Tired of struggling to find answers to your search queries in Safari, Chrome, or any of the best iOS browsers? A new alternative has just emerged that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to do the searching for you, potentially helping you find accurate results much more quickly.
Called Arc Search, the app is created by The Browser Company of New York, a company that also created the Arc desktop browser that captured headlines in 2023. With Arc Search, the developer has added a bunch of interesting features that could replace it. your current favorite browser on your iPhone.
The first of these is the app's “Search for Me” feature. When you enter a search query, you can see a standard page of results in the search engine of your choice, or you can tap the Find Me button instead. It uses AI to gather information from six different sources and then creates a personalized web page that displays all the key information you need to answer your search query.
This can include helpful photos and videos, bulleted text, and more. It's a smart way to get information from a variety of sources and ensure you have a good chance of getting what you need on the first try, without having to endlessly scroll through useless information and useless websites.
Privacy protections
Arc Search comes with other useful features besides Find Me. For example, you can tell it to block GDPR ads, trackers, and cookie banners on all websites. This is a great way to protect your privacy by default, although it's unclear whether the app actually excludes cookies in GDPR banners or just hides them.
Arc Search will also automatically archive inactive tabs after a day, which can be helpful for people who struggle to control tab overload (like this server). And there's a reading mode that removes unnecessary visual elements to give you a more focused experience.
However, some features are not available in Find Me. For example, you can't share or copy a link to your custom pages, nor can you view them in reader mode. Perhaps these tools will come later.
Regardless, Arc Search is an intriguing alternative to the usual suspects when it comes to iOS browsers, and it could claim the title of best browser if it continues to add interesting features. If you want to try it, you can download it for free in the iOS App Store without having to worry about subscriptions or in-app purchases.
