Arc Browser AMA

Some interesting Q&As from the recent AMA with one of the Arc Browser co-founders on Reddit I thought I’d share:

On requiring an account to use the browser:

• “Why should I create an account to use a browser?” ⬆ 13 – no reply

• “Let us use the browser without a login.” ⬆ 5 – no reply

• “Why do I need an account to even use this! [… I’d] rather not give out info that frankly isn’t needed.” ⬆ 2

Reply: “Our vision for Arc is for it to be […] an “internet computer”, where you have the same experience wherever you log in [, which] requires really robust syncing + encryption […] but it also requires a login. [Our] people + collaboration [… features …] also requires you to be logged in somehow. Lastly, we’ve spoken a lot to the Chrome team and one of their big pieces of advice was that it’s nearly impossible to get folks to log into Chrome to enable sync because they don’t ask for a login upfront. As such we decided to require it […]. If we get hordes of folks complaining […] we’d rethink it. There’s no nefarious reason like it helping with data collection or anything.”

Hmm… so the Google Chrome team advised them most of their users don’t sign into Chrome, so they decided to just mandate it for their browser? Seems like a good reason! 🤷🏻‍♂️

On why the focus was on macOS:

• “With just-over 55% of all web-traffic coming from mobile-devices, why the focus on macOS first?” ⬆ 14

Reply: “This AMA is opening our eyes a bit! We didn’t think it was as much of a need …”

• “When is the iPad version coming?” ⬆ 9

Reply: “Not on our roadmap, unfortunately […] maybe after Windows?”

So… they didn’t realise how-much web-browsing comes from mobile-devices, despite-looking to make a browser? 🤯

On privacy:

• “What’s Arc’s approach to privacy long-term?” ⬆ 7

Reply: “[We] are committed to coming up with a business-model that does not need any information about you […]. A lot of us came from Facebook/Google and saw [data consumption] happen in those companies [… so] we’re trying everything we can to avoid the same fate.”

Admirable, but how-realistic in the long-term, really? Especially when users are required to log-in to use it! 🤔

• “What’s the plan if the collaboration/enterprise monetization strategy doesn’t work out? Change the privacy policy?” ⬆ 4

Reply: “We’ll never pick a monetization option that involves selling (or using) your data for revenue.”

Well, YOU might-not… but what-about a possible future-owner, if they buy your product? And if the data is already-there…?

• “What is The Browser Company’s position on the Web Environment Integrity proposal?” ⬆ 7- no reply

On ad-blocking:

• “Is there any plan for built-in ad blocker?” ⬆ 5

Reply: “Yep! Not on our roadmap at the moment but we’d love to get one in in the next 6-8 months.”

Er… by that-time, won’t that “Manifest v3” thing have come-in, and so it might-not be as-possible by-then…?

• “What will you and your team plan to do once Manifest v3 is implemented?” ⬆ 3

Reply: “The main thing [it would affect] is adblockers, and at that point we’d probably implement our own, native, […] adblocker. We’re already seeing that extension-based adblockers hurt performance in Arc (and Chrome) by almost 30-40%, so a native adblocker would be great for performance as well.”

Sounds a bit misleading to me. Ad-blockers are shown to hurt performance in Arc and Google Chrome by around 30-40%? How? If they stop many ads from loading on a page, that makes them quicker to render, not slower! Many websites now (especially those of traditional print-media!) are virtually-unusable on older PCs now, without ad-blockers! So to me, this sounds like “we’re going to not allow ad-blocker extensions, but have our own, where we control which ads will show and which won’t”. And I’m-sure it be a co-incidence if the ads which are allowed to run are those from the companies who backed them, and I’m sure we all agree it would be very-unlikely that they would ever allow other-companies to pay them in-future to allow their ads through! 😉