If you have never once questioned if you should use another browser, or "is something better out there"? Then you're probably fine with Chrome.
That said, if you're on this page, it means you're not that type of person, and therefore you should absolutely just give Arc a shot. Chrome is stagnant and Arc has re-envisioned what a browser means in the modern day.
We believe there are better options available in this category, read below to learn what this software does well, and what they could do better. ⤵
The first question people usually ask when they hear about Arc is "is Arc built on Chrome?" and the answer is no, but both Arc and Chrome are built atop the Chromium engine, which means that core functionality like bookmarks, passwords, and browser extensions are built atop the same foundation, meaning that they will work across both browsers, and even transferring your data from Chrome to Arc is made incredibly easy. Now let's dive into if you should actually make the switch ⤵
Winner: Arc Browser
This is an area that The Browser Company (parent company of Arc) have spent a lot of time focusing on. They don't want to know what sites you're visiting and have an extensive privacy policy (actually readable) on their website.
Get Arc Browser for free here.
Winner: Arc Browser
If you're using Chrome, you're probably aware that it hasn't actually changed or innovated much within the past 7+ years, and that's where Arc has come in as a new browser to shake up the space. What if browser productivity was completely thought from the ground up, the user-experience was actually delightful, between micro interactions, AI features to make your life easier, along with simple features baked in like automatic Picture-in-Picture, media controls, and more.
Arc has completely re-thought the way that tab management and bookmarks function, introducing a vertical tab bar, native split view, intuitive keyboard shortcuts, and more, making the browser feel more like an operating system of its own.
I've tried all web browsers 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.
Get Arc Browser for free here.
Winner: Arc Browser
Arc has done something incredibly interesting here, they've actually built the MacOS version of their browser entirely in Swift (and believe it or not, they even made Swift work on Windows, so Arc is also on Windows and works great as well). No, seriously, not even Apple built their own browser, Safari, in Swift (which makes for a super interesting Arc vs Safari comparison).
So if you want to see what a browser can feel like, from subtle interactions, to battery life, along with deep OS integration, you're in for a full experience with Arc. Chrome on the other hand has been built in a more general programming language, so that it is easily ported across MacOS, Windows, and Linux. Which is great for cross-system accessibility, although you can feel the night and day difference when using Chrome alongside Arc (Arc just feels better in every single interaction).
Get Arc Browser for free here.
Winner: Chrome
Who uses Chrome? Billions of people—from businesses, to students, to well everyone. This means that every single minor change that is made to Chrome, is tested like crazy, as if they introduce a bug, that's billions of people who are unable to get work done, browse, or search... Oh, and on that search part, every minute that people are unable to search Google costs them millions of dollars, so it's actually in Chrome's best interest to just work.
Arc on the other hand, they are trying to shake up the browser market with innovative features, even introducing deep AI capabilities with Arc Max. With innovation and quick feature iteration and launches, comes a bit less stability. It's a tradeoff, and one that even Google has 2 additional versions of Chrome to account for this:
These two addition versions of Chrome allow Google to catch issues with large test groups before they ever get rolled out to Chrome. This allows them a ton of protection from issues arising, which makes their browser incredibly stable and secure.
Winner: Both (Sorta)
Arc currently works on MacOS and Windows (with a full iOS app as well), that said, the Android Arc Browser app is presumably coming sometime in 2024.
So if you're using an obscure OS like Linux, or an obscure mobile OS, than Chrome is likely to have an option for you whereas Arc will not. That said, the Arc mobile app is absolutely fantastic, so even if you're using Chrome on desktop, I highly recommend you give the Arc Mobile app a shot if you have an iPhone. Yes, it's made even better with the desktop app as well, but it's a great way to try out the waters of Arc.
All-in-all, OS availability is where Chrome completely dominates the market. They have more than 60% browser marketshare, meaning that Chrome is available on nearly any operating system you can possibly think of, including, of course, ChromeOS, which is unlikely to ever support an alternative browser to Chrome.
.svg)
.webp)
The future of the internet masked as a browser, built for productive teams.
Arc is a web browser made by the The Browser Company. And in-line with their name, they're actively maintaining Arc, while focusing their efforts on Dia Browser.
That said, Arc is what we use on the day-to-day (I'm writing this in Arc right now, and yes, I have access to both Dia and Comet). It's a productivity-focused browser built atop Chromium (so all your extensions still work if you're using Chrome).
If you've been feeling like Chrome and Safari haven't evolved to be more powerful when it comes to tab management, folder structure, and switching between different spaces (Google Profiles), then Arc was built exactly for you.
If you're someone that always opts for keyboard shortcuts, finding the quickest way to do things, separating personal and work, and just want more organization (e.g. you've tried many of those productivity extensions like Toby and Workona, but they just didn't make the cut, then my gosh, you'll love Arc.
If you're already using the best productivity tools like Motion and Superhuman, or love the customization capabilities of Notion, then Arc is the perfect addition to your stack.
If you're someone that couldn't care less about the browser you're using (erm... why are you even reading this?), and you don't like change, and have never been frustrated by Chrome or Safari, then you aren't likely to be blown away by Arc Browser.
Well, there's no more waiting list, so you can just give it a shot yourself to see if it sticks, whether you're on MacOS, Windows, iOS, or Android, so we'd say yes, Arc is worth it. That said, if you're won Windows, Arc doesn't have as much feature parity as MacOS, so while we highly recommend Arc on MacOS, we don't recommend it as much on Windows. Pay closer attention to when Comet or Dia make their way to Windows instead.
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.
.svg)
.jpg)
.svg)
.webp)
.svg)
.svg){kind=icon}
.svg)
.svg)
