Of course this comment section also warrants a mention of Zen Browser, another Arc alternative that's been going for a while already, is based on Firefox, and is available cross-platform: https://zen-browser.app
I am sort of working on the same thing. It is mostly for my own use so far, I might share it at some point.
What I’ve focused on besides the basic features of the arc sidebar is memory usage.
I am a tab power user, in Brave I had 370 tabs “open”. Each tab still takes resources when asleep though. But I use these tabs more as bookmarks. So they are asleep 99.99% of the time, if not more.
The browser I’ve been working on looks a lot like Crest because they both take Arc as a starting point. I am interested to see where they both move towards from there.
I don't get the appeal of the Arc-esque browsers. They look very clean in screenshots, but I tried both Arc and Zen and never got to feel productive with them. Can someone enlighten me?
- switching between spaces switches my mental space too. I read and scan website differently based on what space I'm in. Like switching between tasks. Might be personal.
- "Little Arc" - just a window that opens in the view you're in, on any other app, and disappears after a set time, really is great for me to quickly look something up and have it be gone.
- Vertical tabs instead of bookmark folders work better for me as it opens the link "within" the folder, instead of a new tab
Not saying this is only available in Arc / Zen, but this is what makes it work for me.
Finally. Most important features that kept me from switching to chrome, brave or any other browser was:
1. The sidebar with tabs that shares the same state over multiple windows.
2. The preview windows that open directly where you open a link.
It's open source, and it's not part of the Chromium monopoly threatening the open web. As a direct result of that, you still have uBlock working without any compromises.
Of course this comment section also warrants a mention of Zen Browser, another Arc alternative that's been going for a while already, is based on Firefox, and is available cross-platform: https://zen-browser.app
What I’ve focused on besides the basic features of the arc sidebar is memory usage.
I am a tab power user, in Brave I had 370 tabs “open”. Each tab still takes resources when asleep though. But I use these tabs more as bookmarks. So they are asleep 99.99% of the time, if not more.
The browser I’ve been working on looks a lot like Crest because they both take Arc as a starting point. I am interested to see where they both move towards from there.
- switching between spaces switches my mental space too. I read and scan website differently based on what space I'm in. Like switching between tasks. Might be personal.
- "Little Arc" - just a window that opens in the view you're in, on any other app, and disappears after a set time, really is great for me to quickly look something up and have it be gone.
- Vertical tabs instead of bookmark folders work better for me as it opens the link "within" the folder, instead of a new tab
Not saying this is only available in Arc / Zen, but this is what makes it work for me.