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.
Firefox already has containers. I still have yet to see a browser that beats stock Firefox in functionality, customization and privacy
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.
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.
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.
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.
Eh, just another Chromium browser.
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.
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?
AI AI AI Generative AI
Have you heard about AI yet??
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.
"available for anyone to download"
. . .
"It’s still Mac and iOS only"
ಠ_ಠ
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.
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.
anyone
Lol, it's just on mac. No windows version or even plans for a Linux one. Not that I'd use another chromium fork.
Tbf, it says download, not use.
Thought I'd throw my opinion into the ring here, since literally every comment is shitting on this.
Arc is a design project, that also happens to be a web browser. If you're just calling this "another chromium fork", I think you're completely missing the point of who this product is for. First of all, it's not for you.
Secondly, the design changes that arc is working on perfecting are pretty groundbreaking. The ability to customize the css and functionality of any web page without code and it saves your profiles for future use with a marketplace is super interesting to me. So much UI on modern websites is entirely unnecessary. As a designer, this is a dream.
Also, nobody is mentioning that their working on a Windows version THAT NATIVELY RUNS SWIFT ON WINDOWS. This is a big deal for future cross compatibility in general, why are so many people not looking at this?
Anyway that's my rant. Trying to voice my opinions even if they're the odd ones out to prevent a Lemmy based echo chamber. Feel free to disagree.
The whole problem is that the free internet is dying because google is starting to get a monopoly over it.
So, yes, "just another Chromium browser" is a very valid criticism, because it quite literally aids in jeopardizing the future of the internet.
Well why didn’t you say we get cool trinkets and shiny doodads?! That’s totally worth handing control over the entire internet to a single corporation.
The ability to customize the css and functionality of any web page without code
Isn't that something other browsers have been able to do for ages with add-ons like stylus, greasemonkey and others. it doesn't seem all that groundbreaking.
People might be hesitant to download a different browser what they can accomplish with a simple addon.
what's the big deal about swift?? the language has been cross-platform for quite some time now, it's just there wasn't much point for it on neither windows nor linux outside of "oh look i can write a hello world in swift"
good on them for utilizing it but I don't think it's revolutionary or anything
If this browser is as slow as their website, I can't say it's looking too good. It also appears to be just another Chromium browser, because I guess we needed more of those. And it appears to be closed source. Hard pass. ~Strawberry
Edit: No plans for a Linux port and they're planning on shoehorning A"I" into it. I hate it already.
It uses whatever rending engine works best on the platform you're using - Chromium's main advantage is the extensive plugin library so that's the one they use on most platforms, though they have said they have internal builds that run on other rending engines and those work fine (except for plugins). If there's every any reason to drop Chromium they will.
As for being "just another" anything - it really isn't. The way tabs work is fundamentally different to any other browser. At a glance, it just looks like a basic browser with tabs in the sidebar instead of across the top but it's so much more than that.
For example most browser have three types of tab - Regular, Pinned, and Incognito. Arc has "Today" tabs, Pinned Tabs, Favourite Tabs (these are closer to "Pinned" tabs in other browsers), "Little" tabs, Split tabs, Popup Tabs, and Incognito tabs.
Notice there is no "regular" on that list - none of the tabs in Arc behave like a regular browser tab. Arc also doesn't have bookmarks - tabs replace bookmarks. Here's the breakdown:
Yes - it is closed source... but it uses an unmodified open source rendering engine and for me that's good enough.
The company is also thinking about how to integrate AI into the browser.
🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩
Why are we excited about closed source Chromium garbage?
ACAB
All Chromes Are Bastards
Chromium with a new UI - what an innovation.
Edit: no way - you need to sign up to use it.
Edit 2: I thought I might as well check it out but not only do you need to sign up, you need to download it for MacOS to finish the signup process.
It's still built on Blink so it is not a true Chrome alternative.
Chromium and excellent do not belong in the same sentence.
It’s just chrome with different pitched bells and whistles.
Give me some WebKit based alternatives or something interesting…
Except for the millions of Windows users...
Or Linux users
and Linux users
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.
I've attempted to understand what makes this browser good, time after time, and I still just don't get it. They claim that they've ripped out the UI and created it from scratch, to improve workflow and how we approach browsers, but it's done nothing but infuriate me, because they just built a gesture based interface with layers upon layers of hidden stuff, none of which is intuitive, and it's for the desktop. Not to mention the other blunders with their extensions
Is it just me, or is all they’ve done to move everything to the left sidebar and use macOS’s UI widgets?
Available for anyone to download... only available for Mac/iOS... Windows waitlist... No linux mention...
Okidoki.
Closed source, which automatically makes a web browser dogshit and completely useless.
Oh my god this comment section is annoying…
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.
If you’re going to use a chromium browser, use degoogled chromium. Much better.
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.