I'll admit it — I was turned off by the new Arc Browser from the start.

For one, the manufacturer is named: Browser Company of New York. Are we meant to imagine that the browser is being developed in a converted blacksmith's farm in Brooklyn, serving form-to-table HTML? And it was designed for Mac. Then there was my attempt to try the beta several weeks ago – when I tried to create an account, the browser hung, and wouldn't let me through. The support request was rejected.

It's not really fair, though. So when *sigh* The New York browser company announced that its free Arc browser is finally ready for Windows users to try alongside Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and others, I tried it out. And you know what? That's actually fine.

The problem I'm having, however, is that ArcBrowser wants you to learn its methods. I don't mind quirks, but I've never liked the “you don't get it” attitude. And there's definitely a bit of that throughout the arc.

Full disclosure: I never spoke to the browser company, and I was never offered a walkthrough or press briefing. That's fine, because it puts me in the shoes of an average user. From the get-go, the experience is familiar: you're prompted to download a smaller installer, which downloads a more complete package.

Unfortunately, Arch is one of the new breed of browsers that requires a username and password, full stop. At least where Arc is concerned there is no anonymous option. To use it you will need to provide an email address plus a username and password. For mobile, Arc is limited to iOS support – not even a true mobile browser, but a weird sidebar of sorts. Android users are out of luck for now.

Mark Hechman / IDG

Mark Hechman / IDG

Mark Hechman / IDG

As you might expect, you are offered the option to import bookmarks and passwords from other browsers. However, I was only able to select one browser at a time. (I have a dedicated version for work, and one linked to my personal account, and I had to choose one.) You can import from other browsers later, via the settings menu.

And then there's this thing: a strange seed. Is this some kind of colloquialism?

Mark Hechman / IDG

Mark Hechman / IDG

Mark Hechman / IDG

Once you've opened the Ark, though, you're faced with something unusual: a blank page. Whiteness I'm used to browsers pushing content or suggesting web pages when I open a new tab, so this white space was…peaceful? Zen? Evidence that TBCoNY hasn't polished the arc enough to complete it? Possibly.

The other big change that Arch offers is the elimination of the search bar, or “omni bar” at the top of the page. If you're on a web page like pcworld.com, you'll see “pcworld.com” at the top of the page — and that's it. The UI is minimal: forward and back buttons, a way to copy a link (?), a “control center” that describes the site's basic features, and a “split screen” icon in the upper right that's two-way. Opens up. Side windows. that's it.

Mark Hechman / IDG

Mark Hechman / IDG

Mark Hechman / IDG

My instinctive reaction was to mouse over to the address bar, just like you might stumble down the stairs and grab the handrail. But there is not one and no row of tabs. Arc places tabs in a vertical column to the left, usually an option on other browsers. It's a bit of a hassle when Arc defaults to this choice.

if you what To open another website, you'll need to click on the site's address at the top of the screen. This opens what Arch calls a “command bar,” a floating URL window with a list of recent sites. It works just like the search/url bar you're used to — but it doesn't have anything to point you to. Even the menu option to get there is flawed: you have to open the settings menu by clicking the small “A” in the upper-left corner, then navigate through it. Open Tabs > Command Bar. to find it.

And bookmarks? For one thing, Arch collects everything in what it calls “Spaces,” collections of bookmarks and tabs that you can organize into their own groups. Again, I've seen this in other browsers.

But everything is in it. That's it Columns: Your bookmarks And open tabs. Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, and other browsers typically provide one or three rows: one for your bookmarks, one for current tabs, and one for the URL bar itself. Arc just provides a seemingly endless column of information. Arch may think its way is better, but I'm not a fan of letting aesthetics get in the way of functionality.

Mark Hechman / IDG

Mark Hechman / IDG

Mark Hechman / IDG

But how does Arc perform? Rather well. The browser opened a PDF and imported and entered my passwords into some random sites I tried. (It is not yet supported. Pass the keys(However,) and when you prompt it to open a web page, boom! It just does.

Arc is a little different than most browsers, as it uses a version of Swift instead of Chromium to render the page. But it's hard to call Swift or Arch a superior browser without running benchmarks — which I haven't done. One thing that I suspect makes a lot of difference is that Arc natively integrates uBlock Origin – an excellent ad blocker that gives you web page content when enabled and very little. . So Arc renders pages in just a split second – but so does Edge or Chrome if you add ublock-origin to it.

Is it effective? According to Task Manager, 100 tabs (sorry) open in Microsoft Edge used 2.3 GB. 22 tabs in Vivaldi used 474MB, and 13 tabs in Arc used 391MB. But wait – I only had three tabs open in Arc! I'm not sure what Arch (or Windows) was trying to do here.

Arch also lacks the latest AI features that other browsers have begun to implement, such as ChatGPT integration in browsers like Brave, or Opera's new image generation feature this week. Whether TBCoNY sees AI as necessary or just another cruft to harvest remains to be seen.

Mark Hechman / IDG

Mark Hechman / IDG

Mark Hechman / IDG

I'll definitely keep an eye on the arc. But I don't expect to use it much. Other browser makers are way ahead, and I'm not inclined to chase a UI that forces me to make adjustments to my browsing behavior. At the same time, there is always room for competition and some good ideas. If Arch does eventually launch a killer feature, I'd expect its competitors to adopt or improve upon it. We can all root for such improvements.