For the longest time, I have been using DuckDuckGo as my search engine on Safari and Firefox, on devices like the iPhone, iPad and Mac. That being said, the way search results are presented is usually the same, with others adding more ads, of course.
Whilst there is nothing wrong with how search results are presented today apart from the fact that it is just boring. A new way to search might be emerging, thanks to Arc Search. Arc Search is an iOS app brought to you by The Browser Company, makers of the Arc browser. The Arc browser is getting a bit popular, but since I don’t support Chromium, I refuse to use it. Since Arc Search is based on Apple’s open source Webkit engine (no choice, but might change for the EU market come March), I decided to try it out.
The apps on-boarding is a pushy — it wants to be set as your default browser. Personally, I don’t think so. I like Safari and the way it syncs with all my other Apple devices. Even if Arc Search blocks trackers, cookie banners and ads, it still is not enough to be the default. Nice try, but stop appear a bit desperate.
Arc Search defaults to Google as its search engine, so I immediately changed it to something else. DuckDuckGo was an obvious choice, but I figured that maybe I’d try Perplexity this time (the latest app updated added this and Kagi).
Searching is fast and the app vibrates when it does its magic (though I wish there is a way to turn it off). Perplexity, of course, is one of those services that use generative “AI”, but notice that it gives you the sources of its information, as compared to other similar services. As I have mentioned, you can choose your poison.
Arc Search’s version of its “I’m feeling lucky” is “Browser for Me”, and the app sweeps the internet for sources and presents it is a refreshing way! The search results is very much unlike your usual. However, I wish that for each item presented, I hope that it links to its source directly, rather than simply listing the source sites.
I am still testing out Arc Search, but it looks promising. The company is in active development of the app and I expect more features to be added in the next week or so. What I wish, though, is that it stops collecting other data unnecessarily, specially location information (as per its App Privacy label, though I don’t see it on the iPhone’s Settings). More privacy for users, please.