Barc v0.0.13

Barc 0.0.13

Barc is a personal browser, built for my own taste. My goal is to reduce the browser's footprint while maintaining the original Arc feel.

Changes

• A tab no longer stays awake for hours on a stale safety record. When a frame inside a page loaded a new document and the old one's goodbye message was lost, Barc kept checking the old document, failed every time, and never let the tab sleep. A GitHub tab stayed loaded at 406 MB this way. The check now moves on to the frame's current document.
• Copying a screenshot (⌥Q, ⌥W or the editor's Copy) no longer leaves memory behind. A full-page copy used to leave about 250 MB in Barc until you quit, because the image went through two uncompressed copies. It is now encoded straight to PNG and leaves about 4 MB. Apps that want TIFF still get it from macOS.
• Barc hands freed memory back to macOS after putting tabs to sleep, after saving your session and after a screenshot copy. Before, it only did this when macOS was short of memory or when you switched to another app.
• A hidden tab whose page uses more than 1 GB, like a large ClickUp board, now sleeps after 1 minute instead of 3. Drafts, calls, uploads and Keep Awake still keep it loaded.
• Sleep messages in the Task Manager are clearer: "Page is still loading", "Camera or microphone is in use", or that the safety check could not reach the page, instead of a generic wait.

Verification

The full suite ran 2,562 tests in 409 suites with no failures. The new frame and clipboard tests fail on 0.0.12. Screenshot memory was measured in a test process: a full-page copy left 247 MB before and 4 MB after. Two other ideas were measured and left out because they saved nothing: stricter JavaScript heap growth, and drawing the window at 8-bit colour depth.

Passkeys remain unavailable in this private build.

Download and install

• Barc-0.0.13-universal.dmg: open the disk image and drag Barc to Applications.
• Barc-0.0.13-universal.pkg: a standard installer that places Barc in Applications.
• SHA256SUMS.txt: SHA-256 checksums for both downloads.

Both installers support Apple Silicon and Intel Macs, with macOS 14 or later. Translation requires macOS 15; extensions require macOS 15.4.

Signing

This release is ad-hoc signed and not notarized by Apple. The installer package is unsigned. macOS may prevent first launch; read Apple's guidance before deciding whether to open it. No security settings are changed by the installer.

Included

• Arc-style sidebar, address/search launcher, Spaces, Favorites and split views.
• Arc import for supported tabs, folders, history, bookmarks, passwords and website data. Some sites require signing in again.
• Separate website identities for personal and work profiles.

Browser profiles, browsing history, saved passwords, cookies and local migration captures are not bundled. Automatic updates are not configured yet; download updates from this release page.

The source is licensed under Apache License 2.0. Original notices and third-party licenses are included in the app. Barc has no affiliation with Arc or The Browser Company.