This was a timely reminder to check this out again, as I had read about it late last year and promptly forgotten with no access to it. I was left with two questions after reading this article, though I’m sure more will pop up as I start playing with it more.
First, what engine is driving the browser. Might have missed it in @ace’s article, but google (in Safari…so many ironies there) quickly revealed it’s Chromium based, which was my guess. That makes me wonder if it suffers from the same issues that Chrome does. The biggest issue for me has always been resource usage. With the way Arc is described as keeping pinned tabs always ready, makes me wonder. Would be interested to hear other’s experiences, as I’ve tried to avoid Chromium in general. due to general feeling of clunk (Chrome, electron-based apps, etc).
Second, I often use bookmarks to save references to information I want to find again in the future (link-rot not withstanding). Most are topic or project organized by folder, and I’ll be the first to admit they could use some spring cleaning. It works fairly well, and saves the pain of trying to search for something I remember visiting in Safari’s history from months ago.
With Arc’s shunning of bookmarks, what’s the suggested way to maintain links for future reference? Seems like pinning is wrong, and a Space for every project/topic would quickly be overwhelming. Searching through all history (assuming eventual syncing between devices) is an unnecessarily large haystack if I’m willing to mark something as worth referencing for later.
(Would be interested to hear how others manage this use case, but don’t want to veer this away from Arc.)
Overall, my impression is if your time on a computer revolves around web browser/apps for productivity (as opposed to basic consumption of information), then Arc has the potential to be transformative as Adam has found. For those that mostly consume information through their browser, my first impression is that it might be more than is needed to solve the main pain point of tab creep.
Yes, it is Chromium; can’t believe I forgot to mention that among everything else. As far as performance goes, it’s been entirely acceptable, though I don’t think it’s as fast as it could be, partly because every so often a release talks about improving the performance.
I did note that pinned tabs are just like bookmarks most of the time—they consume no resources as far as I can tell. Only when they’re in active or recent use are they live. If you load a pinned tab that you haven’t used in a while (not sure how long), it clearly loads from scratch.
One refinement I also forgot to mention is that there’s a nicely subtle loading animation bar at the top of the window while a page is loading, if it takes more than a second or two.
Amusingly, @glennf said in editing that he has significant resource/performance issues with lots of tabs open in Safari.
No, pinning is right. There’s no difference between a pinned tab and what other browsers do with bookmarks except that Arc opens the contents of the pinned tab within that tab, rather than creating a new one.
I can’t tell you how Spaces will work for you, but I’ve found that I keep the bookmark-like pinned tabs (things I don’t use often) in folders in the Spaces where they logically go (Personal, TidBITS, FLRC). I could imagine a different organization scheme where you’d have a Space for a particular topic, if you had hundreds of bookmarks in a set of carefully curated top-level folders. Sub-folders are a big win here.
Ahh, I think I missed that Pinned tabs could be organized into folders, and I think the term “pinned” was making me think individual links from use in other software. Given the number of folders I have for bookmarks (multi-level deep for sub-topics), spaces did seem the wrong idea. Folders I can work with, though tags would be even better.
I should also note I didn’t let Arc import from Safari as I wanted to start with a blank slate to test/explore.
Adam gave a great answer, but, per above, I’m a user of Pinboard’s bookmarking system, and while I haven’t tried Arc yet (and can’t quite wrap my mind around how the two might play together), Pinboard might make a useful add-on for an Arc user who ALSO wants a nice simple easily-searched list of some URLs (with titles + optional notes and tags), as a separate (web-resident) entity.
I could see an Arc enthusiast saying this fails to leverage the full power of the app, but I often find it useful to decline to buy in 100% to new models (really just another way of saying “personalization”).
It’s easy to import/export Pinboard bookmarks en mass if you ever want to combine (or break back out)
I skimmed Adam’s article and decided Arc’s not for me. It’s good to have such a thorough explanation for those who’d find it useful, and I applaud Adam for this deep dive and hope it serves the community well.
Why isn’t it for me? I’m nearly 80 years old now, a retired professor still doing research, reading, writing, and publishing. So I’m going to express a curmudgeonly view! Most of my work (as a scholar) on the computer isn’t done in a browser but still done in applications (MS Word and related applications such as Scrivener; also audio editing, image editing, and of course web browsing and email). Just keeping up with all the changes in Word through various updates is now a bit of a pain for me. As soon as I’ve become accustomed to one way of doing something, Word makes an improvement and I have to learn a different way to do it. Or not. My web browsing is chiefly for information and collaboration, but it’s relatively uncomplicated and I’d like it to remain so. In short, I’m finally at the age and place after more than 40 years of using personal computers (my first one was an Osborne) that I’d rather work with what I have, even though it’s less efficient, than spend a lot of time learning lots of new things so that I can work a little more efficiently. When I was younger I didn’t feel that way, but I’m afraid my brain is filled with so much obsolete information that it scarcely has room for much more. Anyone want a lesson in how to splice reel audiotape?
I always like to try something new. I haven’t even read Adam’s article yet but signed up for the invite anyway yesterday. I already received the download link this morning. I’m excited to try it out.
all this sounded very interesting - and i’ve now downloaded a copy - only to be stuck at the first hurdle: requiring an account to use the tool.
While ARC says it won’t sell data - and only share it with their partners for service support - they are tracking full telemetry - not aggregating, and explicitly associating with one’s own id.
Considering ALL the information this one app would be managing, how is that kind of overview not a concern?
What am i missing?
Brave doesn’t require an account; firefox doesn’t require an account.
But it doesn’t seem folks here are mentioning the terms and conditions/privacy.
Would be delighted to have a tidbits expert look at this and reflect on that part of the behind the interface interaction.
Thanks very much. Looking forward to the insights.
Well, in less than 24 hours of running Arc, with mostly positive experiences, I just found an issue which (if not fixed) will make it a non-starter for me. Arc does not appear to preserve multiple windows across a quit and re-launch.
I use Spaces in my setup. I have a browser window in three of them. It has certain content, is a certain size, and is in a certain place on one of my two monitors when I’m using that Space. Safari will remember everything about each of the windows that is open when it is quit, and will recreate them when it is next launched (except that they all open in the primary Space, so I have to drag two of them to their respective homes).
