Most web browsers available today are based on Google’s Chromium project, and therefore behave very similarly to the top browser out there, Google Chrome. That provides the best possible compatibility with sites, but it also means that most browsers look and work roughly the same, at least when it comes to the basics. The Arc Browser is a much different concept, and a stable version is now available for everyone to play with.
If you’re not familiar with Arc, you should check out our review of it. It’s, underneath it all, a fork of Chromium like a lot of other browsers, but it does a lot of things differently in order to not only stand out from the crowd, and is “building a new way to use the Internet altogether.” The browser employs a variety of original features, such as a Spotlight-like search bar to look up settings, an Easel feature that lets you use the browser as a scrapbook and share your canvas with others, and a notebook that can run parallel to your browser window. The point of this browser is to make it not only a browser, but also more OS-like in many ways, making it an all-in-one hub for all web-related stuff rather than just being a browser for opening websites.
Arc has been in testing for some time, and if you’re a tester, you might feel like the browser is already pretty stable. So really, what this new Arc 1.0 release is doing is making the browser actually generally available. There are no new splashy features to check out, and if there are any underlying changes, there should be rather minor ones. That’s not to say that it won’t be improved in the following months with subsequent updates, but right now, it’s just bringing what has already been done to a wider public.
Arc is now available for iOS and macOS, so if you’re a member of the Apple ecosystem, this new browser experience is already available for you to check out. It will also eventually become available for Windows 11, although you’ll need to wait for that version.
Source: The Verge
