Arc Browser Review: Features, Pricing, Pros & Cons

Arc is a web browser. In simple terms, it's a replacement to Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge, but oh, also so much more... A big part of what makes Arc great is actually the fluidity and experience when using it. It feels more core to the operating system than any other browser on the market.

If you try it out, you'll know what I mean.

Your browser has mainly just been in the background, right? You don't think that much about it, it's more just a tool to access the internet. Yeah, that's where Arc changes that—what if a browser could give you moments of micro-delight in the day-to-day usage? In fact, why don't other browsers?

Who is Arc Browser For?

If you're like most people and have just been using Chrome or Safari and not thinking much about your browser experience, Arc by The Browser Company is probably for you—let me explain...

There's no shortage of productivity-focused browsers out there like SigmaOS, Sidekick, Shift, amongst many others, and I'm willing to bet that if you're reading this, you probably haven't even checked them out or have heard of them. But you're here because you've heard of Arc. Great! That's because Arc is trying to just be a better browser, one that people don't even realize they need or want.

Whether you've tried a new browser in the past (e.g. Firefox, Vivaldi, Opera) or feel like switching is too much work. We're here to tell you that it's worth it to try out Arc. It's not like other web browsers on the market.

The best way to describe it is it's as if Apple re-thought web browsers from the ground up, and built it natively as if it was something more, like an internet browser, or rather an internet machine. What if your browser could actually feel as native and fluid as your operating system? Yeah, that's Arc browser. It was built for everyone, by people that really care. In a space that most people stopped "caring" about 6+ years ago.

Best of all, it's built with the Chromium engine as the backbone, so all your favorite browser extensions will work right out of the box!

If you're someone that uses the best productivity tools like Motion, Superhuman, or Notion then Arc is the perfect addition to your stack.

Who Shouldn't Use Arc Browser?

For starters, it's currently only available for MacOS and iOS, so if you're not at-least using MacOS, then Arc probably isn't for you. That said, they've been hard at work on the Windows version which should be shipping later this year.

I, for example, use Android (Chrome on mobile), and Arc on desktop, and I'm totally fine with that—you don't need both together to benefit from Arc. But if you're someone that want's the exact same browser as their mobile app as well, Arc might not be for you.

At the end of the day, Arc is not just for the productivity-minded or the early adopters. It was built for everyone, whether you're a student, a stay-at-home parent, a CEO, or retired, there's something in Arc for you, that will make your day-to-day browsing experience just that much better.

Features

Rating: _A-

Arc's team have totally rethought the bookmarks and the "tab experience" with a powerful vertical tab bar (don't worry, it can be hidden if you prefer that), along with an incredibly powerful profile workspace feature called "Spaces".

Spaces

Spaces allow you to stay focused and easily segment your work while easily organizing tabs are important to you in folders.

For example, set up a personal space, favorite your YouTube, Spotify, WhatsApp, and Gmail tabs—from there, they function like mini apps. Now, with the swipe of 2 fingers, you're in your work space. All of your favorite apps are swapped out with your work apps, and you're logged into all of your work accounts:

No other browser lets you segment work to this degree. It's so powerful, yet such a simple implementation. Tough to truly explain without experiencing it yourself.

What clicked for me, is when someone explained the following to me (when I was at the time an avid user of Chrome): With Chrome, Google is in the business of ads, so they are actually incentivized to give you a crummy tab management experience. Why? Because what happens if finding the tab you're looking for is difficult? You open up a new tab and search Google again (and you're shown more ads).

So it's more that the UI/UX in many ways by the industry leader is built in such a way to optimize for displaying ads. Arc on the other hand is building features that give you a better experience, first-and-foremost.

Split Screen

Are you like us and like to have your CRM open when you're going through your email inbox via Superhuman? Bookmark a split screen for that. Like to take notes in Notion while watching YouTube videos? Save a split screen for that too.

Imagine for a moment that a bookmark was more than just a bookmark—with Arc, it is. Is gives you powerful split view functionality to group together commonly used websites together, making it so that it's only a click away.

Little Arc

While it sounds like a cute name, it's quite the powerful feature. How many times have you wanted to quickly peek into a web page from Slack or other programs, only to be thrown into another tab in a sea of tabs within your main browser? Little Arc is where clicking on links from other programs starts, with the quick option to open it into the full browser experience. Might seem small, but it makes for a super enjoyable and light experience.

Competition

Every single person that uses a computer, uses a browser. It's probably the most competitive software market in the world, and Google pays Apple some $20bn per year just to have Google set as the default search engine in Apple products.

Because of that, this can't be covered in just a single section in a post. Here's a full write-up on how Arc compares to the top browsers on the market.

If you're curious as to Arc vs Chrome or Arc vs Brave, you can see our thoughts there.

Availability

Arc is currently only available on MacOS and iOS, but they have recently started a beta test for their Windows app which is set to release publicly later this year and we're confident this also means an Android app to come sometime in 2024 as well.

Windows

They have recently launched a website to answer the question isarconwindowsyet.com to which you can see how many people are currently beta testing their Windows app, along with the ability to join the waitlist:

Mobile App

This is an area that seems to confuse and upset many, so here we go!

iOS (iPhone)

Arc is currently only available on MacOS and iOS, but the iOS app is more of a "companion app" if you will. This means that it's not a full mobile web browser, but rather it supplies a way to easily access all of your existing spaces and pinned tabs from desktop, as well as the ability to bookmark new sites via a webview browser wrapper (it feels somewhat similar to a mobile web browser, it just doesn't have proper tab management or anything on mobile).

The main point is to be able to access and save new tabs while on the go.

That said! They are working on a secret browser called "Blue" which is planning to totally re-think mobile browsing from the ground up, and will be a complete mobile browser, planned to release sometime in 2024. That said, it might not have fully syncing tabs between Arc mobile and Desktop—TBD.

Android

They have said that an Android app is planned and coming (I mean what truly is a browser without an Android app?), that said, it's planned to come after the Windows app, which is slated to be publicly released in mid-2024 (more details on that above), so fingers crossed that the Android app comes before the end of 2024 🤞

With all of that being said, I personally use an Android device (Google Pixel) and a MacBook Air, and am happily writing this in Arc (within Webflow), and personally don't mind using Arc on desktop and Chrome on mobile, until Arc comes to mobile. (I was in this same position with Superhuman, using them on desktop/web for 3 years before finally getting an Android app.

Learn More

If you're intrigued, want to know more, and see more of the features/benefits in GIF format, go check out this article where we've done a deep dive on why we think Arc is the future of the internet.

Is Arc Worth It?

Well, there's no more waiting list, so you can go ahead and give it a shot today if you're on MacOS, with a Windows version coming later this year, so we'd say yes, Arc is worth it.

Get Arc for free here.