I trashed Arc immediately after install when I found out having an account was mandatory. That seemed so silly, like toothbrushes-requiring-wifi absurd. How much moreso now.

Truly. I was looking for a privacy respecting Chromium-based browser to use for Web MiniDisc (https://web.minidisc.wiki/) and came across some enthusiastic praise for Arc. I downloaded it and it immediately wanted me to create an account to even use it. How can that possibly respect my privacy? It went right in the trash.

What is also strange that I only found out about account after download. Like it was standard thing for the browser. (Sure there are optional accounts in others but login-walled browser?)

Another strange thing about the account... They have a little section under "Security" FAQ (lol) that says:

>"Why does Arc require an account to use?"

The answer is:

>"Here's a link to our forum that explains the rationale behind requiring an account to use Arc: Why do I need an account?"

That link goes to here: https://resources.arc.net/hc/en-us/articles/19401542261911-B...

Which... Doesn't explain why you need an account!

They want an easy path to onboard you into paying for stuff.

Windows is practically login-walled[0] at this point so I imagine people are slowly getting to expect it.

[0] witness the magic incantations needed https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/install-windows-11-witho...

Hilariously (in the absurd way), this affects my girlfriend, who prefers and uses the Microsoft account feature AND onedrive exactly how Microsoft would hope she would, and STILL gets fucked by their stupidity.

Her laptop has a mediatek wifi card that doesn't have built in Windows drivers. Re-installing Windows requires you play the above game, so you can get into Windows, install the driver, and then immediately log into Microsoft.com.

This is so super annoying for shared lab computers

A while back they required login before download. That's when I noped out.

I had the same response when I downloaded Dart and discovered that a programming language thought it was acceptable to send telemetry.

In 2024 it is considered normal for an _operating_system_ to require an account, an information that is potentially passed around to any app running on it.

I had doubts already when submissions promoting the browser were added on hn while there was no way to see how it looks like or even test it out - for quite some time there was nothing but mail singup on their page.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35801529

I did the same. Requiring an account for a browser is immediately disqualifying. I don't care how many features it has.

Even Chrome wouldn't dare

I think OperaGX wins that award

I'm also left wondering: How broken would Arc be, if Firebase was to go down?

I guess it's relatively easy to test, add the Firebase domain to your host file and point it to 127.0.0.1 and try to use the browser.

Sometimes things like this handle connection failures better than "never-ending connection attempts", so you might want to try to add a throttle or something too for the traffic between the domain and the browser, might also trip it up.

When I downloaded it a few months ago and it required an account to even use it, my gut feeling was that I should just stick with Firefox.

They don't encrypt the data they send via Firebase?

I mean, even Google suggests doing this with sensitive data.

"Arc is the Chrome replacement I’ve been waiting for." [1]

> https://arc.net/

I guess now we know why they frame it that way.

Chrome does not require an account to use. And Chrome by default doesn't send sites you visit to Google, unless you turn on the "make searches and browsing better" feature or the "enhanced safe browsing" feature.

So the OP is right. Arc's privacy is worse than Chrome.