Arc browser, which has affected macOS and iOS users in the last few years, is finally coming to the Windows platform as of Tuesday. Arc is designed to fundamentally change the way you use the browser; It includes a sidebar that combines vertical tabs and bookmarks into an app-switching experience, a command bar for navigation, and useful tools to help you navigate the web.
The Browser Company, behind the Arc browser, is confident that its browser will be attractive enough and different from Chrome and Edge. “Arc is really calming and keeps you organized,” says Hursh Agrawal, co-founder of The Browser Company. “It helps you manage your tasks better during the day.”
For someone addicted to Chrome, using Arc is a surprising but rewarding experience. When you adopt the new layout offered by Arc, choosing the sidebar instead of the sequential view of tabs or eliminating all browser clutter and focusing on a single website brings a breath of fresh air to the way we use the web. Since Arc is also built on Chromium, websites run smoothly and you can easily use your plugins.
Arc browser's goal is to stand strong against Chrome and Edge
Arc's Windows version is an important step in The Browser Company's grand vision of what it calls an “operating system for the internet.” The company wants to make Arc more than just a browser, but a comprehensive platform for the internet. Arc for Windows is also an important part of this vision, as The Browser Company helped bring the Swift programming language, which Apple created to develop iOS and Mac apps, to Windows.
The Windows version of Arc is built using Swift, while software engineers at The Browser Company have largely open-sourced the underlying infrastructure for building Windows applications. Saleem Abdulrasool, Swift core team member and software engineer at The Browser Company, worked for more than six years to bring Swift to Windows. “I'm very excited about this,” says Abdulrasool. “It's really cool to see something come to fruition after a long time.”
The release of a Windows version of Arc may encourage other developers to follow a similar path. In particular, the White House's recommendation to software developers to use memory-safe programming languages such as Swift instead of the C++ language used to develop Chrome and Edge supports this idea. “We invite others to join,” says Abdulrasool.
For all its impressive underpinnings, Arc should be good enough to compete against Chrome. The Browser Company promotes Arc as “the Chrome alternative you've been waiting for,” so a lot is expected from the Windows version. The company will also have to deal with Microsoft's efforts to migrate Windows users to Edge.
For Darin Fisher, this is the latest challenge in a series of building web browsers that disrupt the status quo. Fisher joined The Browser Company in late 2022.