Approaching Zero

Web browsers are the most used software on any personal computer. The market segment has seen only minor innovation for some time, resulting in the most popular browsers being based on three engines (Gecko, Chromium, and Webkit). They all have the same fundamental look and feel. Any computer user could use any of them for the first time and feel at home.

The Browser Company of New York has a browser named Arc.

Arc is the first browser I’ve used in 20 years that made me uncertain and uncomfortable the first time I used it. It was what I expected, but did things in different ways. Hidden options in some browsers were front and center with Arc. Tab organization was markedly different. Opening a link from another application was handled elegantly as opposed to literally.

Arc is getting flak from some technical writers because Arc is changing the way we get information from the web. Arc, when this initiative reaches its conclusion, will enable users to eliminate the web site (or source) from the user’s perspective. We search like we always do, but instead of being presented with a bunch of web sites that may or may not be what we want, Arc is using AI to present the information as a summary of all the sources. The links are still there if you want to go to the source, but if the summary has the info you want, you don’t have to. I suspect a large percentage of web users will not need to go to the sources. These writers see that as a threat to their livelihood, which depends on internet traffic to the sites that host their content. The cause for their bias against Arc’s direction is obvious. If you look at it from an end user’s perspective, it’s the next step in the evolution of Internet search. If you look at it from a content creator’s perspective, well… business models get disrupted all the time. They aren’t so negative when it’s someone else’s business model. They call it the evolution of technology.