I recommended Arc Browser to anyone who would listen. I liked its Chrome foundation, sidebar, spaces, and the way it kept old tabs close without turning the window into a mess.
Its new AI features changed that.
I use AI tools and pay for both Claude and OpenAI. My problem is how Arc chooses sources for its aggregated answers. Publishers such as Bloomberg block AI crawlers, so an answer may lean instead on Reddit or Quora. Arc makes that choice for me, and I don’t want it deciding which sources deserve my trust. I also wonder how long it will be before the same aggregation reaches the desktop browser as “smart search.”
I still like Arc’s tab memory and organization. I like the strange YouTube videos much less, especially when an update puts them in front of me. The browser is adding distractions while taking control over what information I see, which is enough to make me look elsewhere.
I’m going to investigate plugins that bring Arc’s best ideas to Chrome or Firefox. If you already have that setup, let me know!