Notes on the Arc Internet Browser

… an unusual browser that makes web apps a pleasure to work with

Arc Internet browser is a Mac only first class browser

You have to get invited to use it. If you want an invite, let me know or leave a request in the comments section

They have done away with URL bar, bookmarks bar, etc that make up a regular browser.

Instead, there is a sidebar that you can toggle using Ctrl+S

Arc Internet Browser side bar

You put all your favourite sites in the sidebar and create spaces and profiles. Spaces and profiles are like building browsers within browsers where you can create workspaces dedicated to specific contexts

It comes with a camera, an Easel, and a notepad

Notepad

Notepad has a sharing button at its right corner which gives you a link to this page

Or you can copy paste text from the notepad to other apps

The Easel is an infinite canvas

You can use the Easel for drawing and concept mapping or mind mapping

Easel used as a concept map

You can also collect images and clip images from all over the web

Boosts are where you can inject codes into webpages and style them.

You can split a webpage to insert another page side by side. You can get a max of four such panels

You can view a video or read a PDF in a ‘smaller Arc’ within a web page, like a page within a page

Use cases

Great for content authoring because you can use all the real estate of your small screen and in large screens it is a pleasure to be able to insert windows side by side and work with them

Web apps look great

Links can be easily explored

Copy pasting from one window to others is intuitive

It’s a very different kind of browser.

A couple of downsides:

• On old machines it can be slow
• I could not have it render 3D but the browser is evolving well, so this may be fixed in a future release