Totally change Firefox UI like Arc Browser

[joocehero]

Hello Firefox developers,

I have been trying ARC browser intensively these past few days and I loved everything about it, except the ressources heavy problems with Chromium .

I wish Firefox would develop a similar UI interface (tabs on left, Spaces linked with Containers, Split View made easy, etc…)

if you decide to create this UI similar to Arc, I will gladly donate again, as I already done earlier because I love how fast and secure Firefox is !

Thanks a lot !!

[sandornagy]

huge thumbs up on this! i've been using firefox forever, i gave arc a try once and fell in love. it feels like a next level browser. mozilla should have done this to firefox ages ago. my heart is bleeding cause i love firefox and mozilla so much but arc is just miles ahead at this point 😞

[Rye_Whiskey]

I came here to say this.

I've been using Arc for a couple of months, and...it is good. Vertical tabs, bookmarks as pages, spaces, boosts, ctrl+t to do anything, clean interface. I would like to come back to Firefox, and I might because of its focus on privacy, but Arc really works with my workflow.

[ikpjr]

Having used Vivaldi and Edge ( other than Firefox ) but not Arc ( only have seen reviews about it ), what it is that makes it special when compared to these other browsers given that :

• Vivaldi, Opera and Edge have workspaces and Firefox can make use of 2 tab grouping addons to have similar functionality to Vivaldi's tab stacks and workspaces ( which correspond to Arc's folders and spaces usage concepts ) .
• What about userstyles.org and greasyfork, openuserjs and the like to install and share styles and scripts, are Arc's boosts better than the previous flow ?

FF has container ( tabs ) and Arc's containers are better in any way, if so how ?

For split view, I don't know if there are addons for that .

Just curious to this new browser, I'd be interested to know about potentially useful features . Thanks .

[Rye_Whiskey]

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@ikpjr wrote:

Having used Vivaldi and Edge ( other than Firefox ) but not Arc ( only have seen reviews about it ), what it is that makes it special

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I like the vertical tabs and the absence of horizontal tabs. I'm using Tree Style Tab, which is nice, but misses in a couple of ways, namely the spacing is cramped. In Arc, when a bookmarked tab is open, you see that bookmark as opened, rather than a whole other tab.

Split view is very useful for doing things like researching on one side and taking notes on the other, or being in a meeting in one side and taking notes in the other. It's much easier to just drag one tab onto another to split the screen rather than opening a new window and resizing both.

When Arc is the default browser and a link is clicked in some other application, standalone window pops up with the requested website. You do the thing you have to do (e.g., log into a service) and dismiss the window or add it to your opened browser.

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• Vivaldi, Opera and Edge have workspaces and Firefox can make use of 2 tab grouping addons to have similar functionality to Vivaldi's tab stacks and workspaces ( which correspond to Arc's folders and spaces usage concepts ) .

[...]

FF has container ( tabs ) and Arc's containers are better in any way, if so how ?

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Arc's workspaces are a much better implementation of working in two accounts/contexts at the same time. In Arc, the whole window is a workspace, so all tabs opened in that workspace belong to that workspace, which means all your Google work account tabs get opened as your work account without having to take that one extra step of opening a new work container tab. If I want to go to my personal account, I just ctrl+[number] pop back over to my personal space. The upshot is that I have one browser open, keeping the number of windows down to a minimum.

• What about userstyles.org and greasyfork, openuserjs and the like to install and share styles and scripts, are Arc's boosts better than the previous flow ?

I can't really speak to this as I haven't used those things.

All that said, I'm mostly using FF these days because of its privacy focus and its support of Manifest v2, but I do use Arc when I have to do lots of research.

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[ikpjr]

In your first image, I noticed that unlike Vivaldi, which has separate toggleable views for bookmarks, "window panel" for windows, tabs and other stuff, Arc splits the sidebar space into at least bookmarks and folders above the space occupied by regular tabs, leaving less space for glancing both (specially regular ones). Maybe people like you prefer that kind of visibility or there are other reasons? Would it be better to have such kind of different sidebar items collapsible, leaving more space to the rest currently in focus or in their separate views?

[Rye_Whiskey]

Both sections - bookmarks and opened tabs - expand and contract as they are opened. You can scroll up and down to see what you have open. It's actually one my nits. You should be able to close either view to give you more real estate.

[thesamim]

the Arc UI is good. But, for me, that's not the big sell.

The Big sell is: Spaces.

Having completely separate "containers" for everything I need (work, personal, church, hobbies, etc.) allows me to have just one Window open while dealing with all my workflows and an easy way to switch between them.

Why am I hesitant to switch to Arc and abandon Firefox?

1. I trust Mozilla.org with privacy.
2. I'm not a fan of Chromium.
3. Firefox performance and reliability
4. Firefox Sync. (I'm sure Arc will have that feature eventually...)
5. I am not clear on their business model...

[3rix]

I tried Arc on Windows for a couple of weeks and really enjoyed a lot of it, but in the end switched back to Firefox. Some things I enjoyed were:

• spaces (best feature imo)
• sidebar
• extension support (not the biggest deal but Shazam doesn't work on Firefox)
• Netflix support

The reasons I switched back are:

• lots of glitches
• built on chromium (adblock didn't work super well and sketchy websites could still open new tabs, and in the future adblock probably wouldn't work at all)
• sidebar can be replicated

I didn't end up using Arc for long enough for resources to become a problem, but I found myself constantly reopening firefox for certain tasks. Finally I found the Tree Style Tabs extension, and a bunch of CSS scripts which can be used to make Firefox looks nearly identical to arc. The only thing I really miss is the spaces, but the rest is just as good, with more customization and less bugs.

[asheriif]

Hi, could you please share the CSS that makes TST look like Arc Sidebar?

[TheKnightCoder]

Spaces, vertical tabs and pinned tabs is all firefox needs, I want to switch so bad but its missing this

[rushwand]

I have a simple answer, Zen Browser!
(not sponsored)
I mean really, you want a gecko-based, single toolbar, modern UI, Community-Driven Browser?
just use Zen.

in my place of work, the web app is only running on gecko-based browser, so i see this as an absolute win.

[singhh9596]

Try zen browser, I've used it before and didn't like the UI, maybe because I'm habitual of using FF.