just also don’t want it on all of my apps too.
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That’s why they target Apple users. They don’t understand what closed source means, nor care. They just want flashy new thing.
Safari is open source. Also: opensource.apple.com
I have zero interest in a chrom* fork.
That’s not safari
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Safari is a very thin set of changes to WebKit, you can just run & build WebKit nightlies, which I do for web dev, so I don’t screw up my main browser. You have zero idea what you’re talking about, you just read a wiki page.
Macs let you run anything you want, obviously. iOS does, too, as long as you’re a developer sideloading. People who can’t hit compile shouldn’t be allowed to run random shit on their phones which are 2FA etc. keys.
You don’t need a 100 per year dev account to sideload? It’s what I remember hearing.
you need pay a subscription every year to publish your app on the app store. You can sign your app and install it but it’s temporary and you need to repeat it every time it expires afaik.
But you need a mac for it. Don’tyou just love Apple’s fancy walled gardens?
No, you can just download Xcode free from the Mac App Store, or off developer.apple.com. Only the App Store needs the fee.
Seems to require a mac. So I guess it’s slightly more than 100 a year ;) Sorry if I’m wrong, can’t check as they also require an account for downloads.
Safari is a very thin set of changes to WebKit, you can just run & build WebKit nightlies,
you don’t seem to understand software licenses, so please stop overselling yourself. Just because a software uses open source code, it doesn’t automatically become open-source. You’re first claim was Safari is open-source. It’s not
and compiling a browser for webdev. lol
You clearly didn’t spend any effort trying it, learning how it works, or reading the license. It is literally a browser, just not named Safari and using your saved preferences, which is a good thing when you’re developing. Not that you can.
I award you zero points.
Oh my god this comment section is annoying…
Yes, we get it! It’s a Chromium fork!
Chrome bad, Firefox good, we know.
And there are plenty of reasons as to why it’s a bad thing but come on, probably more than half of the comments is just this. There’s a lot more to it.
I don’t use Arc, because the whole company gives me “bullshit vibes”. The whole startup thing with big ideas and bright colors… and no concrete monetisation plan… I don’t know. I’ve seen too much of that and I can’t trust it. That and the whole “wanting to integrate AI@ just raises the “startup bullshit” meter even more for me.
However. I’m keeping an eye on it, and I did got to try it during its invite phase and, it sure is something else. This is not just another Chromium fork. It does indeed have big ideas about UI and UX design and challenges the way we do things when browsing the web. It’s trying to be something new and innovative. I respect that.
Web browsers have been feeling the same for years and years. To the average user, there’s no fundamental difference between Chrome, Firefox, Brave, Edge, or Safari, other than: “They look slightly different ” and “This one looks like a crypto bullshit scam”. They will instantly notice the difference with Arc. It looks actually different and it feels different, because it is.
It’s just chrome with different pitched bells and whistles.
Give me some WebKit based alternatives or something interesting…
Here’s a new WebKit based project that may interest you: https://browser.kagi.com/
Yeeaaah I have been using Orion for a little bit and it seems pretty good on desktop at least.
Lol tf is this absolute trash. It has every red flag in the book. First off, a wait-list, wtf? It’s closed source obviously, which immediately means it’s privacy invasive and anti freedom. It’s Apple only, which how did they absolutely fuck that up when it’s just a reskinned chromium which already did all the cross platform work for them? Who is this browser for? What can it do that Firefox + extensions cannot do? And lastly, why would you support internet monopolies and support the 1 millionth generic chromium reskin? What complete garbage of software.
“available for anyone to download”
. . .
“It’s still Mac and iOS only”
ಠ_ಠ
I just downloaded to confirm if it still requires signing up for an account to use it (I was on the wait list and ditched it immediately because of this). It still does. I’m ditching it immediately.
I may be a browser whore, always trying anything new, but fuck that. Make it optional for sync and such but lemme use it without signing into your service to see if I want to do so first.
If you feel the same, you aren’t missing much.
I would consider downloading it if only for testing since I work in SaaS, but a browser, Apple only, subscription based?
That’s an edge case I don’t need to consider.
“Unsupported Browser” is the only effort I need to put into it.
Haha, Edge case.
You can download the Mac binary on Linux or Windows
You can’t do anything with it but it’s technically correct… the best type of correct.
So that you will click on the article even though you are not using Mac and iOS.
If you’re going to use a chromium browser, use degoogled chromium. Much better.
Chromium - and thus Google - dominates the Internet way too much. This causes trouble and has the potential to cause a lot more trouble in the future.
This has been discussed many times before, of course.
