[rswerve]

Arc has been my default browser for a few months, and I love this as an idea. Implementation kinks will need to worked out, apparently.

5-second previews don't give me much beyond the page title and maybe a subheading.

Ask on page told me it encountered an error 3 out of the 4 times I tried it, and the one time it worked it told me the article was long, so it only read 32% (I can do that! that's why I'm asking you!). But it did answer the question I asked (then errored on the follow-up).

[1123581321]

The errors were because they blew through their initial OpenAI and Anthropic API limits.

[xmprt]

I've looked into Arc in the past and it feels like such a fundamental departure from how browsers are normally used. How do you use it and how does it feel better to use than your previous browser?

[rswerve]

There are a lot of goodies like built-in notes, easels (a canvas to save stuff), and boosts (css monkeypatching), as well as UI sugar like the command bar (access all commands via cmd+T) but the killer feature for me is the ease of making profiles (sandboxed cache and cookies) and spaces (the left sidebar holding pinned and ephemeral tabs) work together.

On my work machine, for example, I have a "space" that's tied to my personal gmail account, so I can check that email if I need to, without worrying about being logged in or out of my work email (which is also a google account). Switching between spaces is just a swipe.

I also spin up a space when I'm working on something, so those proliferating research tabs don't interfere with other steady work, which stay in their own spaces. Then I just delete the space when I'm done.

[antidnan]

It takes a bit of getting used to. But after using it for a few weeks now, it feels a bit more intuitive for a power user or someone who loves their keyboard shortcuts.

Splitting tabs into half screen with option+click has been really nice, even though I use magnet and could do the same, it just takes a lot longer.

Pinning the 8 most used websites for my work / workflow is nice, and keeping them separate from personal stuff is nice too.

Clearing all my tabs with one click is nice.

Google Meet pop up window was a nice surprise.

I guess a lot of littles, and a solid enough foundation of just being a normal browser, adds up to a nice experience. + google got a little too excited with ad tracking in the latest chrome which pushed me to switch.