This Experimental Web Browser Wants to Change How You Use the Internet | Tech

The New York based The Browser Company has been around for three years, but is only about to release their first app. The company was founded by tech veteran Josh Miller, who founded the link-sharing website Branch in 2011, which was then acquired by Facebook in 2014.

The company has designed a web browser that looks completely different than you are used to from Chrome and Edge, for example. “We love the Internet, but it can be overwhelming at times,” reads the browser builder’s website. ‘We therefore want to build a better way to use the internet.’

With the new Arc, you will no longer find a large URL bar at the top of the screen with all your open tabs above it. Instead, all your tabs are gathered in a menu bar on the left, where you can sort them into all kinds of folders.

That’s much smarter than old web browsers for a number of reasons. First, the new design fits better with modern computer screens. Old web browsers were designed for 4×3 monitors, with barely any space on either side. But now we all work on widescreen screens (16 by 9), on which there is enough space on the left side of the website. And because the URL bar and tabs are no longer at the top, there is more room to display the website properly.

It also ensures that you keep a better overview. Tabs at the top of your web browser become a messy overview the more you open them, with buttons that are too small to show the title. The left menu bar always clearly shows what is open.

Also handy: Arc Browser closes unused tabs automatically after six hours – although you can increase that time limit. If you always want to keep a page open, you can drag it to the list of pinned websites. In addition, you canspaces‘ create collections with tabs that you previously pinned. This way you can quickly switch between the websites you need for work and the pages you prefer to visit outside office hours.

Arc Browser is built on top of Chromium, the engine behind Google’s own Chrome web browser and also Microsoft Edge. That’s good news, because because Chrome is the market leader, most websites are optimized for this. Sites that work well in Chrome are therefore also displayed well in Arc.

In addition, Arc also supports plug-ins that are made for Chrome.

You can also create notes in the browser app. These will then be available in your web browser as a separate tab. The app also supports so-called ‘Easels‘, a kind of collage boards that you can fill with internet finds. You can open two tabs side by side and adjust the default colors of a website. In addition, the app has a built-in ad blocker, although the makers encourage you to disable it on websites that you like to support.

Our favorite is the video player. Turn on a video on websites like YouTube, and the image will disappear to the corner as soon as you switch to another tab. So you can keep watching while reading a completely different site at the same time.

Not everything that Arc does is unique. Microsoft Edge also lets you move tabs to the left, and Apple is working on a similar update for Safari later this year. Arc knows how to make it an easy to keep, coherent overview. After a week of using Arc, we never had unnecessary tabs open and were able to find everything more easily.

That makes Arc Browser an absolute must – although not everyone can get started with the web browser yet. At the moment, Arc is only available to download for macOS, and only after you sign up for a waiting list. As soon as there is room for you, they will send you a link to the required download.