The Road to Arc 2.0

Will the Chrome killer become the user agent of the LLM era?

Chris Messina
Chris Messina

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The Browser Company of New York (BCNY) launched Arc 1.0 over a year ago to become “the first popular internet computer” — a quasi-operating system for cloud apps.

Around that time, Josh Miller, co-founder and CEO of BCNY, declared:

“No one is making Windows apps, No one is making mac apps. People are building for the internet. The future isn’t on our local computer.”

Alternative browsers aren’t new, but none so far have dethroned Google Chrome.

But Arc offers a fresh take on what a browser does and how it should feel to use. It elevates web apps to always-on, data-rich tools where people perform work (e.g. Figma, GitHub, Gmail). It’s not just for “passive browsing.” To that end, its New Tab keyboard shortcut (⌘-T) pops a command launcher rather than a new tab (inspired by Alfred on macOS), so users can take action, or get to their destination while avoiding Google.

Indeed, creating a post-Google internet seems to be Miller’s raison d’être.

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Chris Messina
Chris Messina

Inventor of the hashtag. Product therapist. Investor. Previously: Google, Republic, Uber, On Deck, YC W’18.