I honestly do not understand how people seem to keep getting excited about new browsers that are actually just reskinned Chromium. Especially when we are dealing with unknown companies who might...
I honestly do not understand how people seem to keep getting excited about new browsers that are actually just reskinned Chromium. Especially when we are dealing with unknown companies who might be bundling malware with them.
Granted some people might like a different UI and Chromium doesn't offer too many ways to change that with extensions (nor does Firefox since they dropped XUL and adopted Chromium's extension paradigm).
cuz a browser is more than just the rendering engine, it's the features layered on top. Edge offers (imo) the best vertical tab UI and great tab grouping, and also pushes some Microsoft services...
keep getting excited about new browsers that are actually just reskinned Chromium
cuz a browser is more than just the rendering engine, it's the features layered on top.
Edge offers (imo) the best vertical tab UI and great tab grouping, and also pushes some Microsoft services which you can turn off (I do) but are there for some people (like shopping stuff, AI-powered search, etc).
Vivaldi offers tons of customization and features.
While completely true, and much more important to a large majority of the userbase, the over saturation of chromium is a concerning trend, especially when it comes to things like ads and tracking....
While completely true, and much more important to a large majority of the userbase, the over saturation of chromium is a concerning trend, especially when it comes to things like ads and tracking. It just sucks there's really so few options.
At the same time, these features are cool, but I still don't get why we haven't just had browsers integrate chat features. I know I can have a discord tab, but why can't it just be a sidebar i can pop in and out. Why can't I toggle certain websites to always open in certain spots (videos for example are the kind of content you'll rarely want anywhere but one spot since it must be consumed 1 at a time).
There's a lot of little optimizations that I feel are somewhat obvious and yet we're still very very slowly adopting. And I do think a part of that is just the average user wanting conformity rather than creativity, but also just a lack of viable options/alternatives mixed with innovation being almost punished since it's not the standard.
It's funny, back in the day, Opera (before it got sold off) had built-in IRC support. No one has done anything like it since, that I know of. Then again, modern chat services don't use open...
It's funny, back in the day, Opera (before it got sold off) had built-in IRC support. No one has done anything like it since, that I know of. Then again, modern chat services don't use open protocols, so integrating services would be essentially impossible.
Old Opera and its spiritual successor, Vivaldi, do have web panel support, though. But I don't think any modern chat services allow themselves to be optimized in such a way anymore... it's all about prioritizing the mobile app.
If you rewind back to the 90s, there was Netscape which wasn't just a browser but an all-in-one suite of web software which included: An email client A usenet client An address book A WYSIWYG...
If you rewind back to the 90s, there was Netscape which wasn't just a browser but an all-in-one suite of web software which included:
An email client
A usenet client
An address book
A WYSIWYG webpage editor
This spread of features along with an IRC client was carried forward into Mozilla Application Suite (the precursor of Firefox) and is known today as SeaMonkey, which is still maintained.
Ah yes, I remember having this with Facebook messages in the Rockmelt browser forever ago. It was pretty cool, even if I'd never touch it if it came back nowadays given its integrations were all...
I still don't get why we haven't just had browsers integrate chat features.
Ah yes, I remember having this with Facebook messages in the Rockmelt browser forever ago. It was pretty cool, even if I'd never touch it if it came back nowadays given its integrations were all with data-harvesting nightmares.
Over time though, I've soured more and more on the browser suite model and prefer my browser to be pretty minimal and fast. I'd rather just alt+3 over to the workspace that has a fullscreen chat application than have a half-assed version of it in my web browser. Even if nowadays that chat program is functionally just another browser window, lol.
Yeah, I couldn't quite enjoy Firefox after Edge until I found a way to recreate something very close to Edge's vertical tab UI. And I really wish it'd become a default option in Firefox....
Edge offers (imo) the best vertical tab UI and great tab grouping, and also pushes some Microsoft services which you can turn off (I do) but are there for some people (like shopping stuff, AI-powered search, etc).
Yeah, I couldn't quite enjoy Firefox after Edge until I found a way to recreate something very close to Edge's vertical tab UI. And I really wish it'd become a default option in Firefox.
I've been trying out Edge to use Bing Chat and their new (beta?) AI-assisted tab grouping that categorizes tabs and labels them on its own was pretty neat. Still not a fan of its UI though.
I've been trying out Edge to use Bing Chat and their new (beta?) AI-assisted tab grouping that categorizes tabs and labels them on its own was pretty neat. Still not a fan of its UI though.
Specifically I wonder why it is that none are using Firefox as a base rather than Chromium? I get that there's probably a bit more advancement in development of Chromium over Firefox since Mozilla...
Specifically I wonder why it is that none are using Firefox as a base rather than Chromium? I get that there's probably a bit more advancement in development of Chromium over Firefox since Mozilla can't keep up with Google, but it's still quite concerning that all these privacy focused browsers or other niche markets they're targeting don't use Firefox. The only other browser I know of based on Firefox is Waterfox, though there may be others that I'm not aware of, it just seems they don't have the same backing as these other ones using Chromium have.
Gecko, firefox's engine is tightly coupled to firefox and not designed to embed into other applications. Chrome's engine, blink, is much easier to work with.
Gecko, firefox's engine is tightly coupled to firefox and not designed to embed into other applications. Chrome's engine, blink, is much easier to work with.
Also, there's compatibility concerns. Chrome has been dominating the market for many years. If you use their engine, you know websites will look fine in the new browser you are making, they've...
Also, there's compatibility concerns. Chrome has been dominating the market for many years. If you use their engine, you know websites will look fine in the new browser you are making, they've been optimized for it.
Firefox has what, 2.45% market share at this point? Even the most optimistic stats are putting it well below 10% and falling. And when you see how they are firing huge part of their staff (including the security devs ) because there's no money.. But somehow the salary of Mozilla's CEO has risen from less than 2.5 million to 5+ million in the last few years alone... You know, for doing such a good job... I don't know, why would you trust they'll have a bright future and that engine would even still be in development a decade down the line?
Chromium has google money behind it so you know it's not going anywhere. Nowadays other giants (like Microsoft) are behind it too. And yes, there is ideological concern about supporting open source instead of what slop some giant corpo is serving you... but even that argument is rather weak when you consider Chromium itself is open source, so if Google fucks too much with it we can always fork it.
In this case, it's because the browser adds in capabilities that aren't available in default chrome. The two that I use all the time are tiling websites, and organizing browser sessions. I have 6...
In this case, it's because the browser adds in capabilities that aren't available in default chrome. The two that I use all the time are tiling websites, and organizing browser sessions. I have 6 different sets of tabs by task, all color coded and one click away.
Have you tried Sidekick? Since Arc isn't available for Windows yet, I've been using this and I'm wondering how they both compare. It has a sessions feature where you can name tabs. There's a split...
Have you tried Sidekick? Since Arc isn't available for Windows yet, I've been using this and I'm wondering how they both compare. It has a sessions feature where you can name tabs. There's a split tabs feature that I liked during trial but it's behind a paywall (or by inviting 20 people).
Took a look at it on my linux device, since I've been saddened that arc isn't (and probably never will be) available there... Overall, my impression was positive. It lets you pin apps to the side...
Took a look at it on my linux device, since I've been saddened that arc isn't (and probably never will be) available there... Overall, my impression was positive. It lets you pin apps to the side and organize sessions of tabs, and place pages side by side. However the sessions are not simultaneously usable, and are hidden behind a menu. On arc, I just swipe on the sidebar to change sessions, which are neatly separated, and clicking on a tab changes my session. On sidekick, I have to click the profile looking button in the bottom left, scroll through the list of sessions, and activate the right session before opening the tab. If I don't make sure to open the session first it instead makes a new copy of that tab in the current session, which, like, really? Who on earth thought that was a useful default behavior? On a surface level, Sidekick is a start, but really could use some UX work.
Yeah, using the sessions did take some getting used to and it wasn't a quick switch. I do like that I can send any tab to another session, so I keep a default browse-anything session when I first...
Yeah, using the sessions did take some getting used to and it wasn't a quick switch. I do like that I can send any tab to another session, so I keep a default browse-anything session when I first start it up and then go from there.
Sidekick really does seem like the closest alternative to Arc and it feels like a good 'work' browser.
Have you tried using Arc? I'm by no means saying that you should, but if you want to understand, for the sake of argument, why people would get excited, or use a re-skinned Chromium-based browser,...
Have you tried using Arc? I'm by no means saying that you should, but if you want to understand, for the sake of argument, why people would get excited, or use a re-skinned Chromium-based browser, you should try it out.
Otherwise, IMHO, the phrase you started the argument with is void.
Leaving aside the UX/UI, Arc is currently the most energy efficient Blink browser, which makes it my choice (at least for now) as the browser to view Blink exclusive content. I still don’t fully...
Leaving aside the UX/UI, Arc is currently the most energy efficient Blink browser, which makes it my choice (at least for now) as the browser to view Blink exclusive content. I still don’t fully trust The Browser Company, but I don’t expect them to enshittify Arc in a significant way. I’m betting on a paid version with chatgpt and maybe a vpn/collaborative features, kinda like Raycast.
The issue that I have with Arc is that I don't know how they plan to stay liquid. They talk big about privacy and whatnot, but their own description of their company states that they raised 17...
The issue that I have with Arc is that I don't know how they plan to stay liquid. They talk big about privacy and whatnot, but their own description of their company states that they raised 17 million from investors. Arc is completely free. A windows version is planned for winter '23.
How are they planning on staying stable? The enshittification pattern should be well known by now, this is how they get users in, and eventually the platform will turn to garbage.
Exactly this. My buddy and I tried it out and both agreed it’s cool, but we can’t trust the company enough to use it since their monetization strategy has yet to be revealed. They are still in the...
Exactly this. My buddy and I tried it out and both agreed it’s cool, but we can’t trust the company enough to use it since their monetization strategy has yet to be revealed. They are still in the “win the users trust” stage, it’s the next stage that keeps me away. I’m sure they’ll start the next stage once everyone is invested with their bookmarks, workflows and customizations.
It’s been hinted at a lot - I think their current plan is to sell a “for teams” version after collaboration features start shipping. I can see this being particularly useful, but I’m not sure if...
It’s been hinted at a lot - I think their current plan is to sell a “for teams” version after collaboration features start shipping. I can see this being particularly useful, but I’m not sure if they’ll get the buy-in necessary to make it sustainable.
Was interested in trying it out considering for some reason people were hyping it. Not being open source was sussy enough but NEEDING an email to even start using… yeah I think I’ll pass.
Was interested in trying it out considering for some reason people were hyping it. Not being open source was sussy enough but NEEDING an email to even start using… yeah I think I’ll pass.
Same here. I don't want to sign up for an account just to use a browser. I get that they use it for syncing stuff, but every other browser just lets you use it and disables sync if you don't sign...
Same here. I don't want to sign up for an account just to use a browser. I get that they use it for syncing stuff, but every other browser just lets you use it and disables sync if you don't sign in. Hell, even Google Chrome doesn't force you to sign in to use it.
Chromium based privacy browser? Is that a joke? No thanks. Companies need to stop using Chromium and start using Gecko or whatever Mozilla calls it nowadays. Not like Mozilla is a saint, but...
Chromium based privacy browser? Is that a joke? No thanks. Companies need to stop using Chromium and start using Gecko or whatever Mozilla calls it nowadays. Not like Mozilla is a saint, but selling privacy with a codebase by Google? That's gotta be satire.
To my knowledge there's nothing about Blink itself that stops browsers from being privacy-conscious, am I missing something? Though of course I'd prefer if all these projects used Gecko to fight...
To my knowledge there's nothing about Blink itself that stops browsers from being privacy-conscious, am I missing something?
Though of course I'd prefer if all these projects used Gecko to fight against an engine monoculture, from what I've heard it's much more difficult to build a new browser around.
Because it's a slow and unsafe experience for day-to-day usage. You might want to login into your work gmail while still having some privacy features without using Tor.
Because it's a slow and unsafe experience for day-to-day usage. You might want to login into your work gmail while still having some privacy features without using Tor.
Ya, but use separate browsers. I guess I should have said that before. Putting Tor into other browsers sounds like a bad idea to me. It's probably going to add new security issues. But I'm no expert.
Ya, but use separate browsers. I guess I should have said that before.
Putting Tor into other browsers sounds like a bad idea to me. It's probably going to add new security issues. But I'm no expert.
The way Arc handles tabs is just a joy. As someone who often opens dozens of tabs for programming research and has a big hierarchy of bookmarks, Arc gives me a workflow for creating, organizing,...
The way Arc handles tabs is just a joy. As someone who often opens dozens of tabs for programming research and has a big hierarchy of bookmarks, Arc gives me a workflow for creating, organizing, and disposing of tabs that's light-years better than Chrome or Firefox. I never want to go back.
have you seen OpenCore Legacy Patcher? It allows most models to keep up to date. I haven't installed it yet, but I'll be doing it soon on my late 13 15".
have you seen OpenCore Legacy Patcher? It allows most models to keep up to date. I haven't installed it yet, but I'll be doing it soon on my late 13 15".
I have, but the newest Apple computer I own at present is from 2007. My desktop is AMD-based, and using it once hackintoshed was enough of a hassle that I didn't think the juice was worth the squeeze.
I have, but the newest Apple computer I own at present is from 2007. My desktop is AMD-based, and using it once hackintoshed was enough of a hassle that I didn't think the juice was worth the squeeze.
I’ve discovered Orion Browser last week and I love it. It’s like safari with vertical tabs, better extensions and great privacy out of the box. I tried Arc today, but I’m staying with Orion.
I’ve discovered Orion Browser last week and I love it. It’s like safari with vertical tabs, better extensions and great privacy out of the box.
Orion really interested me but unfortunately I'm a mainly Linux/Android guy so I might never get to properly try it in the near future. Absolutely love new browsers that aren't Chromium based so...
Orion really interested me but unfortunately I'm a mainly Linux/Android guy so I might never get to properly try it in the near future. Absolutely love new browsers that aren't Chromium based so hope more come out soon.
I'm very happy. They have the best search results by far and unlike DDG the image search is actually really good. Also they are very transparent in their communication on their discord.
I'm very happy. They have the best search results by far and unlike DDG the image search is actually really good. Also they are very transparent in their communication on their discord.
I was getting frustrated with Google and other search engines, and I just went all in on Kagi after reading this blog post. Features like ranking sites like medium or quora lower for your personal...
I was getting frustrated with Google and other search engines, and I just went all in on Kagi after reading this blog post. Features like ranking sites like medium or quora lower for your personal search results really helps.
Image results seem to load a little slower though.
I've been using Kagi for ~1.5y now, and it's been great. Search results are far better than any other search engine I've used. I'm grandfathered into the legacy plan (unlimited search for $10/mo),...
I've been using Kagi for ~1.5y now, and it's been great. Search results are far better than any other search engine I've used.
I'm grandfathered into the legacy plan (unlimited search for $10/mo), but the current "professional" plan (1,000 searches for $10/mo) would be sufficient to cover every month I've used kagi.
Been using Arc for a year. I love how they continue to make the browser better and I look forward to their Thursday release calendar. I echo some of the concerns about monetization and I hope...
Been using Arc for a year. I love how they continue to make the browser better and I look forward to their Thursday release calendar. I echo some of the concerns about monetization and I hope whatever they do allows me to keep using it. I also hope they make the iPhone app better as that’s been the only underwhelming thing so far.
As a web developer I greatly appreciate being able to use chrome dev tools and extensions. Other browsers are great but chrome is the standard for web dev for most demographics (for better or worse).
I’m a big fan of how I can organize tabs in different spaces with different profiles really easily. A lot of what Arc does is available in other browsers but I find the implementation to be better than any other. I hope other browsers learn from Arc.
I've been using it for a few months now, and also been following them on different channels, and so far it's been really good. Once you get into how it's been redesigned and how you need to think...
I've been using it for a few months now, and also been following them on different channels, and so far it's been really good. Once you get into how it's been redesigned and how you need to think differently, it's made such a difference.
I honestly do not understand how people seem to keep getting excited about new browsers that are actually just reskinned Chromium. Especially when we are dealing with unknown companies who might be bundling malware with them.
Granted some people might like a different UI and Chromium doesn't offer too many ways to change that with extensions (nor does Firefox since they dropped XUL and adopted Chromium's extension paradigm).
cuz a browser is more than just the rendering engine, it's the features layered on top.
While completely true, and much more important to a large majority of the userbase, the over saturation of chromium is a concerning trend, especially when it comes to things like ads and tracking. It just sucks there's really so few options.
At the same time, these features are cool, but I still don't get why we haven't just had browsers integrate chat features. I know I can have a discord tab, but why can't it just be a sidebar i can pop in and out. Why can't I toggle certain websites to always open in certain spots (videos for example are the kind of content you'll rarely want anywhere but one spot since it must be consumed 1 at a time).
There's a lot of little optimizations that I feel are somewhat obvious and yet we're still very very slowly adopting. And I do think a part of that is just the average user wanting conformity rather than creativity, but also just a lack of viable options/alternatives mixed with innovation being almost punished since it's not the standard.
It's funny, back in the day, Opera (before it got sold off) had built-in IRC support. No one has done anything like it since, that I know of. Then again, modern chat services don't use open protocols, so integrating services would be essentially impossible.
Old Opera and its spiritual successor, Vivaldi, do have web panel support, though. But I don't think any modern chat services allow themselves to be optimized in such a way anymore... it's all about prioritizing the mobile app.
Thunderbird has native irc support and it makes more sense in an email client than web browser
If you rewind back to the 90s, there was Netscape which wasn't just a browser but an all-in-one suite of web software which included:
This spread of features along with an IRC client was carried forward into Mozilla Application Suite (the precursor of Firefox) and is known today as SeaMonkey, which is still maintained.
Ah yes, I remember having this with Facebook messages in the Rockmelt browser forever ago. It was pretty cool, even if I'd never touch it if it came back nowadays given its integrations were all with data-harvesting nightmares.
Over time though, I've soured more and more on the browser suite model and prefer my browser to be pretty minimal and fast. I'd rather just alt+3 over to the workspace that has a fullscreen chat application than have a half-assed version of it in my web browser. Even if nowadays that chat program is functionally just another browser window, lol.
Yeah, I couldn't quite enjoy Firefox after Edge until I found a way to recreate something very close to Edge's vertical tab UI. And I really wish it'd become a default option in Firefox.
Specifically, what I did:
userChrome.cssand the Tab Center Reborn css from firefox vertical tabs.Together it's really close to Edge. Perfect for desktop layout.
I've been trying out Edge to use Bing Chat and their new (beta?) AI-assisted tab grouping that categorizes tabs and labels them on its own was pretty neat. Still not a fan of its UI though.
Specifically I wonder why it is that none are using Firefox as a base rather than Chromium? I get that there's probably a bit more advancement in development of Chromium over Firefox since Mozilla can't keep up with Google, but it's still quite concerning that all these privacy focused browsers or other niche markets they're targeting don't use Firefox. The only other browser I know of based on Firefox is Waterfox, though there may be others that I'm not aware of, it just seems they don't have the same backing as these other ones using Chromium have.
Gecko, firefox's engine is tightly coupled to firefox and not designed to embed into other applications. Chrome's engine, blink, is much easier to work with.
Also, there's compatibility concerns. Chrome has been dominating the market for many years. If you use their engine, you know websites will look fine in the new browser you are making, they've been optimized for it.
Firefox has what, 2.45% market share at this point? Even the most optimistic stats are putting it well below 10% and falling. And when you see how they are firing huge part of their staff (including the security devs ) because there's no money.. But somehow the salary of Mozilla's CEO has risen from less than 2.5 million to 5+ million in the last few years alone... You know, for doing such a good job... I don't know, why would you trust they'll have a bright future and that engine would even still be in development a decade down the line?
Chromium has google money behind it so you know it's not going anywhere. Nowadays other giants (like Microsoft) are behind it too. And yes, there is ideological concern about supporting open source instead of what slop some giant corpo is serving you... but even that argument is rather weak when you consider Chromium itself is open source, so if Google fucks too much with it we can always fork it.
In this case, it's because the browser adds in capabilities that aren't available in default chrome. The two that I use all the time are tiling websites, and organizing browser sessions. I have 6 different sets of tabs by task, all color coded and one click away.
Have you tried Sidekick? Since Arc isn't available for Windows yet, I've been using this and I'm wondering how they both compare. It has a sessions feature where you can name tabs. There's a split tabs feature that I liked during trial but it's behind a paywall (or by inviting 20 people).
Took a look at it on my linux device, since I've been saddened that arc isn't (and probably never will be) available there... Overall, my impression was positive. It lets you pin apps to the side and organize sessions of tabs, and place pages side by side. However the sessions are not simultaneously usable, and are hidden behind a menu. On arc, I just swipe on the sidebar to change sessions, which are neatly separated, and clicking on a tab changes my session. On sidekick, I have to click the profile looking button in the bottom left, scroll through the list of sessions, and activate the right session before opening the tab. If I don't make sure to open the session first it instead makes a new copy of that tab in the current session, which, like, really? Who on earth thought that was a useful default behavior? On a surface level, Sidekick is a start, but really could use some UX work.
Yeah, using the sessions did take some getting used to and it wasn't a quick switch. I do like that I can send any tab to another session, so I keep a default browse-anything session when I first start it up and then go from there.
Sidekick really does seem like the closest alternative to Arc and it feels like a good 'work' browser.
Have you tried using Arc? I'm by no means saying that you should, but if you want to understand, for the sake of argument, why people would get excited, or use a re-skinned Chromium-based browser, you should try it out.
Otherwise, IMHO, the phrase you started the argument with is void.
Leaving aside the UX/UI, Arc is currently the most energy efficient Blink browser, which makes it my choice (at least for now) as the browser to view Blink exclusive content. I still don’t fully trust The Browser Company, but I don’t expect them to enshittify Arc in a significant way. I’m betting on a paid version with chatgpt and maybe a vpn/collaborative features, kinda like Raycast.
The issue that I have with Arc is that I don't know how they plan to stay liquid. They talk big about privacy and whatnot, but their own description of their company states that they raised 17 million from investors. Arc is completely free. A windows version is planned for winter '23.
How are they planning on staying stable? The enshittification pattern should be well known by now, this is how they get users in, and eventually the platform will turn to garbage.
Exactly this. My buddy and I tried it out and both agreed it’s cool, but we can’t trust the company enough to use it since their monetization strategy has yet to be revealed. They are still in the “win the users trust” stage, it’s the next stage that keeps me away. I’m sure they’ll start the next stage once everyone is invested with their bookmarks, workflows and customizations.
I feel like there's some irony that the lack of information about the next stage is hampering the "win the users' trust" stage.
It’s been hinted at a lot - I think their current plan is to sell a “for teams” version after collaboration features start shipping. I can see this being particularly useful, but I’m not sure if they’ll get the buy-in necessary to make it sustainable.
I think after getting popular enough they'd just integrate a lot of "features" much like VPN with a paid variant.
I downloaded it, it softlocked me asking for an email and I deleted it. I need to see the goods before I offer that up
Was interested in trying it out considering for some reason people were hyping it. Not being open source was sussy enough but NEEDING an email to even start using… yeah I think I’ll pass.
Same here. I don't want to sign up for an account just to use a browser. I get that they use it for syncing stuff, but every other browser just lets you use it and disables sync if you don't sign in. Hell, even Google Chrome doesn't force you to sign in to use it.
Chromium based privacy browser? Is that a joke? No thanks. Companies need to stop using Chromium and start using Gecko or whatever Mozilla calls it nowadays. Not like Mozilla is a saint, but selling privacy with a codebase by Google? That's gotta be satire.
To my knowledge there's nothing about Blink itself that stops browsers from being privacy-conscious, am I missing something?
Though of course I'd prefer if all these projects used Gecko to fight against an engine monoculture, from what I've heard it's much more difficult to build a new browser around.
You could look at the mullvad browser, it's a collaboration between tor and mullvad vpn to create a privacy focused normal browser based on firefox.
Why not just use the Tor browser then?
Because it's a slow and unsafe experience for day-to-day usage. You might want to login into your work gmail while still having some privacy features without using Tor.
Ya, but use separate browsers. I guess I should have said that before.
Putting Tor into other browsers sounds like a bad idea to me. It's probably going to add new security issues. But I'm no expert.
The way Arc handles tabs is just a joy. As someone who often opens dozens of tabs for programming research and has a big hierarchy of bookmarks, Arc gives me a workflow for creating, organizing, and disposing of tabs that's light-years better than Chrome or Firefox. I never want to go back.
I don't have a modern Mac- or hackintosh, so I'm holding out hope for a Linux port.
have you seen OpenCore Legacy Patcher? It allows most models to keep up to date. I haven't installed it yet, but I'll be doing it soon on my late 13 15".
I have, but the newest Apple computer I own at present is from 2007. My desktop is AMD-based, and using it once hackintoshed was enough of a hassle that I didn't think the juice was worth the squeeze.
I’ve discovered Orion Browser last week and I love it. It’s like safari with vertical tabs, better extensions and great privacy out of the box.
I tried Arc today, but I’m staying with Orion.
Orion really interested me but unfortunately I'm a mainly Linux/Android guy so I might never get to properly try it in the near future. Absolutely love new browsers that aren't Chromium based so hope more come out soon.
I'm patiently waiting on Orion for Windows. I'm already using their search engine Kagi.
How are you liking Kagi so far?
I've been able to get around using Searx (and when that fails, it's DDG/SP) but I keep stumbling upon them.
I'm very happy. They have the best search results by far and unlike DDG the image search is actually really good. Also they are very transparent in their communication on their discord.
I was getting frustrated with Google and other search engines, and I just went all in on Kagi after reading this blog post. Features like ranking sites like medium or quora lower for your personal search results really helps.
Image results seem to load a little slower though.
I've been using Kagi for ~1.5y now, and it's been great. Search results are far better than any other search engine I've used.
I'm grandfathered into the legacy plan (unlimited search for $10/mo), but the current "professional" plan (1,000 searches for $10/mo) would be sufficient to cover every month I've used kagi.
Feature set doesn't look bad, but I'd rather avoid using anything Chromium-based from now on.
Been using Arc for a year. I love how they continue to make the browser better and I look forward to their Thursday release calendar. I echo some of the concerns about monetization and I hope whatever they do allows me to keep using it. I also hope they make the iPhone app better as that’s been the only underwhelming thing so far.
As a web developer I greatly appreciate being able to use chrome dev tools and extensions. Other browsers are great but chrome is the standard for web dev for most demographics (for better or worse).
I’m a big fan of how I can organize tabs in different spaces with different profiles really easily. A lot of what Arc does is available in other browsers but I find the implementation to be better than any other. I hope other browsers learn from Arc.
I've been using it for a few months now, and also been following them on different channels, and so far it's been really good. Once you get into how it's been redesigned and how you need to think differently, it's made such a difference.