The Browser Company, the company behind the Arc web browser, today introduced a fun new tool called Boosts. It allows you to customize a website with new colors and fonts. But the best feature of this tool is that you can “Zap” (read: remove) any element of a website, such as a sidebar or a box of trending topics.
Boosts was originally launched in July last year. The feature spearheaded by Chrome co-creator Darin Fisher and Victoria Kirst was aimed more at developers. At the time, the tool was aimed at enabling developers to quickly put together a browser extension using JavaScript. The new version of Boosts is more user-friendly and focuses on customizing the web pages or, as The Browser Company calls it, “editing the web”.
If you’ve installed Arc, tap the plus sign in the bottom bar and select “Create New Boost.” The Boosts toolbar allows you to change the background and font color with advanced controls for brightness, contrast, and original saturation. You can also change the font to give the website a new look.
Image Credits: Screenshot from AapkaDost
Once you’ve created a boost, you’ll see a brush icon in the URL bar that lets you quickly toggle it on or off.
The best thing about Boosts 2.0 is the Zap tool that lets you remove elements. For example, I removed the Shorts section on YouTube because I didn’t want to see vertical videos on my system. Additionally, I’ve scrapped Twitter’s user suggestion box because I found it mostly useless.
Chrome on the left and Arc on the right Image Credits: Screenshot from AapkaDost
Arc’s development team has made it possible to share your boosts with other users as well. The browser has introduced a Boosts gallery that lets you see some of the edited web pages created by other users. You can click “Get Boost” on any of these designs and apply it to the website.
Image Credits: Bow
The Gallery has some great boosts to get you started. For example, this one turns Instagram into a simple home feed with no bells and whistles, and it gives Slack a serious look with serif fonts.
If you’re a developer, you can still add JavaScript to your boost. But in that case, it cannot be shared with other users due to security issues.
The idea of customizing a website is exciting, especially when you can easily remove things you don’t like. Earlier this week, Chrome revamped its customization tools to apply different themes and colors to the browser. However, Arc’s customization is at the website level rather than the browser level.
In 2020, The Browser Company raised $5 million in funding from several investors such as LinkedIn’s Jeff Weiner, Medium’s Ev Williams, and Figma’s Dylan Field. Their Arc browser is still in invite-only mode. Last month, the company launched an iPhone companion app for Arc that makes it easy to save different pages in different workspaces and access them later from the desktop.