I used the hot new web browser Arc for 8 months, and am never going back to Chrome. These are the best and worst things about it.

Arc uses "spaces" to create boundaries for the browing areas in your life. You can have a space for work and another for personal, for example, and pin tabs to each.

The best use I found for spaces was creating a dedicated zone for a big list project that I worked on. I filled it with links to a planning document, a draft in Google Docs, the same list from a previous year, and other resources. When I wanted to jump into the project, having a space made it easier to snap into focus.

It sounds trivial, I know, but the sidebar brings order to the chaos of web browsing. At the top I see my "favorites," which are the web pages I use the most, like my notetaking hub in Notion. Favorites appear across all my spaces.

Below that, I've pinned tabs that are essential for my work space. I set Arc to archive all open tabs every 12 hours, but the pinned tabs stay open until I manually close them.

The bottom half of the sidebar is where open tabs appear. I jump around tabs by scrolling or using a keyboard shortcut, which makes browsing a breeze. And I'm no longer squinting to read a web page's title at the top of a window. Arc's sidebar displays more of the title than a traditional browser, so it's easier to find the right tab.

When you make Google Calendar a favorite, it acts like a widget. The icon shows the day of the month, and hovering over the icon reveals the day's schedule. Starting one hour before your next event, a tiny countdown appears.

Before using Arc, each day I'd open my web browser to an onslaught of links from browsing days and weeks prior. The tabs taunted me, a reminder of how I'd fallen behind.

By default, Arc closes open tabs every 12 hours. For me, that means less clutter and headaches. The way I figure, if a tab is worth keeping, I'll drag it into the pinned section. Otherwise I'm free to carry on browsing with a clean slate.

Most of the links I click originate in other apps. A colleague drops me a news story on Slack. I shop an Everlane sale after getting an email promotion. My husband texts me a tweet about a Margot Robbie red-carpet moment. I'd expect a browser to load the link in a new tab, but Arc opens a pop-up window it calls "Little Arc." I find this incredibly annoying. I use Arc to reduce clutter, so it's puzzling that it creates more windows when I open links in other apps.

When I reached out to an Arc spokesperson about this, they said you can use a keyboard shortcut to open Little Arc in the sidebar, or disable Little Arc in settings.

I use browser extensions like Okta to log into apps and Notion's web clipper to save articles for later. With Chrome, these extensions appear at the top right corner of a window and I only need to click an icon to use the extension. In the interest of keeping a tidy browser, Arc hides extensions in a menu, which you can also access with a keyboard shortcut.

I like Chrome's approach of having extensions on display, but it's a matter of personal preference.

I have a 13-inch laptop, and Arc's split-view mode, which displays up to four tabs side-by-side, helps me get the most out of every inch. I can drag and drop tabs into view and resize columns — a game-changer as I'm writing an article in one tab and want to peek my notes in another. My old browser, Chrome, could only do this with an extension.

One of my favorite features of Arc is picture-in-picture. If you're playing a video in a tab and move to a new tab or another app, the video player reappears in a small window so you can continue watching off to the side. I find myself using picture-in-picture when I want to take notes or knock out a personal task, such as booking Amtrak tickets, while listening to a meeting. And when I return to the tab with the video player, the pop-up window automatically closes.

I've used Arc as my default browser for eight months, and still, I've only scratched the surface. Arc's toolkit includes "profiles" to further separate work and personal browsing, "easels" for displaying images and drawings on a virtual whiteboard, and a "boost" editor that allows you to customize the colors and fonts of any website — so you can "Avatarize" Twitter with a Na'vi's blue background and Papyrus font, if your heart desires. There's also two dozen keyboard shortcuts available and I know five of them.

Arc could do better to show new users how to make the most of the app. It sends regular emails about new features and upgrades, but I'd love to see tips and tricks pop up in the app as I'm using it. Maybe when I open a split view or switch spaces, the keyboard shortcut for those actions could flash across the screen. Or next time I take a screenshot, I get a nudge toward an easels tutorial. Until then, I'll continue to enjoy the bare essentials of Arc.