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 browser. In simple terms, it's a replacement to Chrome, Safari, and Edge, but oh, also so much more... A big part of what makes Arc great is actually the fluidity and experience when using it.
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?
Arc's team have totally rethought the bookmarks and the "tab experience", along with introducing a 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.
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.
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.
Want to skip the invite-only waitlist? Use this link for immediate access 🔥
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There is currently no promo code for this app but we are close partners, so if you use the link above to visit the site and then let their team know that Efficient App sent you, you may just get a little something... extra 😉
There is currently no promo code for this app—we'll update it here if that changes in the future!
Arc is currently in invite-only beta, BUT we're super close with the team at Arc, so if you'd like to skip the waitlist (and are using MacOS), simply use the link above, it'll work for the first 10,000 people 😉
A privacy-focused (and crypto/blockchain-focused) browser built atop Chromium.
Brave 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 by referring others to use Brave, and just for using Brave. 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 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.
There is currently no promo code for this app but we are close partners, so if you use the link above to visit the site and then let their team know that Efficient App sent you, you may just get a little something... extra 😉
There is currently no promo code for this app—we'll update it here if that changes in the future!
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Winner: Brave
If you're deeply into crypto, the blockchain, and care about privacy more than anything else, that's where Brave is more likely to fit your needs. That said, Brave is still built atop Chromium, so while Google isn't directly built into the core, there are hints of it. So how truly private can a privacy browser be if it still has deep ties to Chromium? Not totally sure.
Now to be totally fair, Arc does put a lot of thought and care into privacy, they even have a whole page dedicated to it. So if you're looking for a privacy focused browser when comparing say Arc Browser vs Chrome, Arc definitely wins. It's just when you're purely looking at the most privacy-focused browser on the market, that is Brave's entire focus.
Winner: Arc Browser
On the other hand, if you've been so bored by browsers the past 3–5 years, miss the times back when Firefox was actually an exciting browser, and have had your interest piqued by unique productivity-focused browsers like Sidekick Browser, Shift, or Chromium extensions trying to totally re-think the way tab management and bookmarks work like Workona, then Arc Browser is exactly what you've been looking for, and more, in a cleaner package.
I've tried every browser on the market, productivity-focused and all, and Arc is the first one that I actually feel excited about the space again, and if you give it a shot, I think you will too.
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