Arc Browser

Features I like about arc. This way I have something to point towards when asked what I like about Arc.

Bookmarks and Tabs combined §

Bookmarks are kind of under utilized in normal browsing, but Arc makes them a much larger part of your workflow. You can now “pin” tabs by just dragging them over the separator line and those become “bookmarks”. You can keep them open or close them, whats important is you can stop thinking about them.

When you open a “bookmark” they don’t create a “new tab” from the bookmarked url. The “bookmark” is what gets “opened”. Bookmarks in Arc, are tabs after all. So instead of having a bunch of tabs that may or may not have bookmarks, you have clear difference between what are tabs and what are pinned tabs.

if you navigate to a page from a pinned tab, it tells you in the sidebar that you’ve gone to a different page from what was pinned (with a /<new tab name>). And you can easily go back to the pinned tab, update the pin to the current url or close the tab. And then if you don’t need the pin anymore, you can delete the pin.

Auto clearing tabs §

This is definitely something you need to get used to, but once you do, its really nice. You need to leverage the above feature Bookmarks and Tabs combined or this feature will feel like a nuisance.

I really like the auto-clear. It helps me let go of tabs that I don’t really need. I’ve never missed tabs that it closed. I’ve also never had to think to myself, “do I really need this page” and then waste willpower to say “no, I would have consumed or saved it by now if I did”. And thats really all there is to it. Arc forces you to either save things or consume them. And with arc not having an “other bookmarks” folder, I tend to want to keep my arc sidebar cleaned up.

Windows §

All windows, share tabs. Having multiple windows is purely for multiple monitors or if you want to use splits but without arc’s built in splits. Having all your tabs in one place, is quite nice. No need to move tabs from one window to another. They’re all just there. Windows become more of their namesake, they’re a window(/view) into your tabs. You can even close the main window and all your tabs will remain open.

On windows, closing the last window might close the browser itself… on mac browsers remain “open” as long as the app isn’t “quit”, but closing last window is not the same as “quitting” the app.

My Hotkeys §

• cmd/ctrl + s: which normally is “save as” which is mostly useless in a browser, now toggles the sidebar, giving you a full screen experience.
• cmd/ctrl + d: is non-standard arc, but a hotkey I’ve setup and is bound to next-tab.

Spaces §

Spaces are nice, they let you have different logins akin to firefox containers. Great for work and non-work. Even extensions and pins are separate. They’re effectively different profiles, but history is still shared.

Spaces also have different visual settings, so that they’re noticeably different when you swap.

Cons §

• I wish Arc had support for profiles. Spaces are nice but sometimes you want ENTIRELY different browser instance. If I have to open them via command line, like arc --profile xyz so be it. This is a feature of chrome, firefox & brave. So I’d like it here too.