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by 6c737133 1326 days ago
am i taking crazy pills?

> Arc, which has been in an invite-only beta for more than a year, is trying to rethink the whole browser UI

no one is ever going to dethrone chrome unless they start selling hardware filled with their crapware at a loss solely to suck ppl into the ecosystem and/or start giving away laptops as fast as possible for the same reasons

&

no one is ever going to compete with firefox or brave on UI alone, because the ppl that have the wherewithal to move away from the edge and chrome apps that are thrust upon them with every hardware purchase, care more about if your shit is secure and privacy respecting than if your 'tabs are on the left' :|

> he thinks browsers are due for a reinvention — and why he thinks a startup is the best place to do it

ah yes, a loss-leading category of software is best done at cash-strapped startups... wonder where the revenue will come from

2 comments

Nobody thought anybody could dethrone IE when Firefox came around. I don't think the goal of Arc is to be the browser that everybody uses, so much to be a useful browser for a lot of power-users.

With the industry standardizing (for better or worse) on a handful of rendering engines, it's not a big stretch to imagine a world where you can choose between different browsers and still experience the same web as everybody else (as opposed to the days past where choosing a niche browser meant accepting a worse web).

> to be a useful browser for a lot of power-users

fair, but in that case they should be showcasing their security and privacy focused initiatives, and their source of angel funding...

otherwise how will it be anything other than spyware crap that funds itself by selling your data??

no group of power users will flock to a new browser without any transparency on the above

I imagine they'll charge money. Mighty's $30/month is a bit out of my price range, but given that I spend ~70% of the workday in a browser, if one could improve my productivity the amount I'd pay for it isn't nothing.
I'd argue that IE6 got worse and didn't keep up with developments while Firefox got consistently better. Firefox' problem as "only" that is was really slow and that's what Chrome solved.

Yet, I also think that a new UI doesn't really change the browser experience much. It must be a completely different UX.

Firefox came at a time when the web was really annoying to use, and had features to make it better. I don't think IE had even shipped a pop-up blocker at the time. But FireFox's extensibility also made things like ad blockers and Grease Monkey scripts possible, which was the only way to stay sane as a power user in that era. And tabs! That was a big one.

I think the web has gotten annoying again, in different ways, because of the thousand things that nag you on every website to click to close them or otherwise obstruct your reading (cookie banners, too). If a browser can solve that reliably, I'd switch to it.

I agree with you. However, these are not UI changes.
I can only speak for myself but I personally would switch to a fast, open source browser if it came within a set of built in and trusted features. Those include: adblock, Privacy features, fleshed out developer tools, better bookmark management, proper session management etc.

Chome/FF are fine and all but I wouldn't mind trying out a browser that rethinks the way things are done. Especially considering how much resources Chrome/FF currently eats up with the ~15 tabs I have open at any point.