Tree style tabs is slightly different - it’s like creating a tree-structure N levels deep with related tabs when researching something.
When you’re finished, you can just remove the entire thing.
I don’t like it myself, but I see the benefits.
It’s definitely a different tab management strategy. But apparently it’s one my brain has become so used to using that browsing without it feels like doing yard work with one hand tied behind my back.
As I touched on above, the problem with trying to use pinned folders for this approach is you have to drag every new tab up into the folder when it opens. And then, once you have them in place, you have to repeat the exercise again whenever you open more tabs. Additionally, the state of the tab becomes “frozen” to whatever it was when you pinned it, so if you have progressed along a few links in certain tabs and then close the browser (or your computer crashes), they reset back to what they were when you pinned them. (Their back/forward browsing history also disappears.)
You also have to spend time and thought setting up your nested folder structure in the first place.
So while pinned tabs and folder structures are useful, I think of them more as static long-term resources more akin to bookmarks. I like that, and I would probably use it (and spaces) more if I really got into making Arc my browsing home base, but without a way to do ad-hoc nested tabs on the fly as I browse, I don’t think it’ll ever become that for me.
That said, Arc is definitely sticking around on my computers! While it won’t work for heavy-lifting “power browsing,” it’s great in these other ways:
- Little Arc is AMAZING for those links in emails, apps, etc. that you just need to pop open for a quick look (or that you didn’t mean to open at all). The speed, lightness, and its appearance in whatever screen/space you’re in rather than jumping to an open browser window somewhere else all make it perfect for that.
- Picture-in-picture is perfect for keeping a video playing while I’m in another tab or application. It’s resizable, which is great, and its playback controls are very handy (and have gotten better since it first rolled out).
- Syncing its entire one-window state between computers is (well, WAS) really handy as well. There’s a lot of controversy over their recent move to change that to be more like conventional browsers, and I think they’re reverting after the outcry. I really liked that I could count on my Arc window and spaces being exactly the same no matter which computer I pulled it up from.
- Boosts are GAMECHANGING. The power to easily customize websites at will holds many, many possibilities for reclaiming/re-sanifying the browsing experience.
- The easel feature is really cool, and while I haven’t fully explored its potential, I did use it to re-create a heads-up display of various live webclips that I used to have available at the tap of a button via Dashboard (may it rest in peace). At some point, maybe I’ll figure out how to make a keyboard shortcut that opens it in Little Arc, and then I’ll basically have Dashboard back. (Take that, Apple!!!)
Bottom line: Arc will never be my primary browser without nested tabs, but its many unique capabilities mean it will be useful to me in plenty of other ways in this increasingly web-dependent computing world.
EDIT: I went ahead and figured out the Dashboard emulator! Here’s what I did:
- Made the easel accessible to anyone with the link, which generated a unique URL for it.
- Set up a BetterTouchTool keyboard shortcut (F5 on my desktop’s full keyboard and Command+F4 on my MBP).
- Made sure Arc was set as my default browser (so the URL would open in Little Arc)
And voila! For the first time in years, I’ve got a Dashboard-like heads-up display available at a keypress! I might make a separate post about this, since I know I’m not the only person who greatly mourned Dashboard’s demise. With the right web clippings, this could be the best way yet to bring it back.
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I second that. Please share with us more details about how you’re using this as it could be useful to others. Thanks!
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I made a new post here with more context and details!
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What software (for various browsers) exists currently to do the same thing as Safari “Web Clips”? That could be quite useful.
I’m not aware of any others that can do that—though I’m not all that well versed in the wide world of browsers. The only reason it works in Arc is because you can create a custom “easel” page with clips, and I don’t know if any other browsers have that functionality.
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Are you using the Arc easels? I’ve tried it but those dynamic clips don’t work as great as I thought so abandoned it until it improves.
Yes, those are what I’m using. What issues are you having with the dynamic clips? They’re working well enough for me, though my needs don’t go much beyond displaying up-to-date data and letting me click Play on satellite and radar loops.
Have not revisited them in a while but I recall the positioning would be off in the frame likely due to some dynamic elements on pages, etc. Also I think I needed to refresh them and then there’s that weird play button implying their not as up to date?
Ah. Yes, I think the “quality” of the clippings depends on the nature of the page. I seek out and clip simpler pages for just that reason. Some pages are better designed than others, and if one page doesn’t work very well, I try to find a different page/site with the same information that will work better.
As far as the refresh side of things, I just leave all of my clippings live (un-paused) so that every time I open my “dashboard” easel, everything reloads and is current within a second or two.
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Thanks. I will experiment again probably. I think the problems are greater with dynamic webpages but those are usually the ones you want to use with this feature anyways as the information is frequently updated.
What are people’s opinions on Arc after a couple of years?
I am torn. I like the basics of it: the sidebar pins and how it cleans up all the extra tabs at the end of the day. I like the spaces. I love the video picture in picture and miss it when I use any other browser. Little Arc is neat, but I don’t use it often.
But I turned on all the AI stuff like the page summaries and the auto renaming of tabs, and they are very much meh, often getting in the way or not very useful. I have an annoying bug that keeps resizing the window which I sent feedback on, but didn’t get an answer (this has been happening for months). I also really do not like that there is not an iOS/iPad version that syncs with it. Their iPhone only Arc AI thing is neat, but I never use it. I want to be able to get to my bookmarks on my iPads. The Windows version still sucks and it won’t sync with my Mac account (it should, but I used a different email to sign up for the wait list on Windows).
They do updates every week or two that they always seem really excited about and it’s all kind of meh to me. I like the basics and don’t care about all the other features. Plus, this is silly, I find the CEO annoying, and he really wants to tell me about things far too often. I do not like him.
I think I am close to going back to Safari, or switching to Vivaldi (which is my PC main browser).
Thoughts?
Edit: The just sent an email minutes ago that the newest update is adding desktop sync to the iPhone version. Still needs an iPad version though.
I’m liking it. The sidebar design is really good, and even though other browsers are trying to copy it they haven’t come close yet, and their brands won’t let their browsers feel as fun. I share links to a ‘finish and archive’ folder via Arc Mobile whenever they don’t make sense for a reading list (e.g. a forum thread or a cool interactive visualization.)
The AI features I still have enabled and use are tab titles and shift+enter instant links. I don’t think they’e found a way to make their AI features congruous with their much better thinking around UI/UX. Tab titles come closest because better, shorter titles make the truncated text in the sidebar more useful.
The most recent feature that feels totally Arc-like is Live Folders from a couple weeks ago. I’m using those Github PR bookmarks a lot.
Overall, I’m hoping they can stay ahead and stay differentiated on design and that they also figure out how to make money offering that.
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It is my daily driver.
- Profiles are a good way of segregating things.
- Like @cornchip I’m using the new live folder for the git pull requests, very useful.
- Flight control for directing external links to the correct profile is a good feature.
I would use Orion over Safari, but neither of them support a proxy plug in I use which makes them both unsuitable.
I ignore the YouTube videos and dislike the lack of clear release notes - but they don’t get in the way of my using it.
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It’s very good but not for me. Putting aside the sidebar look and feel, which is not very Mac-like, I am totally put off by the use of tabs as a bookmarks metaphor. Once you close a tab forever, you cannot organize it for future reference, it’s in the “archive”.
Orion would be my best choice, but it lacks the “folder tabs” capability that Arc solves well.
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This is what threw me as well. Different windows, same “tab/boomark” loads the same instance rather than a new “copy”. Off course the solution would be to use a different workspace, but this broke my brain.
I find it good for running web apps but mediocre for browsing. Vivaldi handles complex browsing/research sessions better, Brave and Firefox are more private, and Safari offers better battery life.
That said, Arc is an extremely opinionated browser. If you share the dev’s opinions about how a browser should work, you’ll love it. If you don’t, you probably won’t. It’s the polar opposite of Vivaldi in that way.
Totally bought in for me. I’ve been using it since the start almost and now their iPhone app has developed into quite an impressive tool as well with sync, AI, etc.
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