Arc Browser vs Opera

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.

The Browser Company was acquired by Atlassian for $610M, where they will continue building both browsers (focusing on Dia) but with more financial backing to hire more. There were mentions of a potential new plan for Arc Browser in the coming months, we believe that Atlassian may see a path to monetize it for the B2B world.

Although typically acquisitions by the likes of Atlassian have led to stagnation (e.g. Trello the project management software and more recently Loom). We're cautiously optimistic about this one though since Arc Browser was already in some form of maintenance mode while the team focused on Dia.

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.

And if you, for some reason, do not want to dive into the amazing world of AI browsers, then Arc is for you.

In general, 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).

People who use Arc typically like using the modern tools in other areas too (e.g. using one of the best email clients for email instead of regular Gmail or Outlook, or one of the best calendar apps opposed to just Google Calendar).

Spaces let you stay focused by separating your work into clean, organized environments instead of one messy browser.

For example, you can create a personal space with your YouTube, Spotify, WhatsApp, and Gmail tabs pinned. They start to feel less like tabs and more like mini apps you always have ready.

Then with a simple swipe, you're instantly in your work space, where everything switches over to your work tools, accounts, and logins. No switching profiles, just a completely different setup built for getting things done.

With Arc Browser you can easily drag a tab beside one another and it will automatically turn your browser into a split screen. It's one of those features that feels obvious once you use it, but surprisingly no other browser has nailed it this well.

Instead of constantly switching between tabs, you can actually work across tools at the same time. Think having your email open next to your CRM, or your notes beside a YouTube video you're learning from.

Arc Browser is currently available on MacOS, Windows, iOS, and Android.

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.

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).

You can tell Arc has been influencing the browser market. They expanded the idea of browser profiles into Spaces, and now Opera has copied the concept with Workspaces. The switching animation is slick and you can create as many workspaces as you'd like, but they all share the same cookies and cache, so you cannot fully separate environments like personal and work accounts. That separation is the key difference between Arc's Spaces and Opera's Workspaces.

You can create groups of tabs in the top if you want similar sites to be together for easy expanding/collapsing. If you open up 2 or more of the sam site, it'll automatically create a tab group for that site.

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.