[HN Gopher] Arc Browser Company: Chrome and Safari face a new ch...
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       Arc Browser Company: Chrome and Safari face a new challenger
        
       Author : cpeterso
       Score  : 78 points
       Date   : 2022-05-29 00:06 UTC (22 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
        
       | rascul wrote:
       | Is this just another Chrome skin or is it actually a new browser?
        
         | coffeefirst wrote:
         | It's Chromium, but more of a "rework the UI from scratch" than
         | just a skin.
         | 
         | I have the beta. It has some interesting ideas.
        
           | debdut wrote:
           | can i get an invite?
        
             | layer8 wrote:
             | Go here: https://browserco.typeform.com/to/l9lYbJtU
        
       | ushakov wrote:
       | https://archive.ph/4MuhM
        
         | aaronfc wrote:
        
       | agluszak wrote:
       | > wide address bars wasting valuable space across the top of the
       | screen to display what he calls "URL gibberish."
       | 
       | That's not "gibberish", in my opinion understanding what URLs
       | mean (or even reading them at all!) is one of the most overlooked
       | computer skills nowadays. If they look like gibberish that's
       | because of: 1. Tracking parameters spam (?fbclid=qwerty) 2. Lack
       | of knowledge that many parts of the URL can (and even should) be
       | skipped when sharing it. So many times my non-programmer friends
       | were astonished that you don't have to paste that ugly part!
       | 
       | Hiding the details instead of explaining them is a way leading to
       | disaster! Many banking scams rely on users not paying attention
       | to URLs.
       | 
       | I think that a better "innovation" would be to have the browser
       | clean URLs from tracking bits without extensions.
        
         | admax88qqq wrote:
         | There has to be some solution to the phishing problem that
         | doesn't require teaching the general population how to parse
         | URLs.
         | 
         | there's room to innovate here.
        
         | ushakov wrote:
         | the issue is they have to sell this to the investors
         | 
         | what do they answer when investors ask a typical: "What makes
         | you different from competition?"
         | 
         | their answer is: "We don't waste valuable space across the top
         | of the screen to display URL gibberish"
         | 
         | the article is for business people, who could potentially
         | invest into their Series A round, not for us tech people
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | gman83 wrote:
         | At the same time, I think that more than 90% of people that I
         | know have absolutely no idea how to read a URL, and are not
         | going to learn. I think that just showing the domain for them
         | wouldn't be so bad. I don't think I'm the target audience for
         | this browser.
        
       | fny wrote:
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | ushakov wrote:
         | this one is arguably not as bad as YC's "Stablegains"
         | investment
        
       | ushakov wrote:
       | > Hovering the mouse over a Google Calendar button will surface a
       | tiny panel of upcoming appointments. Spotify comes with an
       | embedded player to shuffle through songs
       | 
       | how long until this feature breaks, because they rely on third-
       | party APIs like Google's that change all the time?
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | ushakov wrote:
         | also why does a music player and calendar widget needs to be in
         | a browser?
         | 
         | it's already implemented in system-level ui (at least on macOS
         | and Gnome)
        
       | DarthNebo wrote:
       | Anyone remember Refresh concept from a while back,
       | https://phase.com/magazine/refresh-rethinking-the-browser/
        
         | chrisfrantz wrote:
         | This looks great, did it ever launch?
        
           | workona wrote:
           | Our iPad app provides a pretty similar user experience as
           | their concept video: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/workona-
           | project-organizer/id15...
        
       | echan00 wrote:
       | How is this unknown company a challenger? How is this even worthy
       | of Bloomberg to report on
        
         | capableweb wrote:
         | A lot of stuff you see in Bloomberg (and elsewhere) either gets
         | paid to be put there (some via agencies that specializes in
         | things like that), or put on there via connections. They are
         | not reporting on underdogs for the fun of it.
        
           | sealeck wrote:
           | Do you have a source for this? Not in any way saying it's not
           | true but would be interesting if there was some analysis
           | somewhere.
        
             | capableweb wrote:
             | Unfortunately no, only personal experience working in bunch
             | of different companies (some US based, some EU) where
             | they've employed agencies like that and gotten the result
             | they wanted (an article published).
        
         | readthenotes1 wrote:
         | Paid for advertising maybe?
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | Terretta wrote:
         | See "earned media":
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_media
         | 
         | https://sproutsocial.com/insights/earned-media-strategy/
        
       | Shadonototra wrote:
       | dead on arrival, nobody is looking for a new browser
       | 
       | chrome proved that people give no shit about browsers
       | 
       | the UI/UX haven't changed since day 1, still minimalist AF
       | 
       | firefox usage dropped massively, as they kept iterating on their
       | UI/UX, forgetting the reason why people needed a browser in the
       | fist place, instead they kept raising the salary of their CEO, as
       | if he/she/it was the reason why people wanted to use firefox :')
       | 
       | the focus is on the websites
       | 
       | people literally only want an address bar and sync-able
       | bookmarks/history with their phone, that's exactly what
       | chrome/safari provide
       | 
       | firefox can't even provide this, and they keep push their
       | AD/sponsored articles about how sweet firefox is, nobody cares
       | 
       | every other browsers from shady companies like this one are just
       | cash grab (including firefox)
       | 
       | the only logical evolution of browsers is literally ChromeOS, you
       | boot to browse people's places (websites)
        
         | Nextgrid wrote:
         | > people give no shit about browsers
         | 
         | This is mainly because people who are tech-savvy already have a
         | good set up (Firefox with uBlock Origin and all bullshit
         | disabled), and those who aren't don't know what they're missing
         | out on because a browser by itself (even Firefox) doesn't
         | actually fix any of their problems.
         | 
         | A user-focused browser bundled with functionality that fixes
         | today's user-hostile web (whether built-in or as preinstalled
         | uBlock/etc) would convince anyone who tries it.
        
       | zagrebian wrote:
       | They need to come up with a different name. ARC Browser
       | https://www.arcbrowser.com is already taken.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | ThinkBeat wrote:
       | "Arc Browser" is just Chromium + uBlock + some GUI enhancements
       | 
       | I really wish that articles about "new browsers" should state up
       | front what (if anything) they are built on top of.
       | 
       | Each time I am hopeful that someone has taken on the monumental
       | task of creating a new, better, or at least different web engine/
       | browser. The competition would be good.
       | 
       | The near impossible complexity in writing a new web browser from
       | scratch seems indicative as to how broken the system has gotten.
        
         | [deleted]
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | ducaale wrote:
         | Maybe serenityOS browser will be the new engine/browser that
         | rivals existing browser engines
         | 
         | See
         | https://mobile.twitter.com/awesomekling/status/1508953394836...
        
         | kitsunesoba wrote:
         | I agree. Yet Another Chromium Clone is not all that
         | interesting, regardless of how its UI is dressed up, because
         | realistically the browser's most core qualities are not going
         | to differ significantly from those of any other Chrome-based
         | browser.
         | 
         | Being forthcoming about the engine of choice will help people
         | set reasonable expectations... it's not a revolution, it's
         | Chrome with a new coat of paint.
        
         | zagrebian wrote:
         | > Each time I am hopeful that someone has taken on the
         | monumental task of creating a new, better, or at least
         | different web engine/ browser. The competition would be good.
         | 
         | What would be the benefit of having a browser with a new web
         | engine?
        
           | CharlesW wrote:
           | > _What would be the benefit of having a browser with a new
           | web engine?_
           | 
           | This is the right question. The answer is probably what
           | you're thinking: Absolutely nothing. It'd be a giant waste of
           | time to spend 5 years rebuilding plumbing instead of focusing
           | on where one can actually differentiate.
        
           | LegitShady wrote:
           | Competition and funding for non chromium initiatives.
           | 
           | If someoone had asked the same question before chrome would
           | you have agreed with them?
        
             | zagrebian wrote:
             | Well, Google didn't develop a new engine for Chrome. They
             | forked WebKit. And then Samsung, Microsoft, and others
             | forked Chromium for their own browsers. (These forks are
             | kept close to Chromium, but they're still forks.)
        
       | nskvortsov wrote:
       | Browser tab problem is not about the web or the browser, it is
       | about users' habits and discipline. If you suffer from this
       | "problem" invest time in learning shortcuts for bookmark, typing
       | to search history in the address bar, saving things in proper
       | place for later reading and, above all, concentrate on one thing
       | for more than 5 minutes.
        
         | pvg wrote:
         | At the end of the day, it's a browser, not a boot camp. If user
         | re-education worked designing software (and most other things)
         | would be a lot easier.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | Karunamon wrote:
         | This mindset/rant does not work in the real world. When a large
         | enterprise company tried it, (Apple), they were widely mocked
         | for blaming users for "holding it wrong".
         | 
         | It is not up to developers to determine how users use their
         | tools. The best you can do is hint and nudge, but it is not
         | your decision at the end of the day.
        
           | layer8 wrote:
           | I don't think it's solvable if users don't themselves close
           | or group/categorize the stuff they're opening. Any
           | automation/heuristic is prone to not do what the user wants,
           | because the tool can't really judge _why_ the user opened any
           | given page, and thus can't make an informed decision in how
           | to handle it. I can think of new (mostly power-)user features
           | to support the user in organizing opened pages, but I have a
           | hard time imagining an I-don't-want-to-deal-with-this user
           | feature that would universally "just work". (Of course, I may
           | be wrong.)
           | 
           | The closest I can think of is to have sortable list views of
           | open pages that you can sort by open date, last updated,
           | possibly content type (e.g. has video), and/or group by site
           | or by "opened from" (navigation history graph). Again, this
           | is moving into power user territory.
        
       | gabereiser wrote:
       | "It will be free upfront; the team is looking at developing
       | premium subscription features for enterprise users, perhaps
       | somewhere around $12 a month, echoing the freemium model of Slack
       | Technologies Inc., Dropbox Inc., and other productivity
       | services."
       | 
       | Good luck with that. The majority of browsers that were
       | commercially closed software didn't make it. If it's open source
       | then it will be ridiculed for not having an open license. If
       | there's an open license then it's no longer yours to control and
       | monetize.
       | 
       | Chrome gets away with this because of chromium is the core,
       | Chrome is the added "management" of your browser "experience".
       | Safari gets away with this because WebKit is core, Safari is the
       | added "management". Both are free from a monetary cost
       | perspective on the user. Both position themselves as the keeper
       | of secrets for their platform.
       | 
       | I'm all for an open/free/libre browser that isn't WebKit. I
       | believe it's naive to think you can change the existing web
       | experience with a browser alone.
        
         | capableweb wrote:
         | > I'm all for an open/free/libre browser that isn't WebKit. I
         | believe it's naive to think you can change the existing web
         | experience with a browser alone.
         | 
         | (Probably today you mean Blink?)
         | 
         | This browser, like most "new" and "shiny" browsers today are
         | just using embedded chrome and then put their own UX on top,
         | calling it a new browser. Before, we'd call it a "browser
         | shell" or something like that, but seemingly companies like
         | this can launch with misleading wording and no one seems to
         | notice it.
        
         | Nextgrid wrote:
         | > The majority of browsers that were commercially closed
         | software didn't make it
         | 
         | Keep in mind that the last time this was tried, free/open-
         | source alternatives were on-par if not better and the web was
         | much less hostile.
         | 
         | Nowadays, not only is the web teeming with hostility that can
         | best be addressed by a browser, but the closest free/open-
         | source solution (Firefox) is half-baked and doesn't actually
         | solve many of these issues nor is it incentivized to due to
         | murky funding (most of it comes from Google, a big advertising
         | provider) and a dysfunctional company.
         | 
         | A browser whose funding comes directly from its users wouldn't
         | have these misaligned incentives and wouldn't be afraid of
         | doing bold moves that piss off adtech.
         | 
         |  _The Enterprise(tm)_ spends a lot of money on (often dubious)
         | security products and given that the browser is often on the
         | front-line for various threats, a browser with built-in
         | security features (both against malware and other features such
         | as DLP, blocking /filtering/monitoring without middleboxes)
         | with a paid enterprise plan subsidizing a free version for
         | personal use could become a sustainable business.
        
           | Taywee wrote:
           | Which issues do Firefox fail to solve?
        
             | tux3 wrote:
             | I frequently cannot log in to my bank with Firefox.
             | 
             | The problem is that my bank's website was made by a bank,
             | but as a Firefox user this impacts me in my daily life.
        
               | sigio wrote:
               | Probably best solved by changing banks... firefox works
               | just fine with the ~4 banks I currently use. Though the
               | situation is probably worse on the usa-side of the pond.
        
               | DakotaR wrote:
               | Conversely, one of my banks returns a server error if you
               | visit from Chrome. Their "solution" was to put a banner
               | at the top advising an alternate browser.
        
               | mrtweetyhack wrote:
        
               | skinnymuch wrote:
               | How would this be solved by an up and coming browser that
               | isn't based off Blink/Chromium and why can't Firefox do
               | the solution?
        
               | Barrin92 wrote:
               | at least according to this article from last year Arc is
               | chromium based.
               | 
               | https://www.protocol.com/browser-company
        
               | Nextgrid wrote:
               | Firefox's problem is the company behind it, not the
               | rendering engine. Firefox is actually a pretty fine
               | browser if you pair it with uBlock Origin and neuter its
               | wide range of user-hostile "features" and keep
               | maintaining that as updates often introduce new
               | "features" you'll need to disable.
        
               | djbusby wrote:
               | What's your top three user hostile feature? Have you
               | looked at LibreFox?
               | 
               | Edit: I see there is a LibreWolf and a LibreFox
        
               | Nextgrid wrote:
               | See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31551947.
        
               | ushakov wrote:
               | have you considered telling your bank about the issue?
               | 
               | it's not like they did this maliciously to worsen your
               | experience as Firefox user?
        
               | tux3 wrote:
               | Sure. This has happened before and they do eventually fix
               | it. Then a different problem might happen on another page
               | a few months later, and this'll last a few weeks.
        
             | Nextgrid wrote:
             | Not only Mozilla's privacy claims are smoke and mirrors
             | (you need uBlock Origin to get any reasonable privacy on
             | the web today - why is it not included by default despite
             | being permissively licensed?), they have opt- _out_
             | telemetry (in breach of the GDPR), the browser will load a
             | page with Google Analytics on first run and will nag you
             | with bullshit on nearly every update (and it updates often)
             | not to mention change the UI all the time for no good
             | reason.
             | 
             | Firefox is the most user-hostile free & open-source
             | software that I know of, and more hostile than a lot of
             | paid, proprietary software.
        
           | irrational wrote:
           | Firefox is half baked? What does that mean? I've used Firefox
           | as my primary browser for many years, including for my full
           | time job as a web developer, and have never had any issues.
           | The only time I ever use Chrome is when I need to put in my
           | PTO at work since their time-off web app doesn't work with
           | Firefox.
        
           | 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
           | "Half-baked" means Firefox adopts slogans like "protecting
           | the open web" and it purports to represent the interests of
           | web users, however its true goals are to generally to match
           | Chrome feature-for-feature and preserve the status quo on the
           | web which is that it provides an optimal medium for
           | advertising. It gets over 90% of its financial support from
           | Google, not web users.
           | 
           | From the comments some people's idea of a fully baked Firefox
           | is a browser that generally works exactly like Chrome and
           | Safari on the surface but is somehow better, e.g., because it
           | does not overtly sell advertising services. An enormously
           | complex program with a gazillion knobs and dials that no
           | average web user would ever touch. Sending all search queries
           | of these users to Google by default. Perfect.
           | 
           | Another idea of a fully-baked "Firefox" is one that has
           | options to allow mere mortals to compile it from source on
           | modest hardware in a reasonable amount of time. There could
           | be multiple versions of Firefox, that could all be built from
           | the same source tree, each a different compile time option,
           | or a set of compile-time options. Some of these might exclude
           | support for features that make the web optimal for
           | advertising or commerce, i.e., essential features of Chrome
           | or other "modern" web browsers. Scaled-down versions might be
           | optimised for different experiences. Not all them driven by
           | Javascript. For example, fast consumption of noncommercial
           | content with minimal surveillance, and no advertising.
           | Essentially "Reader Mode" as the default.
           | 
           | What is the point of having Firefox be open source if almost
           | no one can download the source and start creating new and
           | different web clients with it. Instead it is a project that
           | only tries to keep pace with Chrome, getting larger and
           | larger, more and more complex. It appears to have no other
           | purpose. Tunnel vision. Follow the leader.
           | 
           | Make no mistake, I am not suggesting there should be no
           | Firefox version that does almost everything that Chrome does,
           | as there is now. Mozilla has supported use of the web for
           | advertising and commerce. They have supported Yahoo, Inc. and
           | Google, LLC. That's wonderful. Great job.
           | 
           | What I am suggesting is that Firefox should also have
           | smaller, simpler versions that deliberately do not do all the
           | things that Chrome does. Mozilla should also work to support
           | noncommercial web use. Compile-time options to remove
           | Javascript, telemetry and a host of other things some users
           | may prefer to do without. Give people choice.
        
           | ushakov wrote:
           | how is Firefox half-baked?
           | 
           | i'm using it every day along with Safari and don't see any
           | significant differences
        
             | sosull wrote:
             | +1, it's a great piece of software.
        
             | zamadatix wrote:
             | With something as wide scoped as a browser this inevitably
             | comes down to "well the 200 things I think are relevant
             | do/don't work the same in favor of a/b" out of tens of
             | thousands, if not more, of things implemented.
             | 
             | For me Firefox is about as good as any. Upsides here,
             | downsides there, and nothing truly outstanding overall. It
             | seems severely far behind in modern color (e.g. HDR videos
             | or all of the wide gamut CSS specifications coming out),
             | ahead in terms of single profile compartmentalization
             | (containers), but behind in profile management (the profile
             | manager sucks if you even know how to get to it). For as
             | much as it champions being the last bastion of the free web
             | it comes default with a decent amount of crapware (pocket,
             | vpn) and has lost its way in terms of power user
             | flexibility (UI customization, mobile extension limits,
             | removal of power user flags). That said it's still better
             | than the alternatives in those spaces, just not as good as
             | it used to be.
             | 
             | For another none of these might matter but a lot of other
             | reasons I don't even think about might. In the end even
             | Firefox's own usage statistic point to the vast majority
             | seeming to agree it doesn't have anything compelling enough
             | to be worth switching to/evangelizing for anymore though.
        
               | shkkmo wrote:
               | Firefox on desktop is pertty solid, despite some
               | controversial decisions.
               | 
               | Firedox on android has a lot of issues.
        
               | iamcurious wrote:
               | Which ones? On principle, I never use chrome on android.
               | Am I missing some killer feature?
        
           | brundolf wrote:
           | > The Enterprise(tm) spends a lot of money on (often dubious)
           | security products
           | 
           | > a browser with built-in security features (both against
           | malware and other features such as DLP,
           | blocking/filtering/monitoring without middleboxes)
           | 
           | It'll be hard to outdo Google at security research and
           | hardening
        
             | Retric wrote:
             | Last month Google announced 30 new security including
             | critical vulnerabilities in chrome.
             | 
             | They might be doing a great job at hardening, but they
             | don't have a great reputation.
        
               | meibo wrote:
               | What is that supposed to say about reputation?
               | 
               | It's the most popular browser by far, and they actually
               | do have a very publicized team that reports bugs to not
               | just Chrome, but Apple and Mozilla as well. In my circles
               | this is well respected, and personally, it inspires more
               | confidence in the infrastructure around Chrome to me. I'd
               | be wary of any "new" browser engines in unsafe languages.
        
               | Retric wrote:
               | > What is that supposed to say about reputation?
               | 
               | Just that people don't consider chrome extremely secure,
               | it may be acceptable 99% of the time, but it doesn't get
               | a free pass in extreme security environments.
        
               | pvg wrote:
               | What is the 'extreme security environment' you have in
               | mind? Very little end-user software operates in an
               | environment and with operational parameters as
               | adversarial as a modern web browser's.
        
               | imajoredinecon wrote:
               | Do you mean "30 security vulnerabilities, 1 of which was
               | critical"? Because that seems to be the reality:
               | https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/2022/05/stable-
               | channel...
        
               | georgemcbay wrote:
               | > Last month Google announced 30 new security including
               | critical vulnerabilities in chrome.
               | 
               | This doesn't mean chrome is less secure than other
               | options, it means people are heavily incentivized to find
               | and report security problems and google is open about
               | issues that are found.
               | 
               | This makes me feel better about chrome's security, not
               | worse, and I say this as someone who is overall kind of
               | iffy on google these days.
        
             | Nextgrid wrote:
             | Vulnerabilities in the browser engine is only part of the
             | issue. Plenty of malicious activity involves tricking the
             | _user_ or silently spying on them - blocking advertising
             | /spyware/etc domains will greatly help with that.
        
       | IceDane wrote:
       | Wow, is this a serious article? I honestly felt like I was
       | reading the onion for a bit.
       | 
       | This is just yet another tech bro trying to "reinvent" the
       | browser by giving certain web applications a more first class
       | experience and shuffling around(and hiding) UI elements. Opera
       | has been doing a lot of neat stuff in this space for years, and
       | we all know how well it's going for them and their market share.
       | 
       | It will never cease to baffle me how easily some people manage to
       | get other people to throw money at them. I'm sure you can sell
       | some $12 subscription to a macOS hipster productivity addict who
       | is already subbing to 15 other shiny-looking macOS-only apps, but
       | otherwise I hope your investors are ready for you to capture a
       | whopping 1-2% of the browser market share like opera.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | behnamoh wrote:
       | so just bloatware bells and whistles
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | ratww wrote:
         | From the description, it actually reminds me of Internet
         | Explorer toolbars in terms of functionality, which were quite
         | common bloatware.
         | 
         | I don't disagree that there's new interesting features that can
         | go into browsers (like Safari's OCR), but a browsers are kind
         | of an important type of software, we gotta be a bit more
         | careful with bloat.
        
       | cutler wrote:
       | What kind of dev tools and extensions will Arc offer? If it's
       | just a consumer browser it's doomed to fail.
        
       | rejectfinite wrote:
       | >A Startup Wants to Rescue You From Browser Tab Hell
       | 
       | Vivaldi, Edge and Firefox already do this with vertical tabs.
       | 
       | Vivaldi also has the excellent tab search.
        
         | capableweb wrote:
         | Thank god for TreeStyleTabs, couldn't live without it (and main
         | reason I'm not switching away from Firefox).
         | 
         | But it doesn't really save you from "browser tab hell", it just
         | makes it easier to manage. If anything, I have more tabs open
         | now, across multiple reboots just because it's so much easier
         | to find tabs that I might as well have all of them open.
         | 
         | Here is how it looks right now for me:
         | https://imgur.com/a/EHr8JEe
         | 
         | And that's the list scrolled all the way to the bottom. Easily
         | three-four pages more if you scroll upwards.
        
           | ajvs wrote:
           | I honestly don't know how people manage any serious web
           | browsing without Tree Style Tabs. It's hell on Chromium-based
           | browsers with their constantly shrinking tab width, and the
           | workarounds aren't much better.
        
         | sam345 wrote:
         | Checkout Fast Tab Switcher in firefox. Far preferable to
         | vertical tabs. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
         | US/firefox/addon/fast-tab-swit...
        
       | kbyatnal wrote:
       | why are all these comments so negative? I, for one, am very
       | excited that talented developers and designers are reimagining
       | such a core part of everyone's daily workflow. The embedded
       | calendar / music player (along with auto archived tabs) is very
       | cool - not sure how well it'll work in practice, but it's clear
       | the team has put their heart into this. And more competition for
       | Google/Apple is always good.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | ushakov wrote:
         | beyond a slightly different UI, there's nothing you can
         | "reimagine" in a web browser
         | 
         | embedding third-party services is a feature that is prone to
         | break often
         | 
         | Chrome became the #1 because it was technically advanced
         | (faster) but more importantly - endorsed by a search giant
        
           | zagrebian wrote:
           | The UI shown in the screenshot is radically different.
        
             | ushakov wrote:
             | i see bookmarks, tabs, navigation and the browser window
             | 
             | nothing in the interface looks "radically different" to me
        
               | zagrebian wrote:
               | Those are not tabs but website icons (think iOS home
               | screen).
        
       | mrtweetyhack wrote:
        
       | nwienert wrote:
       | It's hard to read articles with this unabashed of a tone, feels
       | like much of the company's own claims are uncritically re-
       | printed.
        
         | vegetablepotpie wrote:
         | A lot of news media is lightly edited press releases. PR pros
         | outnumber journalists 6-1 [1] and they do a lot of the work for
         | journalists upfront that make it easier for them to publish.
         | 
         | [1] https://www.prdaily.com/report-pr-pros-outnumber-
         | journalists...
        
         | WesolyKubeczek wrote:
         | You'd be amazed how many such articles and reviews are ads in
         | disguise.
         | 
         | ...Sometimes though, you might not have enough dough for the
         | disguise.
        
         | stevenhuang wrote:
         | Their characterisation of power users' bad tab management is
         | certainly contrived, but it's cool to see their take on a new
         | browser ui.
         | 
         | Their proposed UI would be familiar to many FF vertical
         | tab/tree tab users.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | omosubi wrote:
         | As they say, if no one in the article is mad that it's printed,
         | it's PR, not news
        
           | inlined wrote:
           | Google might be mad given the accusations that Chrome
           | features are killed if they lower Google searches.
        
       | machinerychorus wrote:
       | Darn, I was hoping this would be about https://arc.io. I know
       | it's not very popular on hn because "how dare they use my
       | bandwidth and cpu" but I think it's really cool. A viable
       | business model for websites that doesn't require cramming things
       | full of ads.
        
         | ehhthing wrote:
         | Thank you for introducing me to a wonderful privacy nightmare.
         | 
         | P2P networks inherently are not private: everyone on the
         | network knows who else is on the network and what they are
         | doing. Thus one bad node could collect data on others' browsing
         | habits and track people quite easily.
        
       | brimstedt wrote:
       | In my opinion, they don't seem to solve the browser tab problem,
       | just iterate on it.
       | 
       | Just remove them completely and let you window manager manage
       | your windows.
       | 
       | (And yes, Firefox still supports browsing without tabs, so we got
       | what we need right there ;)
        
         | mmphosis wrote:
         | _Firefox still supports browsing without tabs_
         | 
         | It sort of does. I can't open settings in a new window without
         | opening settings in a new tab first and then moving the tab to
         | a new window. Or, create a new window and paste
         | about:preferences into the url bar. Maybe there's some
         | userChrome.css to do it.
         | 
         | I can create userChrome.css, which is discouraged, in order to
         | hide the redundant tab bar with the single tab in it. Yes, it
         | sort of works, it's kludgy and has issues.
        
       | john-titor wrote:
       | firefox <3
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | geogra4 wrote:
       | Is there any reason that they couldn't build this ui on top of
       | chrome? I've seen quite a lot of chrome based browsers with
       | interesting uis
        
         | 225beef wrote:
         | Im a beta tester for this product and it does use Chromium
         | under the hood, pre-bundled with uBlock no less.
        
           | cutler wrote:
           | So it's just another Chrome skin with rearranged tabs.
           | Jeezus.
        
           | geogra4 wrote:
           | Well then it doesn't seem so groundbreaking then
        
             | ushakov wrote:
             | i'd have liked to be a fly on the wall when they pitched
             | this to the investors
        
         | ushakov wrote:
         | a ui on top of chrome doesn't get you $25 million in funding
         | and a dedicated Bloomberg article
         | 
         | edit: apparently it does
        
           | charcircuit wrote:
           | I'd expect the opposite. It's likely not worth funding
           | someone to reimplement a whole browser engine instead of
           | reusing an existing one. It would take a lot of time and
           | money to build and maintain and you don't gain too much by
           | having your own entirely custom engine.
        
             | fabrice_d wrote:
             | There's a difference between forking a full browser (this
             | is quite easy initially, but down the road your fork may
             | end up being difficult to maintain) and building a new
             | browser on top of the rendering engine (Blink here, could
             | be Gecko or Webkit). In the latter case, the initial
             | investment is higher, so getting to a daily driver product
             | requires more effort. However long term that can be
             | beneficial because you don't conflict that much with
             | upstream changes.
             | 
             | Writing a new rendering engine and browser on top is
             | totally different effort as you may guess.
        
       | theyak wrote:
       | So it's Microsoft Edge? https://www.howtogeek.com/697986/how-to-
       | enable-and-use-verti...
        
       | ushakov wrote:
       | > Even Miller realizes his ambitions sound absurd
       | 
       | > he jokes about his company's 0% market share
       | 
       | investors: give this man $25m
        
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