If you're finally ready to leave Chrome behind, these are my top recommendations and when to use them.

The title is err, not correct because the top 2 alternatives Opera and Arc are based on Chromium engine. I have seen tons of people swear by Arc, but I am seriously asking (since as a Linux user I can’t use it), how much good can a browser be in this day and age if ultimately it’s ad blocking breaks and it will since Manifest v2 will go soon(unless Arc folks have a solution for it)

The rest alternatives are Firefox, Zen (FF fork but honestly Atleast this was something new I learned from this article) and Tor (which is weird since it is not meant for normal web browsing and using it will not only be slow but put additional strain on the nodes, correct me if I am wrong).

  • Lasagna@lemmy.mlEnglish
    62·
    2 days ago

    Arc is very nice for my workflow, quite a different take on what a browser can be. But I’d say you’re not missing out too much as it’s, unfortunately, no longer in active development.

    They still update chromium regularly, but they’re no longer working on functionality or bug fixes because it’s “done” or something. 🤷‍♂️

    • kirk781@discuss.tchncs.deOPEnglish
      4·
      2 days ago

      I am surprised they abandoned it. It was originally launched as a macOS variant only, correct? And Mac users praised it a lot, on the Web. I thought with that level of traction they will keep going.

      In contrast, there are projects that have a much lower user base though vocal (read: Pale Moon) and despite struggling with half of the available modern Web pages, those projects still keep going.

      • Lasagna@lemmy.mlEnglish
        81·
        2 days ago

        Yeah I was surprised as well, but apparently they’re working in a new browser.

        It’s an interesting approach where you can take all the learnings from the first product and then put it into a follow-up product.

        I hope they’re continuing the ARC direction, just not based on Chromium. But I’m afraid they’re going all in on some sort of AI browser…

        • Thekingoflorda@lemmy.worldEnglish
          9·
          2 days ago

          Afaik they are going headfirst into the AI craze, which I imagine won’t improve the experience, and will probably cost money to use.

          • f314@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            2 days ago

            TBF the AI features in Arc are actually pretty good! Just quality of life-stuff like renaming downloads and getting summary previews when hovering search results. I have a suspicion they’ll push it farther with Dia, though…

        • Plebcouncilman@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          1·
          2 days ago

          Look they just don’t actually know how to make money out of it.

          My intuition is that they should simply charge $3-5 per month and most users would probably choose it over every else if they prioritize privacy as a part of the sub. But I guess they are too afraid to charge for a browser.