I have seen a lot of stuff in the new browser Arc this past year. It’s supposedly a new take on the browser. It only works on the Mac for now and as I was curious, I decided to give it a try. I installed it and after going through it’s wizard, it got stuck and would not let me actually use it as a browser. Web searches and reinstalls have been to no avail! Curious still, I did a bit of a deep dive on the browser and found that it lacks the WebInspector or any kind of Dev Tools. I have noticed that Chrome really gets bogged down with tabs and even Firefox feels a bit stale. I did use Opera for a bit and later gave Vivaldi a try. Several sources seem to suggest that Vivaldi is still a great choice for the power user, so I decided to give it another go. So glad I did!!

On of the main areas that Arc claims it improves the browsing experience is in keeping the tabs to the left rather then the top. Vivaldi allows this as well. No only that, but I’ve always like the right sidebar in Vivaldi that lets you open sites as well. It’s really great for documentation that you might need while allowing you the site you are working on in the main window. Add to this web tools and the ability to install Chrome Extensions…so my password manager can also port over easily enough, and it is plain that this is a great browser! I personal have decided to use it again!

UPDATE:

I did finally get Arc up and running. Weird bug in the Wizard I guess! I have given it a bit of a try and I honestly prefer Vivaldi! Arc is a fine browser and I am sure it will work just fine for normal users, but as a power user, it is not quite the same!

UPDATED: 02/12/2024

After giving Arc another good try, I am realizing what the hype is all about. First of all, I was wrong about the dev tools. You can turn them on. They are automaticaly turned on if the domain is localhost. The ai stuff in Arc is really impressive. You can also split tabs…and the overall tab organization is off the charts! Vivaldi is still a good browser…but give Arc a try!