I am so ridiculously excited about this — literally my two worlds colliding with this move!
I finally moved on from ChromeOS (using it as my main system for the past 6 years), to MacOS to use Arc. While sad about the change, I just felt like ChromeOS was moving too slow, and Chrome with buggy Tab Groups and such. Arc was a game-changer, and now the amazing potential vision of ChromeOS with Arc as the foundation... I see the vision, and I am SO excited to watch all of this unfold!
This is awesome, and I found all of this on accident! Keep the dream alive, then - I'll see you there! From what I've been reading about inside of this whole click', is that - I'm super excited to see a business model for a new browser, not focused on ads, and more ads, and ...well, easily forgetting about what my priorities were (in the first place), when I open my browser. SUPER COOL
Not to throw cold water on what looks like a good move for you, but the kind of idealism you include in your writing doesn't solve the main issues which as far as I can tell will remain the same regardless.
The things you want to do with browsing rely on a trusted party, and trust is broken. Worse, moving the cheese as you say, more recently has been more about coercion of the userbase than anything else. Preventing people from clicking or seeing what they were visiting, sometimes overwriting their keymaps so you can't use certain browser shortcuts or doing so crashes the tab (intentionally), collecting hardware uniquely identifiable information, and other really coercive behavior. The reality of browsers in general is what you say, its a pipe dream, and worse; because everything is going through the web, there is very little non-repudiation and no audit trail. It is already starting to be abused to interfere with day-to-day activities, and there is a profit motive behind it. Look at amazon's vendor dynamic pricing which they still claim is not a bait and switch. It relies on the number of viewers to set/change the price, but viewers aren't necessarily viewers, they are more likely to be bots controlled by a interested third-party. Browsers and the web have been broken by design for decades. Its only real-use is interference and fraud in your life while giving plausible deniability and at the same time collecting sensitive information that may or may not actually have consent. Most things to correct issues that represent intolerable risks are only approached with half measures while opening up more attack surface, and almost unilaterally after the fact. Its in the interest of business to keep doing this regardless and that will be true anywhere you go. The business environment in that area is disadvantaged.
Your first Neeva.com link goes to a blank page that says "Snowflake x Neeva: Neeva has joined Snowflake." I first heard the word Neeva about 45 seconds ago and I have no idea what any of this means but I don't think silently changing (what looks like) a search link into a corporate marketing page is anyone's idea of putting customers first.
I'm naturally suspicious of sentences like "I imagine a browser that is more than just a browser". That's the kind of vague marketing lingo that's designed to make everyone feel like you're implementing their pet idea of how the web should be better. Your idea (assuming you have one) is in a particular direction which you're not telling. For half of us, you're probably making the web worse. After all, Google certainly thinks they're still making the browser better, and I disagree with most of their recent changes.
You're probably too busy building right now to explain, which is understandable, but remember that a big part of Chrome's early success was due to Scott McCloud's comic. You may have a vision, but people aren't going to be able to follow unless you are able to communicate your vision to them. Hand-waving about making browsers "easier" is not a vision.
I tried so many browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Maxthon, Vivaldi, Chrome, Edge, .... but always been disappointed) ... I am always looking for the best ! That's why I watch Blu-ray discs, I listen to Blu-spec CDs, I want pictures with the highest definition and highest resolution ... And then, when I heard about the Arc web browser, I thought "I found it !!!! The best browser ! I need it !!!! I need it now !!!!!"
Thank you to decide to give us a better experience of the way to browse the Internet
👏👏👏👏 I just found out about your The Browser Company and I love everything about it, reading this made me pass from "just trying out" to setting it as my default browser. Keep up the increeeedibly amazing work.
This seems like a great new chapter in your life, Darin. I'm really excited about this. Incidentally, I've been using Neeva search almost exclusively for a month or so now and am very impressed. I've hopped around from DuckDuckGo to Startpage to Brave Search, but Neeva is much more refined and well designed than any of them, despite being a newcomer. And I like their ethos. Now Neeva has a tangential tie-in with Arc, the browser I am dying to try. I'm on Windows, so all I can do at the moment is drool over Arc reviews on YouTube. But I am looking forward to receiving that email invitation sometime in 2023 to join the beta. Good luck to you and to the whole Arc team! Umpteen Chrome clones later, we definitely need a browser that is reimagining things.
What Comes After Chrome
I am so ridiculously excited about this — literally my two worlds colliding with this move!
I finally moved on from ChromeOS (using it as my main system for the past 6 years), to MacOS to use Arc. While sad about the change, I just felt like ChromeOS was moving too slow, and Chrome with buggy Tab Groups and such. Arc was a game-changer, and now the amazing potential vision of ChromeOS with Arc as the foundation... I see the vision, and I am SO excited to watch all of this unfold!
Welcome to the team — you made the right choice 🚀
I look forward to using a browser that puts the user first, with less emphasis on ad bombardment.
If you're still using Chromium / Blink, how do you plan to be truly unshackled from the advertising overlords?
This is awesome, and I found all of this on accident! Keep the dream alive, then - I'll see you there! From what I've been reading about inside of this whole click', is that - I'm super excited to see a business model for a new browser, not focused on ads, and more ads, and ...well, easily forgetting about what my priorities were (in the first place), when I open my browser. SUPER COOL
Not to throw cold water on what looks like a good move for you, but the kind of idealism you include in your writing doesn't solve the main issues which as far as I can tell will remain the same regardless.
The things you want to do with browsing rely on a trusted party, and trust is broken. Worse, moving the cheese as you say, more recently has been more about coercion of the userbase than anything else. Preventing people from clicking or seeing what they were visiting, sometimes overwriting their keymaps so you can't use certain browser shortcuts or doing so crashes the tab (intentionally), collecting hardware uniquely identifiable information, and other really coercive behavior. The reality of browsers in general is what you say, its a pipe dream, and worse; because everything is going through the web, there is very little non-repudiation and no audit trail. It is already starting to be abused to interfere with day-to-day activities, and there is a profit motive behind it. Look at amazon's vendor dynamic pricing which they still claim is not a bait and switch. It relies on the number of viewers to set/change the price, but viewers aren't necessarily viewers, they are more likely to be bots controlled by a interested third-party. Browsers and the web have been broken by design for decades. Its only real-use is interference and fraud in your life while giving plausible deniability and at the same time collecting sensitive information that may or may not actually have consent. Most things to correct issues that represent intolerable risks are only approached with half measures while opening up more attack surface, and almost unilaterally after the fact. Its in the interest of business to keep doing this regardless and that will be true anywhere you go. The business environment in that area is disadvantaged.
Your first Neeva.com link goes to a blank page that says "Snowflake x Neeva: Neeva has joined Snowflake." I first heard the word Neeva about 45 seconds ago and I have no idea what any of this means but I don't think silently changing (what looks like) a search link into a corporate marketing page is anyone's idea of putting customers first.
I'm naturally suspicious of sentences like "I imagine a browser that is more than just a browser". That's the kind of vague marketing lingo that's designed to make everyone feel like you're implementing their pet idea of how the web should be better. Your idea (assuming you have one) is in a particular direction which you're not telling. For half of us, you're probably making the web worse. After all, Google certainly thinks they're still making the browser better, and I disagree with most of their recent changes.
You're probably too busy building right now to explain, which is understandable, but remember that a big part of Chrome's early success was due to Scott McCloud's comic. You may have a vision, but people aren't going to be able to follow unless you are able to communicate your vision to them. Hand-waving about making browsers "easier" is not a vision.
I can't wait for Arc!
I tried so many browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Maxthon, Vivaldi, Chrome, Edge, .... but always been disappointed) ... I am always looking for the best ! That's why I watch Blu-ray discs, I listen to Blu-spec CDs, I want pictures with the highest definition and highest resolution ... And then, when I heard about the Arc web browser, I thought "I found it !!!! The best browser ! I need it !!!! I need it now !!!!!"
Thank you to decide to give us a better experience of the way to browse the Internet
I can't wait to use the Arc web browser !!!!!!!!!
👏👏👏👏 I just found out about your The Browser Company and I love everything about it, reading this made me pass from "just trying out" to setting it as my default browser. Keep up the increeeedibly amazing work.
This seems like a great new chapter in your life, Darin. I'm really excited about this. Incidentally, I've been using Neeva search almost exclusively for a month or so now and am very impressed. I've hopped around from DuckDuckGo to Startpage to Brave Search, but Neeva is much more refined and well designed than any of them, despite being a newcomer. And I like their ethos. Now Neeva has a tangential tie-in with Arc, the browser I am dying to try. I'm on Windows, so all I can do at the moment is drool over Arc reviews on YouTube. But I am looking forward to receiving that email invitation sometime in 2023 to join the beta. Good luck to you and to the whole Arc team! Umpteen Chrome clones later, we definitely need a browser that is reimagining things.
This browser already exists: Vivaldi Browser: https://vivaldi.com
Please chat to the guys at Cloudflare - closely integration with WARP and other security/speed enhancements would be awesome. A true Edge browser.
All the best to the browser company.
http://www.artikhosla.com/