I have been seeing news about Arc online, but as someone with a late-stage laziness, I am too lazy to find an invitation code to use it, and I generally don't dare to use apps in my production environment during the testing period. Recently, Arc finally released the official version, and I downloaded it immediately to experience it. After using it for about half a day, I decided to switch my main browser from Chrome to Arc. In addition to Arc's stunning appearance that struck a chord with me, the features and interaction methods tailored for internet workers are hard to resist.
Introduction#
As a traditional art form in the internet era, the browser, as an entry software, has long been overshadowed by the wave of mobile internet. Nowadays, many young people haven't even come into contact with the IE browser, which once dominated almost all market shares thanks to its operating system integration. Now, with the emergence of Arc, it has captured everyone's attention. Putting aside other factors, the software's motion design is almost present in all interactive parts of the software, and the word "cool" can be seen in almost every article discussing Arc.
Out of interest, I looked up some information about Arc:
Arc is a free web browser developed by The Browser Company, a startup founded by Josh Miller and Hursh Agrawal. It was released on April 19, 2022, after a closed beta test. Arc is available for macOS and iOS, but users can only download the browser after registering on a waiting list. A Windows version is currently under development and is expected to be released in 2023.
—— Arc Browser - Wikipedia
Yes, the name of this company is The Browser Company, a browser company based in New York, USA. In the early stages, it received an investment of 18 million dollars. Many members of this company have held important positions in well-known enterprises, including Darin Fisher, co-founder of Chrome. Arc is based on Chromium and developed using the Swift language. In other words, almost all data from Chrome, such as plugins, browsing history, cookies, passwords, and bookmarks, can be seamlessly migrated to Arc.
Revolutionary Tag Management#
If you previously used a browser with tabs and an address bar at the top, you may need some time to get used to the sidebar design. Once you adapt, you will gain more space utilization. In the era of large screens, screen width is already excessive. Many web pages define a maximum width with whitespace on both sides, resulting in a lot of wasted space. Web content is mostly vertically oriented, and height space is the least likely to be wasted. Therefore, using a sidebar to place tabs is a choice that maximizes space utilization.
In traditional browsers, entering a URL opens a new tab. Over time, many tabs accumulate in the tab bar, and you may forget which tabs were opened earlier. Especially for frequently used tool websites, they are usually kept open in the browser for quick access. However, when there are too many tabs, it becomes difficult to find them, and you may end up opening another page, creating a vicious cycle. Of course, you can use bookmarks to manage these tabs. Finding a page in the bookmarks and opening it requires more time and effort compared to tabs that are always present in the tab bar. As a result, tabs stored in bookmarks are either rarely clicked for a long time or get lost among endless bookmark items.
Arc categorizes tabs into three types: Today, Pinned, and Favorite. Although they have different categories, they are essentially tab items that switch web pages without opening new tabs. Let's introduce the differences between them.
- Today
Tabs in this category have a default automatic cleaning time of 12 hours, which can be changed in the settings. They change with the Space. - Pinned
Supports creating folders for management and changes with the Space. - Favorite
Located at the top of the tab bar, you can add up to 12 tabs. They do not change with the Space.
All these types are essentially tab pages that can be opened by clicking. However, when clicking on a link from Pinned or Favorite, a marker appears to indicate that the current tab is not the path when it was added, allowing you to quickly return to the original path. If you open a new page from within a web page or navigate to an external site, a floating window will appear, allowing you to operate and use it temporarily without opening a new tab. Of course, if needed, you can enlarge this floating window into a Today tab.
There is no need to deliberately control the categories of these tabs because Today is set to automatically clean every 12 hours. After using it for a few days, you will know which pages you don't want Arc to clean automatically, so you can move them to Pinned. If you frequently need to switch to web pages from another workspace, you can move them to Favorite. Arc cleverly utilizes this mechanism to encourage users to manage their own tabs.
To be continued#
This time, I only talked about a small part of Arc. In the future, I will introduce more about how Arc redefines the browser, such as Spaces, Boosts, Easels, and more.