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Everyone knows what a browser is, in-fact, you're using one right now to read this. Making it the most used software of any category, and thus, the most competitive.
The web browser category used to be far more interesting, back when Internet Explorer was the leader in the space, as it opened up competition from Firefox, Chrome, and Safari.
In recent times, the category has struggled to evolve, primarily due to inertia (people are just used to using what they use, and how it is laid out), so change and differentiation of any kind is actually seen more as a negative to many.
Add that to companies like Google getting billions of daily active users and businesses using and relying on Google Chrome, and you're left with a foundational tool that by design, cannot evolve or change, without upsetting the majority of their user-base.
Enter all the tech startups entering the space, trying to make browsers "more productive", like Sidekick browser and Shift, and even chromium extensions browsers/tab managers like Workona and Toby. While exciting at face-value, they all struggle with the same issue: inertia. People are so built to using a browser the way they're used to using them. Tabs and URL bar at the top, bookmarks, and extensions. Deviate from that, and you're sure to not last, even if you do find some innovation along the way.
I used and loved Shift for a couple years on-and-off, and early on, they had to manually port over the chrome extensions, so it never actually had everything I needed, to fully replace it with Chrome. That was the #1 piece that killed it for me, and that's exactly where you'll see the moat of Chrome exists. Pair that with the miscellaneous performance and minor daily UX frustrations, and it just can't function as your primary browser replacement.
This is where a new entrant in the space, Arc Browser, is trying to (and is), shaking things up. In got the foundation right. By focusing on just MacOS out of the gate and a modern native software stack, they have one of the most enjoyable user-experiences of any browser on the market.
Mix that with innovation of re-thinking bookmarks and tab management, you're getting actual innovation in the space, but not in a gimmicky way, but in a way that first got the foundation perfected. Want to simply use it as your browser and have it feel like what you're used to? It works great for that, it just introduces little pieces of delightful user-experiences along the way. Something that is all too uncommon in the browser space over the past decade.
It's actually starting to feel like those competitive days back when Firefox was first launching, and you started seeing actual competition and innovation happening in the browser space. Difference is, Arc is really the only one doing this right now, because they can. Oddly enough, because they don't yet have billions of daily active users (yet). Making this a very exciting time to be interested in the browser space again.
They are re-thinking what it actually means to even be a browser.
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The future of the internet masked as a browser, built for productive teams.
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?
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.
For starters, it's currently only available for MacOS, Windows (in Beta), and iOS, so if you're not using any of those operating systems, then Arc won't work for you.
I, for example, use Android (Chrome on mobile), and Arc Browser 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 wants 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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
Arc is currently only available on MacOS, Windows, and iOS, with Android currently in the works (with a goal of releasing in 2024). That said, if you're using Linux, ChromeOS, or something else, you'll probably be hard-pressed bo give this new browser a try because they haven't announced Linux and other OS focus/release.
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:
This is an area that seems to confuse and upset many, so here we go!
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.
They have said that an Android app is planned and coming (I mean what truly is a browser without an Android app?), that said, the Android app is planned to come out later this year by 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.
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.
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.
Your work is scattered across dozens of tabs & cloud apps. Workona puts it all in one place, so projects are finally organized.
Workona is somewhere between a browser, tab manager, and team workspace, tying in all of your cloud apps together. It tries to solve the open tabs problem by essentially leveraging the existing tab management functionality of your browser (along with tab groups), but upgrading the functionality massively.
What if you were to click on a workspace, and magically all of your open tabs archived themselves, and only the relevant tabs of the workspace opened themselves up. That's Workona in a nutshell:
With that, you've probably seen (especially within the past couple years), a myriad of "productivity browsers" popping up (here you can see a list of the best productivity browser software that I'm referencing). Well Workona tried solving this space not with a new browser, but a browser extension instead—super creative.
If you're someone that is wearing multiple hats at a company and jumping in and out of many open tabs, Workona is aiming to solve that exact pain-point.
If you're like most people who are using Chrome or Safari and have no interest whatsoever to change browsers, then Workona is for you as all that's involved is installing a Chromium extension.
Now while Workona is great for those who are set in their browser ways, we do feel like some other tools do handle actual tab management better (e.g. Arc), that said, you'd need to be open to installing an entirely new browser.
If that sounds like you (oh, and alternative browsers like Arc do still allow for extensions), then we might recommend giving on of our best browser software recommendations a shot first.
Oddly enough, you could in theory install Workona on Arc (because Arc is Chromium-based), just not sure exactly what would happen, might be a bit odd is all 😅
Here's an excerpt from a larger write-up here that goes more into the over-encompassing browser & tab management evolution, posting a snippet as it gets some of this across:
In my never-ending search to find my “portal to the internet Chrome experience”, I stumbled upon a totally re-imagined Chrome extension and tab management experience called Workona.
It was ChromeOS + Workona that enabled me to finally experience a glimpse into what I had always hoped for the “portal” vision to be, it mostly checked the boxes:
Read the rest of the article to see how this early obsession in Workona turned into a job offer to move to Silicon Valley and help them build out the over-encompassing vision.
Rating: B+
Workona does a lot, though their main bread and butter is tab management and shared team workspaces to share important links. The beautiful thing about links are that most things are links now-a-days, from assets (Google Drive & Figma) to projects and tasks in tools like Asana or Motion.
There's a layer where them getting into task management and note taking build right within, I started feeling a bit conflicted with whether I should be using those native features, or our actual project management tool (Motion) and team documentation tool (Slite).
There's no hiding that we're quite fans of the best tool for the job, so that's where we start running into some conflict when apps start going the all-in-one software path, building out sometimes basic functionality to check some boxes. Don't get me wrong, Workona definitely isn't an all-in-one tool, they aren't trying to be that, I think it's just a result of what comes with building more of a shared workspace management tool.
A privacy-focused (and crypto/blockchain-focused) browser built atop Chromium.
Brave is a web browser that was originally built more as a cryptocurrency/blockchain-focused browser, tied quite closely to the BAT token (Basic Attention Token).
The whole premise was that you can get paid in BAT tokens via their Brave rewards program, by referring others to use Brave, and simply using Brave in your day-to-day. These tokens could then be used to support creators and websites.
They are essentially trying to take back control from the traditional ad model, and compensate their users versus selling their data, like that of Chrome.
For that reason, they have ad-blocking enabled by default (similar to Arc, which just enables the uBlock Origin chrome extension on the back-end).
They also have things like a VPN and a crypto wallet baked in at a core—this will either totally connect with you, or mean nothing. If the latter, it's probably not the right browser for you.
Brave browser is a private browser through-and-through. If you're looking for the browser with the most privacy features, like enhanced tracking protection from site trackers, it has those security features baked right in at the core. That's actually what Brave has built it's name on.
So if you're someone that has a major distrust for Google services, and is open to the minor inconveniences that come with focusing on online privacy, Brave may be the browser for you.
That said! It is still built atop the Chromium engine, which is essentially Google's open source project at the core, but it is void of Google Services baked in, so you'd just have to trust that the open source project is truly protecting your data. Most of the leading browsers are built atop Chromium as it stands. This actually makes it way easier to switch over to because all the same extensions and bookmarks will transfer over fluidly.
If you wouldn't identify as a heavily privacy-focused individual, more specifically, someone that is interested in the security benefits that come from leveraging the blockchain, and aren't heavily into crypto, Brave wouldn't be your best choice (here's a list of the best browsers).
If you're someone that usually loses passwords (e.g. aren't using a 3rd party password manager like Dashlane), or wouldn't be great at remembering a seed phrase to backup/restore all of your data (bookmarks, passwords, etc.) then Brave will probably be a bit of a nightmare to use.
Brave looks and feels a lot like... Well, Chrome/Chromium. They've modernized the interface a bit by adding in optional features like vertical tab support:
That said, it still looks and feels like most browsers do—for better or worse. They don't seem to be taking any risky bets or overly experimenting on the design/UI/UX-front, which is honestly fine for what most people are expecting to get out of their browser.
The interesting thing here is that Brave, like many of the leading browsers on the market use Chromium at the core (e.g. Chrome, Arc, Opera, Vivaldi, and even more recently Microsoft Edge).
What this allows for is the same browser extension support, and more broadly, all these browsers have the same underlying rendering engine (open sourced by Google).
Point being, changing browsers between Chromium-based browsers makes switching between them pretty seamless (low friction), and Brave is no exception here.
Brave often connects most with heavily privacy-focused individuals, for whom are typically more in the crypto space. For example, at Consensus 2023, most people I talked to were using, or at least familiar with Brave.
A asked them what they liked most about it, and their responses were almost entirely around the privacy aspect. For example, "they don't even know what I'm bookmarking—my account is tied to a hashed key, so I can anonymously save my environment, and re-access it with my unique token—no email address/identification required."
And look, I get it, it's impressive to how they are leveraging the blockchain to store some of this information without tying it to identity, but personally for me, I'll take the benefits that come with using a traditional database and user account, like most other modern browsers like Arc and Chrome rely on for storing and syncing your data between devices.
If you're considering Brave, I genuinely think you already know yourself. But if you're not quite obsessed with privacy, to the level of at times potentially inconveniencing yourself (e.g. you forget your unique hash/key, you lose your history and settings—there's no "forgot password" per-say).
If you think privacy is important enough to not want to use Chrome though, there are genuinely other privacy-focused alternatives (in that they aren't trying to sell your data unlike Google with Chrome is), like Arc Browser. If you're on MacOS (Windows coming soon), definitely recommend giving that a shot.
No shady privacy policies or back doors for advertisers. Just a lightning fast browser that doesn’t sell you out.
Firefox is one of the only privacy-focused browsers that is not built atop Chromium, in theory giving it further distance from the stronghold that Google has in the browser market.
What this ultimately means is all the Chrome extensions that people use and rely on are not compatible with Firefox unless rebuilt specifically for it. Think of it like iOS, Android, and Windows Phone/BlackBerry (which neither exist anymore, but the point is), you'll typically get developers building for iOS first (think of as Chromium/Chrome), Android second (think of as Webkit/Safari), and then Quantum Browser Engine third (Firefox).
Because of that, while you may be choosing a "privacy-focused" browser like Firefox, you're also getting substantially less third-party app support, and a higher chance of websites not performing as intended (like legacy banks or modern sites using newer technology). It simply comes down to there not being enough marketshare for web developers to focus on making everything work properly in Firefox as it only accounts for less than 3% of global marketshare.
Given this foundational difference, it means that the millions of Chrome extensions that are accessible to people, are not in Firefox, unless they rebuild it for Firefox, giving people less options if they choose Firefox as their primary browser.
For that reason, most people who use Firefox also use a second browser as well (typically based on Chromium), like Arc Browser, Chrome, or Brave for when they need full features and functionality like full Chrome Extension support.
That said, while they are a non-profit and privacy focused, they still make the far majority of their money from Google ($500M/yr) by having Google as the default search engine. So if you want to be a sustainable browser, you really need to just make a deal with Google in some way.
Some argue that Google is in some way strategically paying Firefox at this point just to make it seem like Chrome is not a monopoly.
.webp)
The browser by Google.
Chrome is the most popular browser in the world, owning over 60% of the browser marketshare—so chances are, you're reading this site in Google Chrome right now.
Love it or hate it, you should appreciate it. Without Chrome, the Chromium engine wouldn't exist—why does that matter? Well the open-source browser foundation that was built by Google is likely powering whatever browser you're using right now.
All-in-all, Chrome is great. It was our main browser for over a decade. And yes, we tried all of leading browsers on the market (Safari, Brave, Firefox, Opera, Vivaldi—even giving Edge fair shot when they introduced OpenAI into the mix).
We continued going back to Chrome—it was just familiar and worked well, especially if your personal and work life are tied to Google (as many are).
Well... That was up until Arc (by The Browser Company).
If someone is solely looking for the most stable internet browser on the market.
If you're using Windows, Linux, or an operating system outside of MacOS.
If you're using MacOS, then there's actually some exceptional alternatives on the market. Now, that doesn't mean that Google Chrome isn't for you if this is the case, but what we are saying is that you have options, and should consider trying the browsers listed on our best browser software & tools list.
Chrome has all of the normal features that browsers have, so we'll cover some of the more standout features (which isn't all that unique as most other browsers also have what Chrome has, and even more).
Of all the Chrome features, this was one of all the key features that we were most excited about. If you're using Chrome, you've probably experienced first-hand tab overload. And heck, you've probably even experimented with alternative tab management browser tools like Workona or Toby.
Tab management is where Chrome has always struggled, and tab groups were set out to solve this issue:
Rather than describe all of the features you're probably already familiar with like tabs and bookmarks, I think it's time better spent explaining why you shouldn't really expect new features with Chrome.
When you have a product that has billions of users and hundreds of millions of companies relying on it, you need to focus on stability over everything else.
Is that why it took the Chrome team over a year of beta testing "Tab Groups" before publicly releasing it? Oh, and then only leaving it core to the new tab experience for a few months before ultimately disabling it and making it a manual opt-in feature.
Yeah, that's because of inertia. Billions of people are expecting the browser to work one way, you can't have core functionality change one day without pissing off potentially hundreds of millions of people.
Okay, okay, so all of that is totally fair... But also sorta a boring answer 😅 okay, you win—let's ruffle some feathers!
Ah good-ol bookmarks! Tried, true, and tested. Do they actually work well for referencing back what you saved? Nope! But they are familiar, so don't touch them!
Wait... You said they don't work well—let's dive into that for a moment. Hear me out—bookmarks weren't actually created to make finding pages you're looking for to be easier.
The more you use bookmarks, the less you search Google to find what you are looking for, and the less ads that Google can serve you. Ah! Misaligned incentives! Get overwhelmed with all your open tabs? Google wants this! It results in you closing the overwhelm of tabs, only to later search Google to find back what you're looking for.
What if bookmarks and tab management could be rethought and reinvented 🤔 well they can be, that's why much of Chrome's team have left Google to join Arc Browser to actually build out all the ideas that they had at Google but were killed because releasing them would actually hurt Google's Ad business. 🤯
The best part about Chrome for mobile is that it works cross-platform, from iOS to Android, and everything in-between. That said, it's quite standard with what you'd expect (for better or worse).
Things counting against it though are that they don't have the address bar at the bottom of the screen (which makes it far more reachable on mobile). Even Apple put the address bar at the bottom of the screen with Safari on iOS because it just makes sense.
This is where we feel the mobile app is lacking. It just hasn't changed much, just like the desktop app. But that's also what people love about it, so I suppose that's what you get with Chrome. At least they're consistent with who they are and what they're trying to accomplish.
Before Arc, I've have just told you that the major competitors on the market were pretty much the same thing, with slight opinionation. Take Brave, the privacy-focused opinionation. Looks and feels almost identical to Chrome, but you don't need to sign up with an email address to use it (you instead have a hash key).
If you're on MacOS, give Arc Browser a shot—it's essentially what Chrome could have been if they didn't rely on an ad business (although it's coming soon to Windows as well). It genuinely rethinks from the ground up of what a browser is, and could be. They bake in delight into every interaction, and it just does more.
The battery optimized browser built by Apple.
This is the default browser that comes with mac devices, and has existed for over a decade.
With Safari, you're not going to get anything too cutting-edge or innovative, because they, like Google Chrome are focused on stability for their 1+ billion users.
For a further breakdown in understanding the negatives that come with browsers that have hit major scale, refer to our Chrome vs Safari comparison.
Since Apple is a hardware company at the end of the day, the whole point of Safari is that you're going to get a great cohesive experience if you're using all Apple products (Mac + iPad + iPhone).
The largest benefit to be had here, in our eyes, comes from Apple owning both the hardware and software layers. This allows them to go above and beyond with optimizations like battery life and cross-device syncing.
While they have baked in password management
We don't really see much major innovation or differentiation coming to Safari though. Why? Because this isn't Apple's core business. Not only that, but Apple has zero interest in going after the B2B and collaborative browser space. When comparing Arc Browser vs Safari, you'll see first-hand that Arc has a lot more going on in the features and differentiation space as they ultimately want to be the browser for teams and collaboration.
We do applaud Apple for adding tab groups, and allowing for them to be on the side of the browser window. There's some small similarities when comparing Safari vs Brave in the recently released sidebar tab management in Brave and Arc.
With Safari, you get a familiar and safe UI. It looks like a browser, it looks pretty much the same as it has the past decade, and it's relatively bland in terms of how it looks.
There's just not much to mention here, but the truth of the matter is some of this is by design. Their focus is to be stable, functional, and to let the content of the website you're currently on, shine.
This is where we can give Apple some props on the user-experience, if of course you're also using other Apple products. Take for example you visit a website on your iPhone, you get a prompt in your MacOS dock that shows a website was just opened on mobile. Want to open it up on your desktop? Simply click the Safari icon in your software dock.
In actually using the browser though, there's nothing in particular that stands out as an exceptional UX. This category in particular is where Arc shines. They have the smallest UX details, that just makes using the browser on the day-to-day so incredibly enjoyable.
Are you a huge Apple fan? Do you only care about getting the best possible battery performance on your MacBook and nothing else matters to you? Do you absolutely despise change? If so, Safari is probably fine for you.
If you're on the other hand sort of bored when looking at the existing browser market and wish you could get a bit more enjoyment and productivity out of your browser, then that's where you should definitely be giving Arc a shot.
Genuinely, give Arc a shot for a week straight as your daily driver, and I'm willing to bet you that you never come back to Safari again.
Arc Browser is genuinely what Apple could have made, had they re-thought the browser from the ground up, without all the baggage that currently exists with Safari. And for that reason, that's why we rank Arc at the top of our best browser apps list. Genuinely wouldn't be surprised if Apple one day acquired Arc and replaced it with Safari as the default browser for MacOS.
The new home for your internet on MacOS—One window. Many workspaces. All your tabs.
SigmaOS is a super interesting primary browser contender in the space. In the myriad of productivity-focused browsers out there, we believe that Arc vs SigmaOS are the two leaders in the space.
SigmaOS tried to re-think how a browser layout should be, and build in layers of productivity along the way (not too dissimilar to that of Arc).
The thing is, Sigma has quite minimal funding, and in the browser space, you're competing with companies that have billions of dollars to throw at improving the browser (Google Chrome, Edge, Safari), so when comparing it to those, it's tough to see how they'll manage to compete.
That said, even just comparing SigmaOS to that of Arc, Arc has raised over $100M to take on this incredibly competitive space, whereas SigmaOS is trying to fight having raised likely less than $2M. It's also tough to understand if people are actually willing to pay for a browser, and at $20/mo on the paid tiers for SigmaOS, it just feels like Arc is the more likely winner here.
SigmaOS does make some pretty different opinionated design decisions though, it's worth a shot checking out if you want to try something fresh and new, though not sure we'd bet on it ultimately taking up any meaningful browser marketshare.
Chromium is an open-source web browser project that serves as the foundation for many popular browsers like Arc, Google Chrome, and Microsoft Edge.
Chromium is something you're likely using right now without even realizing it. Are you using Arc Browser, Chrome, Brave, or even Microsoft Edge right now? Okay, then you're using Chromium.
You know those extensions you have in the top-right corner? Yep, those are Chromium extensions (often referred to as "Chrome Extensions"). Little do people know, Google built an open-source foundation to the browser, for which most of the top browsers on the market use as their foundation.
I mean you're not exactly looking at traditional competition here, but Apple does use a competing standard called Webkit. So if you're using Safari on your computer, that's running on Webkit instead of Chromium.
The super interesting part here though is if you're using iOS, any browser you're using is actually built atop Webkit—even Google Chrome. Apple requires Webkit be used on iOS regardless.
Why exactly? Well, Google pays Apple some $20bn per year to be the default search engine in Safari, so holding onto Webkit on iOS and iPad is probably one of their leverage points:
“At-least we still own the foundation of the browser for our products!”
-Apple (probably) 🤷
This genuinely probably doesn't mean much to you, but you're probably using Chromium and you probably don't care.
Just know that it makes for switching between Chromium-based browsers far easier—from transferring bookmarks, to extensions, and everything inbetween.
Microsoft's browser, pushing heavily in AI with their deep OpenAI partnership—still the second coming of Internet Explorer.
Edge is Microsoft's attempt to stay relevant after all the years of pain and heartache that came from Internet Explorer.
Their large investment into OpenAI has enabled them to pull in some AI into the browser (branded as Copilot), though it's more just a wrapper for ChatGPT with various pre-built functions.
While Edge is built on Chromium (like many of the best browsers on the makes), they are one of the only browsers (aside from Arc) that have managed to exist without taking that sweet sweet money from Google.
Edge makes money by promoting their many Microsoft products, making them work more seamlessly in the browser where possible.
While Microsoft has tried so hard to get back the marketshare they once had and have since lost, Edge still feels a bit dated in their UI/UX, and their unique functionality isn't all that great unless you're an avid Microsoft 365 user.
That said, if you're on this site and doing software research, you're more likely using Google Workspace and Gmail, and there are much better browser options on the market, even if you're a Windows user, as even Arc is now on Windows.
Opera Browser is fully-featured for privacy, security, and everything you do online.
Opera has managed to stay about as relevant in the browser space as Firefox, which is just a tad bit behind that of Microsoft Edge.
Interestingly enough, unlike most other major browsers on the market, Opera is actually a publicly traded company with about a $1B market cap. This is particularly interesting because it means that they need to focus on growing revenue as they have investors.
In their attempt to stay relevant, they have copied many features from the more modern browsers on the market like Arc Browser (e.g. Spaces and Folders).
Opera has been called out a bit lately for being owned by a Chinese company, and for making most of its revenue from Ads, meaning they very well are tracking, storing, and selling details about how you're using the browser.
While tempting and seemingly impressive, there's just something in the heavy influencer marketing push and security concerns that make us have a bit of pause in actually using Opera as our daily driver.
Shift is the desktop app for streamlining and collaborating across accounts and workflows.
Shift is a tool that I've tried incredibly hard to like over the past 7+ years. The day I first found it, I was so stoked with it, until learning that it didn't have all of the Chromium extension support.
They've since made major strides on that front and have most extensions now supported, but it's beginning to feel a bit like a relic from the past, and pales in comparison to that of the more recent entrants into the space like Arc Browser and SigmaOS. In-fact, comparing Shift alongside Sidekick Browser and you'll be sure to confuse them with one another.
I just have a tough time recommending them at this point, they really just allow for your favorite apps to be pinned on the sidebar and easy account switching with some quick action features.
They'd like to focus on the productivity users, but we feel like you can get most of the positives of Shift in your existing browser by utilizing a tool like Workona or Toby.
If you're unwilling to install a new browser, stopping to use your beloved Chrome, Safari, or Firefox, well, you'd be hard-pressed to even give this browser a shot. We just don't feel like it innovates enough to actually take over your primary browser replacement, especially when looking at Shift vs Arc Browser for example.
Sidekick makes the Internet distraction-free. It speeds up your workflow and protects against attention killers
What is promised as a "productivity browser for focused work", is really just a Chrome browser with a sidebar containing pinned apps which are essentially just a way to access those apps in split-view. Is that what productivity means to you?
What Sidekick requires a completely new browser for, can be solved by simply using Chrome or Firefox alongside an extension like Workona.
(Yes, I'm saying that Sidekick Browser is more of a feature than it is a standalone product).
The most promising feature with Sidekick is being able to easily jump between different work and personal accounts from the sidebar, in apps like Gmail, Notion, and Google Drive. For those who are using different Chrome profiles to achieve this currently may appreciate this.
With that, only 2 sessions (accounts) are supported for free, to add more than that, you'll be jumping into a pro tier, and the question is, are you open to paying for these "productivity features"? It's a tough call as to if there's enough value here to justify paying, when browsers like Arc Browser offer unlimited sessions/spaces, and effectively sidebar apps for free.
You'll also never get a mobile app with Sidekick, so if you invest much of your time into building out your spaces, it'll be restricted just to desktop. Now that doesn't sound very productive to me, you? 😅
On this note, if you're considering Sidekick Browser instead, well, good luck noticing a difference between these two, they are quite similar and uninspiring.
Boost your team collaboration and productivity with a central hub for all your teams links and documents.
Toby is a browser extension that tries to solve the tab management overload problem with a beautiful new tab page. It's similar to Workona in that way (in-fact, Toby vs Workona is probably it's most direct competitor).
That said, we don't believe that the open tabs overload can be solved simply with a new tab page, at least without quite deep browser integration (where Workona does get closer on).
Get unrivaled customization options and built-in browser features for better performance, productivity, and privacy.
Vivaldi was one of the first browsers to shake up the customization space when it was first released in 2015. Vivaldi came out of nowhere allowing you to customize just about every button along with full color themes, at a time when everyone was using the identical looking version of Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Safari.
This was the unique value proposition of Vivaldi back then, and seems to be the same to this day.
The problem is, when you allow for ultimate customization of every button and color theme, they seem to have locked themselves into an old and uninspiring design. One that looks like it did back in 2015. So at a time when modern solutions are coming out on a monthly bases, and customization and color theming is baked into just about every browser on the market, what once made it unique now leaves it in a questionable situation.
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