There are a lot of web browsers for Windows PCs. There is Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Vivaldi, Brave, and others as well. However, a company called The Browser Company of New York has been working on its own version of a web browser called Arc. It currently plans to release it for Windows sometime in late 2023.
The Arc browser is already available for Mac computers, but at the moment, it"s only available via special invites. Today, the company posted up a YouTube video on its progress on the Windows version, which included a very brief glimpse of a Windows prototype.
That prototype, and indeed the version of Arc that"s available to the Mac PC invite users, shows a different user interface compared to most other web browsers, Instead of having the URL address and buttons on top, the Arc browser has a sidebar with those functions on the left-hand side. Based on reviews of the Mac version on sites like The Verge and How To Geek, you can manage tabs and apps from this sidebar. Any new tabs that stay open for 12 hours will automatically be closed by Arc, unless you pin them. This is supposed to make organizing tabs easier.
Another interesting thing about Arc for Windows is that it"s being built with Apple"s Swift programming language. In the video, it"s stated that using Swift has certain advantages to using C++ as the language. The plan is to open-source the code for the Arc browser.
So when will this browser be released for Windows? Right now, the team says it could happen in six to eight months from now, which would put the timing around the end of 2023 or so. The video does say that there could be things come up that could delay the launch.
Based on the video, it sounds like Arc is going to be something more than just a simple web browser, and hopefully, the team will be able to keep their schedule so we can check it out on Windows by the end of the year, or maybe early 2024.