The Browser Company, the startup behind alternative web browser Arc, announced Thursday that it is launching its Arc Search browser on Android in open beta with the aim of making it a cross-platform app.
Arc already had an app in the Apple ecosystem as recently as last year, but released a Windows client in April ahead of its release on Android. The company announced that it tested Arc Search for Android with 18,000 users for nearly four weeks in a closed beta program, ahead of today's general release.
Earlier this year, the company released Arc Search for the iPhone, which focuses on search. The app's “Browse for Me” feature, also included in the Android version, browses multiple web pages and creates a new page in response to a search query.
The company's premise for this is that in cases like finding a recipe, you have to browse through a lot of content while not being able to find important information. Browse for Me uses AI-powered algorithms to filter out noise and reveal relevant information.
But people have criticized Arc Search's approach, pointing out that AI search can harm small websites whose content these tools are summarizing. On a recent episode of the Decoder podcast, The Browser Company CEO Josh Miller said the company is improving the citation of these results to help people click on more outbound links.
“We're also having a lot of conversations with media companies right now. I think at the end of the day, media companies and publishers need to be compensated. And the truth is, you know, scale is everything. I don't think it means things are going to go well for people, but we're doing our best behind the scenes and in public to get better here,” Miller said.
The Android app also has an ad blocker for ads, pop-ups, and banners, and an auto-archive feature for tabs. The company announced that it will release its Android app to the public sometime this fall.
At the time of release, the Android version lacks some features of Arc Search for iOS, such as pinch to summarize and the ability to ask a question by phone. Users have downloaded Arc Search 1.6 million times on iOS, according to analytics firm Sensor Tower.
Earlier this year, The Browser Company raised $50 million at a valuation of $550 million. However, the company is not currently profitable. Regarding decoding, Miller hinted that the company will charge companies and individuals a fee when it releases a 2.0 product.