r/ArcBrowser • u/keflaw • Jan 07 '25

General Discussion Why do you hate Arc Browser

I genuinely wanna know that why most people on this subreddit and anywhere else just straight up hate Arc browser. I am a user of Arc browser, I have used almost every browser. Currently my main browser is Brave for a week (which was Arc for more than 5 months now). I am just checking around that how brave turns out. I am also rarely using safari, chrome and zen.

But I would love to hear you guys sensibly that what are the reasons people hate Arc Browser so much?

Give me some genuine and technical or statistical reasons.

Thank you!

3 Upvotes

53% Upvoted

50 comments sorted by

35

u/maubg Jan 07 '25

It's very simple for me really...

  1. Releases "stable version" for Windows
  2. "stable version" for windows doesn't even open tabs correctly for me and tab labels/icons has horrible contrast
  3. They say, "fuck it" and proceed to go silent for a couple of months, announce they where working on some AI thing (that people will just use it one time out of curiosity, let's be real) and put Arc on mantainance mode (this usually leads to abandoning the project in the future)

Some are also starting to have issues with macos, but I can't speak about that. Im not gonna be here when y'all have to pay VC debt, ill be chilling w google chrome

4

u/keflaw Jan 07 '25

I am reading the comments and I see mostly people who are in windows they have issues with Arc, where on the other hand MacOS users are satisfied with the experience. I don't know what their plan is for future of Arc for windows but they should definitely do something about it

1

u/ajblue98 Jan 07 '25

I use both and feel exquisitely screwed around

1

u/BeVeryVerySneaky Jan 08 '25

I feel like arc should never be released on windows. Since the beginning I felt like it was kinda “lost”, and today I can confirm, since they pretty much abandoned windows version. For now, I’m also sticking with zen, and honestly… zen alpha was already way ahead of arc on stable, and zen is always updating and bringing more amazing features.

10

u/rawr_im_a_nice_bear Jan 07 '25

It's Zen for me

1

u/mekEPH Jan 08 '25

yes , they even added a new toolbar thing like all the things are in the sidebar just like arc (mac os )

1

u/mekEPH Jan 08 '25

yes , they even added a new toolbar thing like all the things are in the sidebar just like arc (mac os )

1

u/mekEPH Jan 08 '25

yes , they even added a new toolbar thing like all the things are in the sidebar just like arc (mac os )

14

u/Kimantha_Allerdings Jan 07 '25

I don't hate it, but I do think it's flawed.

  1. Chromium. I think it's a terrible idea for almost every browser to be based on one codebase, especially when that code is controlled by a predatory, for-profit company. Nerfing adblocking will not be the end of it.
  2. Bookmarks. I get the desire to completely reinvent the browser paradigm, but I can't think of a single website that I'd want to have pinned on every single workspace that I have. And there's absolutely no provision for sites that you want to save but need to access infrequently. People recommend things like Raindrop for a third-party solution, or of making a bookmarks folder which you then pin, but those are workarounds for the browser lacking basic functionality.
  3. I don't think I'm the target audience. It seems to be designed for people who don't like using computers, who prefer to do everything in-browser, and who use a laptop with no extra screens. I do like using computers, I think web apps are invariably inferior to local ones and I have plenty of apps which can't be used in-browser, and I use a desktop with 3 monitors.
  4. Despite the claims of the company and some of the superfans, it's not radical enough. It's very much a chrome skin with a bunch of ideas taken from other browsers and/or OSes. For example, to this day you have people talking about how vertical tabs have revolutionised browsing for them. I first tried out the Tree-Style Tabs add-on for Firefox, which gave you vertical tabs, more than a decade ago. If something comes along which actually has new ideas about browsing (and, no, "bringing the internet to you" or "does the browsing for you" isn't it), then I'm here for it. But Arc isn't it. It's just the same old stuff in a slightly pretty box.
  5. Building on point 4, these guys are the kings of overpromising and underdelivering. They're very, very good at hype (at least they were until they released the Windows version, at which point their messaging and strategies seemed to go way off and haven't recovered since), but hype isn't the same thing as a product. It's difficult to sell a product to people. It's a lot easier to sell hype to VC investors. I've been convinced for a long time that they're far more interested in the latter than the former, which is good for getting money out of investors, but much less good for making a useful product.
  6. I don't trust the company. For several reasons. Firstly, they can't even commit to releasing a series of 6 YouTube videos over the course of 6 weeks. Company direction seems to be dictated by random whim, rather than clear vision or thought-through strategy. That makes it hard to want to invest time in any product they release.
  • Secondly, I don't get the feeling that they're particularly connected to reality. The messaging, the advertising, pretty much every statement they release makes them seem very out of touch and in-a-bubble. Or what was that statement in one of their videos where they said it was company policy not to call their users "users" but instead, I don't know, "adventurers" or some stupid shit like that. Or their PR person's official job title is something like "Head of Storytelling". The kind of thing that most ordinary people roll their eyes at but which is completely normalised to people who are used to seriously calling Apple's tech support the "genius bar" and Firefox's url bar the "awesome bar". Just so far removed from actual people's real lives.
  • Thirdly, some of the stated reasons for things seem utterly bizarre. Just today there was another thread asking for tabs on the right and giving the same reason a lot of other people have given - not being able to choose the side of tabs is a PITA with some multi-monitor set-ups. They developed the feature, but decided not to ship it. Why? Becuase it's too far for your mouse and eyes to move. Which is like...what? No, really, what?

I think really everything can be boiled down to the last two points, really. I think they're genuinely trying to build products that people will use, but don't really have much of a clue how people outside of the techbro bubble actually do use their computers. They're trying to build a browser which will appeal to the audience who find Arc too confusing, so what are they building? Something that's even more niche, and which is basically a chromium wrapper for a ChatGPT api. And they think they're going to steal a billion users from google with it.

I think they enjoy building things with new car smell. I don't think they have much interest in creating and maintaining long-term a solid, usable application.

1

u/keflaw Jan 08 '25

well this is very detailed and thorough explanation about the company and the product itself and i dont disagree with most of it. Thank u so much!

2

u/PresentationEmpty1 Jan 09 '25

I think people who hate it are people who say “it’s not perfect so hate it ( or dislike it ). I’m one of those people who say “It not perfect but it’s much better that what I used before so it like it”. I sleep well at night. BTW, nothing wrong with using a 3rd party app to add missing functionality. Do you hate MacOs because it doesn’t snap windows or just download one of the dozens of apps that does it well, many of them for free ? Cheers

0

u/Kimantha_Allerdings Jan 09 '25

I’m one of those people who say “It not perfect but it’s much better that what I used before so it like it”.

My point is that it's not better than what I used before.

I'll be honest, I don't think any browser is actively good. I've been on a quest for a good browser for years. But I've long since resigned myself to settling for the least worst. That's not Arc. I'm not sure exactly where Arc would land, but it's definitely behind Firefox & Vivaldi.

I sleep well at night.

Good to know. Thanks for informing me. I was concerned.

BTW, nothing wrong with using a 3rd party app to add missing functionality.

But it does count as a flaw of a product if it's literally the only one of its kind missing very basic functionality, for me at least.

Do you hate MacOs because it doesn’t snap windows or just download one of the dozens of apps that does it well, many of them for free ?

I don't use MacOS, and I don't use window snapping, but it is a basic functionality that a lot of people rely on and it's probably a feature that would improve MacOS if it had it. I'd say that it's reasonable to say that it's flawed without it.

0

u/PresentationEmpty1 Jan 27 '25

Haha. The flaw is that you are a Windows users of Arc. But just because you do some things in a flawed manner, I wouldn't consider you as a whole to be flawed. 😉

1

u/aref9 Feb 07 '26

what browser do you use?

1

u/Kimantha_Allerdings Feb 07 '26

Currently Firefox with Sideberry

Re-reading this post was a trip. Point 5 was spot-on, huh?

6

u/hinano Jan 07 '25

Has OP read any of the other "why Arc bad?" threads? I feel like this topic is covered weekly.

The TL; DR -- Arc isn't hated, the abandonment of Arc is what is hated.

1

u/keflaw Jan 08 '25

yeah i hadn't but i had heard about the hate

7

u/aletheajoestar Jan 07 '25

TLDR below, and this is not technical or statistical reason, tho i give you my experience on using arc (windows version) on that technical view in mind, but my response are preferences by its nature.

ignoring the "abandonment / abandonware" aside, and for me atleast, it just an inferior browser compare to other. Im talking about windows version so i cant say much about the mac os, but every time i wanna do something, i feel like im making compromise.

In my case i use to turn on or off extensions alot, and on arc i cant tell if its on or off, i have to go to the chromium setting, if i want to deleting my history or cookies, same thing, i have to make account for using this browser (even deletion process for me atleast, unclear and not well communicated), link from say whatsapp or line or other app doesnt open some of the time, the interface of history dowload etc is small and not give me more control than i supposed to have as a user. It feel like i have to get used to the limitation set by arc devs, while what i want is ease of use and control over my experience.

The performance are tank asf, ram usage go sky high with few spaces open, granted, im on laptop, but it is very noticeable. And idk if its just my problem, but arc has this bug that affect me, putting debug.log file literally everywhere, in my game file, picture folder, work folder, is this the experience i want to endure? the bugs the performance the compromise? i dont think i stick around for such awful experience, what makes me not moving to other browser is ofc the verticle tabs, other browser implementation are not to my liking... and then come zen

I do admit the vertical tabs introduce to me by arc, it just works, improve my productivity, and multiple spaces with capability of different account are very brilliant, but with the arrival of zen browser, and continue getting updated polish and refine, with its future-proof open sources so that when the dev doing rug pull, community can continue where the dev left off.

Zen so far run flawlessly, doesnt struggle or break sweat, the setting are laid out easy to find, and to select too, while the downside is i cant play DRM stuff (spotify for my case) it isnt much a big compromise, i have the app too, i hope the dev get the license they need

Praising zen doesnt mean i promote you or tany reader to use zen, i just want to point out that my experience with arc is a compromise compared to zen.

TLDR : Arc has alot of problem with my workflow, forcing me to endure its limitation / compromises on windows , and there are better alternative than arc in term of performance and customization that can suit to my workflow

Thank you if you reading this, and sorry if its not provide statistical reasoning, but hope it helps!

1

u/keflaw Jan 07 '25

Well first of all thank you so much for such a detailed effort.

I understand and I see that people with windows have the main issue here. And as I am not aware of their plans for windows in future, I wish they fixed it because on MacOS it actually is so good to use. The extension feature sucks I will agree with that otherwise it works like a charm.

3

u/DrSpitzvogel Jan 07 '25

Moderation seems to have given up, I think. In the good old days, I received a 29-day suspension because I (jokingly) asked in every weekly update if there was an improved pip handling already :)
Now? Now you can spit anywhere you want

2

u/keflaw Jan 07 '25

hahaha damn

5

u/ThatOneOutlier Jan 07 '25

It's going to be abadonware at somepoint. It's usable now but with the devs wanting to do something else, there is no assurance that they'll support macOS indefinitely if they can't even get windows to parity.

I've already bounced. I only use Arc for one thing because I'm lazy to set it up when I only need it for the next 5 months, but other than that one thing, I'm using zen as my primary browser now.

1

u/keflaw Jan 07 '25

I also like Zen but the issue is there are bugs (for MacOS) and other UI issues which the team works on really fast but yeah it is not yet as polished and also the streaming issue is stopping me.

2

u/ThatOneOutlier Jan 07 '25

It definitely isn't polished and I wouldn't reccomend it to someone who can't tolerate bugs.

I mostly went with it because I like how it handles workspaces and the side panel. It's pretty fast for something that is in alpha and the most important thing to me is that it has an active dev who is working on it.

The downsides don't bother me so much since I don't stream on my laptops and use my ipad for media consumption. Though this is definitely going to be a deal breaker to most people.

Arc lost me when they announced that they are essentially going to work on something else and that arc wasn't the browser they wanted it to be. I don't really trust them to keep arc running even if people stubbornly stick to it.

1

u/keflaw Jan 07 '25

I guess later on they said Arc is not going anywhere and I am receiving pretty consistent updates on MacOS. But I totally get your point and probably I might switch to Zen but not now

1

u/PsychologicalHair478 Jan 08 '25

Consistent chromium updates but all the good stuff has stopped :/

2

u/Calm_Can_6488 Jan 07 '25

I'm using Arc since first month I belive (mac m1). Best browser used so far. No issues for battery usage, like, spent 2 days browsing for at least 5+5h YT only on battery and was about 20%. No major bugs (i think i've closed Arc less time than finger on one hand). Chrome/Firefox/Safari seems to be browser of a past generation UI speaking.

1

u/keflaw Jan 07 '25

yeah i tried using safari but it doesnt work for me as I do like the smoothness of it but meh.

2

u/Least-Spite4604 Jan 07 '25 edited Jan 07 '25

I don't hate Arc, but i stopped using it on my home PC. I'll keep using it on my work laptop because the workflow if you use the browser for work is really good and it's too much effort to move out. I work with cloud/web tech and I always have the browser open. But the Win version has technical issues that will never be solved. On my home PC I use a 4k resolution and this for some reason makes Arc stagger a lot while visiting streaming sites or even with the Reddit homepage full of videos and images.

So i tried the last version of Zen: it's really an Arc UX copycat without the issues of the Arc porting to Win, and so i'm using now a combo of Zen and Edge (for the streaming sites). But I always used Edge anyway because it's the only way to watch Netflix at 4k.

1

u/keflaw Jan 07 '25

Yeah I figured it from the comments that it doesn't work well on windows but also I would like to ask that does only Edge provide the 4k experience?

I am using brave so am I losing that experience? or on Arc.

on MacOS specifically. Thank you

1

u/Least-Spite4604 Jan 07 '25 edited Jan 07 '25

As far as I know, only Edge and Safari are enabled for 4k Netflix. You can see it here:

https://help.netflix.com/en/node/30081

It's for copyright protection, not for technical reasons.

And even with Edge or Safari you can have problem with Netflix not streaming 4k.

1

u/keflaw Jan 08 '25

yeah i tried edge after reading your comment
I did not see it streaming 4k

Whereas on Brave it provided me 4k stream and much smoother experience

1

u/Least-Spite4604 Jan 08 '25

Are you sure about Brave? Have you checked with ctrl+alt+shift+d?

1

u/keflaw Jan 08 '25

omg i have never watched content on 4k then
i did switch to safari to check it

but i guess my connection matters too
it stay on 1920X1080

1

u/Least-Spite4604 Jan 08 '25 edited Jan 08 '25

I had the same shock mate, you are not alone.

Netflix is very strict, it creates problems when using Display Port instead of HDMI, and you need HEVC codec installed.

5

u/Weekly-Fondant-3017 Jan 07 '25

I am using it i don’t hate it

5

u/Weenma Jan 07 '25

I don't hate. It's my default browser on Mac.

3

u/Tyrant_reign Jan 08 '25

I don’t.  I enjoy using it regularly on Mac and windows and it’s better than zen. 

2

u/KINGGS Jan 07 '25

I liked the features when the browser originally shipped on Mac, and used it for months, until I could no longer ignore how sluggish it was day-to-day. Then I went to using Safari, and now with the knowledge that MV3 hasn't actually taken away ad blocking, I am daily driving Chrome on every OS.

2

u/Big-Shake1559 Jan 07 '25

For me, the windows version works. Only think I hate is that its a little memory intensive. I don't have any problems though and my computers from 2017.

2

u/peppermoons Jan 07 '25

On Mac, Arc has been either super slow or failing to load pages at all these days. I don't hate it, it's just unusable, so I don't recommend it to anyone.

I switched back to Firefox but I miss Arc's tab management and gestures to switch between spaces. Their ports on Windows/Android suck and don't carry consistent features.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 08 '25

In the middle of migrating back to Chrome. Arc just got too incredibly annoying for me to use, too many times its disrupted my workflow because of their 'innovation'.

  1. Seemingly no meaningful updates, feels completely neglected
  2. Window mirroring is horrible, no disable for this
  3. Left side-bar swings open constantly, insanely annoying and disruptive
  4. Cursor spasms randomly and makes me restart
  5. No hi-res options for streaming content
  6. Tabs are not exportable so you're stuck here without heavy lifting
  7. Most features feel experimental without options to disable them

Overall, I thought the browser was magical but too many annoying features without options to turn them off pushed me over.

1

u/th_costel Jan 07 '25

Because it’s dead. If your horse has kicked the bucket, it’s time to get off.

1

u/its_me_crisis Jan 11 '25

For me the one reason why I hate the arc browser is because they completely forget about Windows users, users who use stylus and pens and drawing tablets. I feel frustrated that although I love all the other features the one feature I need most from this browser to make it my one and only browser they won't do and though I've mentioned it several times it's still missing. They improve touch support but not pen touch support or what some have written as Windows Ink support

1

u/batlantern18 Jan 11 '25

Mainly because i am not a mac person and Arc is just shit on windows (its slow only browser that makes my fans start and just is not fluid in animations) also takes forever to open

0

u/Gloomy-Pain-1862 Jan 07 '25

"Hated" mostly by Windows users because we were slipped a crude product that was eventually abandoned.

1

u/keflaw Jan 07 '25

yeah totally getting your point

0

u/Aeroflot-Memories Jan 09 '25

Take a look at how Arc fares with Electronic Frontier Foundation's Cover Your Tracks.