Crest – an Arc-inspired open-source browser for Mac
crestbrowser.comWhy do we need this if there's already Zen? (https://zen-browser.app/)
I want Arc without Chromium, and Zen without Mozilla, Ladybird seems pretty far off.
Appears to use Chromium by default, and also ship WebKit to toggle for individual websites: https://crestbrowser.com/guides/engines/
Of course this comment section also warrants a mention of Zen Browser, another Arc alternative that's been going for a while already, is based on Firefox, and is available cross-platform: https://zen-browser.app
Finally. Most important features that kept me from switching to chrome, brave or any other browser was: 1. The sidebar with tabs that shares the same state over multiple windows. 2. The preview windows that open directly where you open a link.
Zen browser has had this for least 9 months. It's great!
If I've already been using Arc for a long time, is there any benefit of moving to Zen? Active development, I suppose?
It's open source, and it's not part of the Chromium monopoly threatening the open web. As a direct result of that, you still have uBlock working without any compromises.
So I also use and love Zen. That being said, the "every window's tab list is kept in sync" feature they introduced is... odd and really annoying imo.
Was a big fan of Zen. Alas! Lack of compat with Google workspace (eg sharing audio for a single tab on meet) meant it did not stick.
Most of these features are in Firefox. Vertical tabs, tab groups/containers, split view, etc.
Why all the mac-specific software when they use underlying cross-platform software/libraries?
I am over here on Linux and it is a bit annoying to have stuff that can and should work without issue just get Mac support.
(makes sense for heavy mac-specific stuff, but a browser, cmon!)
This is the result of so many very vibe developers on Mac.
I don't get the appeal of the Arc-esque browsers. They look very clean in screenshots, but I tried both Arc and Zen and never got to feel productive with them. Can someone enlighten me?
Several things work for me:
- switching between spaces switches my mental space too. I read and scan website differently based on what space I'm in. Like switching between tasks. Might be personal.
- "Little Arc" - just a window that opens in the view you're in, on any other app, and disappears after a set time, really is great for me to quickly look something up and have it be gone.
- Vertical tabs instead of bookmark folders work better for me as it opens the link "within" the folder, instead of a new tab
Not saying this is only available in Arc / Zen, but this is what makes it work for me.
Thanks for sharing. I guess I (can) have all this in plain Firefox too. Only using vertical tabs right now, but for a while I heavily used the tab groups extension, which worked similar to workspaces I guess. The only thing I think I can't do is the "Little Arc", which does seem handy.
I am sort of working on the same thing. It is mostly for my own use so far, I might share it at some point.
What I’ve focused on besides the basic features of the arc sidebar is memory usage.
I am a tab power user, in Brave I had 370 tabs “open”. Each tab still takes resources when asleep though. But I use these tabs more as bookmarks. So they are asleep 99.99% of the time, if not more.
The browser I’ve been working on looks a lot like Crest because they both take Arc as a starting point. I am interested to see where they both move towards from there.
if you can figure out tab resource consumption you should definitely share. A broswer built for users with hundreds of tabs would be greatly appreciated by many!
The dual engine approach is interesting, never seen that
Yeah, that also cool that you can set webkit as default, it is indeed something for me. I prefer to use safari, but when a website misbehaves, I switch to chrome
The only other example I know is Edge with IE Compatibility Mode.
Maxthon was dual engine too, Trident + Gecko first, then Trident + WebKit.
My issue with this kind of browsers that I want a space to have it's own window and afaik it's not possible?
Orion (https://orionbrowser.com/) separates different profiles into different windows. Maybe that'll work for you?
Also just wanna get in here and promote Zen, i love it. But the crest and design things here seem nice