this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Firefox already has containers. I still have yet to see a browser that beats stock Firefox in functionality, customization and privacy

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Eh, just another Chromium browser.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Have you heard about AI yet??

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Tbf, it says download, not use.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Isn’t arc a chromium fork thus subject to Google’s shenanigans?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Yup, anti freedom, and also closed source so extremely privacy invasive as well.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

And you're forced to create an account to use it. At least it did a few months back

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

It's still built on Blink so it is not a true Chrome alternative.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Available for anyone to download... only available for Mac/iOS... Windows waitlist... No linux mention...

Okidoki.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

It's nice that they are trying to add new features and make it original in some way. But I will have to wait for Linux support, sadly.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Closed source, which automatically makes a web browser dogshit and completely useless.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Why are we excited about closed source Chromium garbage?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

The company is also thinking about how to integrate AI into the browser.

🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s just chrome with different pitched bells and whistles.

Give me some WebKit based alternatives or something interesting…

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

@borlax

@kalanggam

Here’s a new WebKit based project that may interest you: https://browser.kagi.com/

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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:

  • Today tabs go away at the end of the day (you can change this to be longer, I don't recommend doing that). They go into an Archive and can easily be recovered.
  • Pinned tabs aren't like pinned tabs are synced between all your devices/browser windows and they stick around until you get rid of them. The process to create and remove a pinned tab is really simple and they are organised in groups and folders. Pinned tabs won't necessarily bne running in RAM, so in a way they're almost like a bookmark.
  • Favorite tabs appear as just an icon instead of a full tab, and they appear in all of your groups (within a profile). They are also pre-loaded — handy for web apps that take a while to load.
  • A Little tab tab doesn't have tabs - it harkens back to the old days when the web was a lot simpler. It's useful for quickly looking something up and then closing it a few seconds later. Links from other apps open in this mode by default.
  • Split tabs are a single tab that contains multiple webpages - e.g. you might have your zoom meeting and your notes as a single tab.
  • Popup tabs are similar to "little" tabs, except instead of being in a separate window they are embedded in a tab. If you have, for example, your issue tracker as a pinned tab, and you load up a link to a different domain name, it will open in one of these. You can go back to your issue tracker by closing the popup tab instead of hitting the back button six times... but it will still be a single tab for both your issue tracker and the link that the issue tracker took you to.
  • Incognito works the same as any other browser.

Yes - it is closed source... but it uses an unmodified open source rendering engine and for me that's good enough.

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