Why I Switched Back to Safari from Arc

I decided to switch to Arc as my primary browser months ago, and while it's not revolutionary, I found myself genuinely enjoying the experience. Many useful little features made me feel more productive.

However, I recently switched back to Safari. Here's why. But first, let's talk about what I do like about Arc.

Things I Like About Arc

The sidebar

The sidebar approach to tabs is rather practical when working on a small laptop screen since it saves a noticeable amount of vertical screen space. Hiding and showing the sidebar with ⌘+S became second nature.

Arc Max

Arc Max is a suite of AI features within Arc that you can opt-in to. I liked the ability to ask AI about things on a page or hover over a link for a brief AI summary. The "tidy downloads" feature, which renamed files, wasn't my favourite, but it could be turned off, so no big deal.

Developer Mode

When working on localhost, Arc's developer mode offered quick shortcuts for various dev tasks, like opening the console or responsive design mode.

User Interface

Arc's interface is a breath of fresh air in the browser space. The smooth animations and transparency effects give it a sleek, modern feel that I found visually appealing.

Large PiP

Arc offers a larger Picture-in-Picture (PiP) window compared to Safari, which imposes size limits (come on Apple...)

Trackpad Gestures

Switching between spaces with trackpad gestures was seamless and felt natural. I would love it if Safari allowed you to swipe left or right on the tab bar to switch between profiles or tab groups.

So why did I switch back?

Despite all the features Arc offers, I switched back to Safari for one crucial reason: no native iCloud Keychain support.

Passwords not autosaving to iCloud Keychain and no automatic password generation were dealbreakers. Syncing passwords across devices became a hassle and a significant inconvenience, considering how much I rely on iCloud for seamless integration between my Apple devices. To be clear, this is not a problem with Arc itself; it's just that I rely on iCloud Keychain too much. The new Passwords app in iOS 18 and macOS Sequoia finally convinced me to switch back.

Will I go back to Arc?

If Apple opens up iCloud Keychain to work outside WebKit browsers (unlikely), I probably will. I am already missing many of Arc's features.

I wholeheartedly recommend Arc if you rely on something other than iCloud Keychain as your password manager. It's a great browser, at least on macOS. I have yet to try the Windows version.

gn.