For a really long time I’ve had some tab organisational issues. Not sure for how long, but I can at least think back to like 2010 or 2011 with Chrome tabs being so small that it was just an infinite list of tiny barley tab looking thingies.

And in more recent times things have grown more into issues of me wanting to have a clearer distinction between work and private. For various reasons, ranging from legal or “kind of legal” to work/life balance.

Plus also being able to actually organize things within them in a meaningful way.

Earlier this year two browsers showed up on my radar that try to do something interesting with this. In a much better way that Apple’s Tab Group feature. My main issue with Apple’s Tab Groups is that I have lost faith in the tab-bar at the top on desktops and tablets.

The two browsers are: - Orion - Arc

I started writing this weeks ago trying to do a gigantic post of first outlining the problem, then talking about each browser and finally comparing etc. But I just have up on that and will just write a few smaller posts about it doing the same thing instead.

I’m just doing a super quick summary of the features of both browsers that I use and how I use them here. At the moment I’m using both at the same time just to figure out where I want to go in the future.

Orion

• Is available on macOS and iOS.
• It is based on webkit and aims to be compatible with Chrome and Firefox extensions.
• But the most useful and interesting features are only on macOS.
• They sync stuff between your devices through iCloud.
• It supports tab groups similar to Apple, just that it works way better
• It can pin tabs. They are visible across groups but not visible on iOS
• It let you have a top bar or side bar for tabs
• It has a tree-tab feature that is awesome (only on macOS)
• It looks very similar to Safari

Arc

• It is based on Chromium
• Has a side bar for tabs
• Let you organise your tabs in different workspaces
• Kind of similar to Tab Groups but more like another level of tabbing
• Have different types of tabs, and let you group them in folder and sub-folders
• Only on macOS

Both of the browsers have some weird issue where 1Password is really slow. Not sure why or what is going on there. At the moment I’m experimenting with both of them trying to figure out where I want to go. I really like the organisation of Arc, but I also love the tree-tab stuff of Orion. Plus Orion looks so much better.