Cool tools to boost your browser

I gave up on Google’s Chrome a long time ago and switched to Brave before it started getting flak for doing questionable things. Then Josh Miller, the co-founder of The Browser Company (whom I met during his Branch.com days), offered me a chance to try out Arc, their new, clean, and refreshing take on a Chromium-based browser. I couldn’t resist.

Since then, I’ve been using Arc (initially as a beta) as one of my two go-to browsers, alongside Safari. Most Chrome extensions work seamlessly with Arc — minus what I like to call the ‘Google Chrome Crud’. Essentially, you’re not missing out on much, and you end up with a much smoother experience.

My good buddy (and Foursquare co-founder) Naveen Selvadurai recently threw some “extension” suggestions my way that are definitely worth adding to your Arc setup. I’ve already decked out my browser with them.

• Raycast – I went hunting for a faster replacement to Spotlight (besides being sluggish, it never seems to match the search term to the thing I want). I found this via @mikekarnj‘s newsletter and I am loving it so far. Extensible via scripts and extensions, and super fast too. I can’t believe it’s free (before I found this one, I went looking for open-source versions).
• Rectangle – A free, open-source window manager to replace my old one.
• Tweaks for Twitter – A Chrome extension that gives you a cleaner Twitter web view.
• Simplify – A Chrome extension (worth paying for, if you ask me) that gives you a cleaner, faster Gmail. Designed by @leggett who worked on Google Inbox.
• Vimium – A Chrome extension that bring vim keybindings to the browser so you can do things like search and jump to links without your hands leaving the keyboard.

Cool tools

February 8, 2024. New Delhi.