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 😉
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.
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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