I trashed Arc immediately after install when I found out having an account was mandatory. That seemed so silly, like toothbrushes-requiring-wifi absurd. How much moreso now.
Truly. I was looking for a privacy respecting Chromium-based browser to use for Web MiniDisc (https://web.minidisc.wiki/) and came across some enthusiastic praise for Arc. I downloaded it and it immediately wanted me to create an account to even use it. How can that possibly respect my privacy? It went right in the trash.
What is also strange that I only found out about account after download. Like it was standard thing for the browser. (Sure there are optional accounts in others but login-walled browser?)
Hilariously (in the absurd way), this affects my girlfriend, who prefers and uses the Microsoft account feature AND onedrive exactly how Microsoft would hope she would, and STILL gets fucked by their stupidity.
Her laptop has a mediatek wifi card that doesn't have built in Windows drivers. Re-installing Windows requires you play the above game, so you can get into Windows, install the driver, and then immediately log into Microsoft.com.
In 2024 it is considered normal for an _operating_system_ to require an account, an information that is potentially passed around to any app running on it.
I had doubts already when submissions promoting the browser were added on hn while there was no way to see how it looks like or even test it out - for quite some time there was nothing but mail singup on their page.
