Kicking the tires on Arc for Windows

I’ve read about the Arc browser for a while now. I actually clicked through to download it only to find that the Windows version wasn’t ready but the Mac one was. The problem is that my older MacBook Pro couldn’t run a recent enough operating system to support the browser.

The second best alternative was to get onto the Beta waiting list for Windows which I did. Then, I waited…and…waited…and…waited. In December, invites were sent out but I didn’t get mine! All good things come to those who wait and my waiting was over this past week. I downloaded it and installed it, eager to see this new thing.

The promotion was intriguing…

When I first ran it, it seemed like I was in a foreign land that looked quite familiar. I think we all have a mindset of what a browser should look like and, even out of the box, Arc was different. But, in a good way, and much like I would customize my browser any way. I’m still kicking the tires; it’s crashed on me a couple of times but has proven to be a good experience. And a reminder. Save early, save often.

Here’s some of what I’m noticing.

TABS

Many of the people that complain typically complain that the tabs are on the side of the screen and not the top. I’ve been doing that for a while now with Brave, Vivaldi, and Edge. It’s how I work; tabs across the top now seem old school. Today’s screens are much wider than ever so it’s nice to have more room top to bottom for what I’m looking at. You can make the tab bar go away for even more room and also go full screen for the biggest view.

The working of the tabs took a bit of getting used to. In a space (see below), there are pinned links and favourited links. For the most part, I like the favourited ones since they appear just as buttons and take up less room. The pinned ones are underneath and then there’s a third grouping – the current ones. (I’ve got to learn the Arc jargon better.) The current ones actually expire overnight. It’s nice to see them cleaned up but I need to remember to pin them if I want to pick up at the same spot the next day.

SPACES

I’d been running a spaces-like environment for a while now. I have my main screen where I do my work and another screen for media that I might be playing in the background. Arc lets you create different spaces and a nice feature of colouring them differently makes it easier to see that you’re in the wrong space! Unfortunately, I can’t move one space to my external monitor so I could conceivably be watching television there while I do whatever it is I’m doing.

With two open spaces, it would be nice to have a key combination to switch from one to the other. As it sits now, the spaces appear as dots at the end of the tab bar and you switch by clicking on the one you want to switch to. Or, maybe it’s a key combination I’m not aware of? I’ve tried ALT+TAB and ALT+-.

Of course, the + lets you create a new one.

Folders

This is a feature that I’ve never seen in a browser so I honestly don’t know how I would use it. But, as you can see here, I created a folder for my blog and then dropped a couple of pages within the site into the folder.

I’m using the mindset of folders in an operating system. The logic seems to apply to the browser and I think would be very exciting if I was developing multiple web pages for the web.

Later – I saw the video from The Browser Company where they explained how folders work. I tried it here and it didn’t work – so it must be a feature that’s on the Mac that the Windows version doesn’t have yet.

Privacy

This is a biggie for me and I noticed right from the get go that there is no built-in ad blocker. All it takes is a visit to any commercial site to note how they are everywhere. Fortunately, I was able to add uBlock Origin and make that go away. I added a couple of other extensions like my Password Manager, Privacy Badger, DuckDuckGo, etc. These started to make it feel like home.

Where am I? i.e. web address

The current URL appears at the top of the window. Actually, let me correct myself. The root URL for whatever site I’m on appears at the top. If you’re embedded in a site, that doesn’t show. In every other browser, I see the entire path. While at it, normally the icons for the extensions appear at the top as well. Not here; it is a cleaner look. There is an Extension option from the main menu with a “+” or “Manage” option.

Going somewhere is a bit different. Normally, I’d click in the URL area and start typing. Or, if I want it in a new tab, I’ll create a new tab and start typing. In Arc, you have no choice. You do have to do a new tab. It’s pretty attractive popping up and overlaying in the middle of the screen.

Dark

There was no direct way to make things dark. As blogged before, I’ve got used to having a dark environment and forcing the browser to turn every website I visit dark. 

Ah, but there is a way.

Arc is based on Chromium and so you can get into it differently. 

arc://flags takes you to the Experiments in Arc which are the same as the experiments on Chromium where you can indeed force everything to be dark.

I’m brave but not brave enough to change more than that at this beta point.

Settings

I’m sure that it will come later but there’s no Settings option that I can find. But, this is built on Chromium remember.

arc://settings takes you right to the settings menu where you can poke around and do the sort of things that you do otherwise.

I switched to “Safe Browsing’ while I was there.

Search

Out of the box, search defaults to Google. I did get a bit side tracked while looking at the settings and decided to switch to DuckDuckgo like I would with any browser. 

I was surprised, pleasantly, that my installation of the DuckDuckGo extension had already taken care of this!

Split Screen

I guess this is a tribute to the wider screens that we’re buying these days. There is an icon that will let you add a split screen to the Space you’re working in. 

I got a little excited here; could I open multiple instances of Twitter and fudge my way into a homemade kludge of Tweetdeck? The answer is no; there’s only the opportunity to add one split. 

Tooltips

I’m thinking this is an indication of the state of Beta-ness. There are some icons on the screen but no tooltip to indicate what they might do. Some are intuitive but tooltips do make for a professional look and feel.

There was one that looks like a trash can in the bottom left that pops up a history of what I’ve been doing.

Annoyances

Learning the Arc language is different and, as I read, I found myself translating their features into something that I recognize. If it turns out that I’m going to use this browser all the time, I’ll have to learn the lingo.

A bit of an annoyance right now happens when I move to a menu or click an action outside of where I am. (I’m blogging as I notice this). Just clicking back into the workspace doesn’t make that active. I typically have to click a couple of times. It’s a small thing but you know how small things annoy?

Another annoyance I ran into was in the editing. Yes, I do proofread. Normally, in the WordPress editor, double clicking on a word selects the word. Here, it selects the entire block.

Organization

Arc’s claim is that it will help you organize things better. By embedding URLs into a folder for a site, you don’t find yourself looking for that extra URL. It’s all there.

The disappearing current work will make me a better organizer, I suspect. If I don’t pin it, I lose it. I learned that lesson!

Summary

At the end of the day, I was quite impressed with Arc. Yes, there will be a bit of a shift in learning to move to it. There were a couple of annoyances and I’ve bug reported them. I really did like the clean look of things and it definitely looks like I’m not using a web browser but rather something different. I will be making more of an effort to learn and use their jargon correctly.

If you’re looking to see what else a web browser could do, download it for the Mac or get on the Windows waiting list and give yourself some time to learn something new and different.