Oh! I am also a Things user though I haven’t upgraded it in years due to cost. Same here - but for some of my projects it would be the same on paper and I have to say it’s easier to find things in Things!
Are you also a tabaholic? I was/am hoping Arc can help corral my tab-abundance tendency.
Diane
In short, yes. For years, I’ve read the New York Times and Washington Post by digital subscription. My pattern is to CMD-click links I’m interested in to open new tabs while I’m scanning the home page, then read each story in its tab and close the tab when I’ve finished that story. I could have 15 tabs open for that purpose, and it came sort-of close to the analog experience of “reading the paper.”
I also had some bookmarks in the Bookmarks Bar set up to open entire folders of tabs; one way I’d use that with the Times was with a folder for the landing pages I was interested in. One click and they’d all open up in tabs.
One of the big concepts with Arc is that a Space can resemble those open tabs. So with a Space set up for media reading, I can have them right there, can open temporary tabs (links), and know it will all be cleaned up for me by the next day. Functionally it feels like a huge improvement on the opening-multiple-tabs model.
So, I have not even begun to explore the other big concept in Arc—Profiles. It looks like you could set up, say, a “Personal Profile” where your shopping info and other personal stuff lives in Spaces, and a “Client Profile” where all your client spaces reside.
All said without any personal experience…yet. But that might be worth looking into. It’s not as prominent in the Arc UI, but it seems to be there.
I did setup a couple of Profiles after stumbling across a video about them. But I am not (yet) sure I can do a “Client” profile because I think it share things across the spaces/tabs.
I could see setting up a “Client ABC” Profile because that client has multiple entities, but at this time I don’t need to separate those entities.
I need to play with that more - and look for an article so I don’t have to watch the video again.
Diane
Just to clarify, when you say it’s free to download does that mean it’s also free to use? What is their monetization method?
According to Crunchbase, it appears that they’re currently living off of VC funding.
If they operate like other browsers they will make money from search-engine royalties. Basically a kickback for sending your searches via some kind of affiliate link or cookie.
According to a Reddit post from last year, they are planning a freemium model, where enterprise customers can pay for more advanced features.
Have tried it and like it, but find I don’t really use it (yet). Since I had memory problems with Safari (and Firefox to some extent), I realised I needed to handle tabs in a new way, but Arc is not very helpful here. My thinking now is that links should be handled from a plain text document or from notes in Apple Notes (or something better: plain text notes that could be synced with icloud across devices, but I have yet to find that app …). I found that the only browsers that can open that can open two links at once in separate tabs are Safari and Firefox, but Firefox is useless in handling tabs compared to Safari. Still I like Brave though as it works better (due to Chromium) with some websites, but could have used Arc for those pages too. Safari still comes across as working best most of the time. (I didn’t quite like Orion – reinstalled it to test the tabbing. Opera is falling out of favour and both Orion and Opera feels a bit shady these days … . Vivaldi comes across as a better browser. Use a discontinued Maiar browser only for Google Maps. Firefox cannot be escaped if one use Facebook as it is the only browser that has a plugin that makes FB usable. Discontinued Tweaks for Twitter makes Safari necessary, but Twitter stinks and consumes too much RAM. Google services I mostly send to Opera … . UniFi equipment needs the f*cking Chrome browser. etc.)
Maybe I’ll give it a try again. I currently keep two browsers open all the time: Chrome and Firefox. Chrome is what I use for most of my work. FireFox I use for certain set tasks involving servers. Safari I rarely open. But it works best with Hulu over VPN from Japan.
I’d really like something where my tab groups can be managed better (i.e. I can open them all again whenever I need to). Is Arc good for that?
How about screen captures?
I wonder why I need another browser actually.
Tried Arc and can’t think of any good reason to spend the time required to learn how to use it efficiently. Safari suffices for my needs.
It has revolutionized my work habits. I wear several “hats” (two universities, one consulting gig, personal stuff, general professional) and the Spaces are a godsend. They keep adding useful features (as Adam points out here – some new to me). I started as soon as Adam wrote his first post and I have not looked back. Some really cool features – for example if you click away from a tab with a running video it will pop out on the other screen (I have an external screen + the Mac Book) and continue while you work on whatever you clicked to. And I agree about the Shift-Cmd-C to copy the current web address. And Cmd-S to hide/show the sidebar, to get a nice full view. So many things… Also, my Zotero and LastPass extensions work seamlessly.
I’m not sure I understand the first question, Doug. Are you talking about something like Safari’s capability to open an entire folder of tabs in a new space?
A screen capture capability is built in to Arc, and it allows both full-window and iterated (draw a framing box) captures. I haven’t used it because I still use Skitch despite Evernote’s support muttering about how they’re not developing it any more and they wish it would go away.
No, that’s the entire point of Profiles; they’re associated with Spaces. So if you have a Space and a Profile for Client A, a separate Space and Profile for Client B can (at least as I understand it; I haven’t needed this personally) have different logins for the same sites.
It is, because it’s built around the concept of pinned tabs, which you can collect in folders if you want. For instance, I have a folder of pinned tabs to the release notes for all Apple operating system release notes. Whenever Apple releases new versions, I just open that folder and click the pinned tabs I want to read. As I write, I can easily flip back and forth between them and my Google Doc, or create a separate window so I can switch among them in one window while writing in the other.
I’m not quite sure what you’re asking for here, although Arc does have its own File > Capture tool that “sees” parts of Web pages. I haven’t really started using it it because I’m so accustomed to normal screenshots with CleanShot X. But here’s what a capture of your post looks like.
I wondered about the business model that allows Arc to be developed and supported and found this that fits my view: I want to try the trendy Arc browser, but not if they force me to register an account
I think that is worth a read even if you don’t mind having to sign in to use Arc.
Tech sites try to create controversy whenever possible to increase ire-related engagement and gin up impressions. The author goes on and on without apparently undertaking the research to find out why Arc needs an account, which is easily found on the company’s site.
In short, an account is necessary so Arc can sync data between devices and support the collaborative aspect of Easels. It also facilitates communication with users—I’ve now heard from people who have had responses from what sounds like a small support staff.
I can’t get exercised about the need for an account. I have nearly a thousand accounts in 1Password and haven’t experienced any negative side effects because of it.
I’ve been using Arc for several months now and really like it. I have encountered various problems, though, and like Adam, responsiveness has been poor. I’m willing to give them some time to get up to speed, but its annoying.
Some of the problems appear to be caused by incompatibilities with extensions. I have DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials and uBlock Origin installed and enabled, and as a result, when Arc renders certain web pages links to videos don’t get displayed. Disabling one or the other “fixes” the problem (but then exposes the many ads that had been nicely blocked).
I’ve also noticed that Wirecutter seems to think I’ve got cookies disabled, and as a result, doesn’t show me reader comments. This isn’t related to the extension incompatibilities problem.
In both these cases I can switch back to Safari. But that’s reminiscent of early days in the Internet, when some sites would only work with certain browsers.
I saw a comment from The Browser Company that multiple ad-blocking extensions can be problematic for performance, so I’d wonder if uBlock Origin could be configured to do what DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials does.
I’m seeing the same thing you are with Wirecutter comments. I’ve reported it as a bug too.
Even before Arc, I’ve often run into sites that work better or worse in a particular browser. I’m not sure we ever really moved past that.
I’m really enjoying Arc which I’m using on a Macbook Air running MacOS Monterey. I feel I’m still learning how to get the most from it but but it’s rapidly becoming my browser of choice. It really provides a refreshing new approach to the web-brosing experience
Check me on this, but I think they started testing for multiple ad-blocking extensions in a release about six weeks ago, and offering a choice to disable (by user choice).
It wasn’t clear from their release notes whether Arc checks generally or only at import from Chrome.
Y’all had me scared about the learning curve on this, comparing it to vi (“vim” to you whippersnappers) and all. I’m puzzled. I was thrilled with it ten minutes after launching.
Maybe I’m just an unsophisticated browser user, but I’m missing nothing and I’m absolutely delighted to have the tabs & profiles in the sidebar. (Yeah, I know MSFT Edge does that for tabs but I have deep emotional scars that prevent me from even considering an MSFT product.)
It hasn’t changed my life like it has @ace’s, but it’s great so far.
