Google’s ARC Beta App runs Android apps on Chrome OS, Windows, Mac, and Linux

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In September, Google launched ARC—the "App Runtime for Chrome,"—a project that allowed Android apps to run on Chrome OS. A few days later, a hack revealed the project's full potential: it enabled ARC on every "desktop" version of Chrome, meaning you could unofficially run Android apps on Chrome OS, Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. ARC made Android apps run on nearly every computing platform (save iOS).

ARC is an early beta though so Google has kept the project's reach very limited—only a handful of apps have been ported to ARC, which have all been the result of close collaborations between Google and the app developer. Now though, Google is taking two big steps forward with the latest developer preview: it's allowing any developer to run their app on ARC via a new Chrome app packager, and it's allowing ARC to run on any desktop OS with a Chrome browser.

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Google ARC sounds like a good app for running Android Apps and games on Chrome OS, and Linux which sometimes does not have more popular apps like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc which are available on Google Android, and other operating systems.
 
alakazam said:
I'm confused about how this works and why the app developers allow this kind of thing. Does it work on Windows 10 for smartphones?
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I think Arc works by using an Android runtime/emulator running from Google Chrome.

App developers probably don't care where their apps are run as long as the apps were legally bought, and the users are not blocking in-app advertisements, so App makers could earn money from their apps, and more people use their apps making their app more popular within the Google Play App ranking.

If a Windows 10 Smartphones, run the regular desktop version of Windows 10 which is made for AMD, and Intel CPUs, Arc, and Google Chrome will run on it. You just need to install Google Chrome for Windows, and install the Arc App from the Google Chrome store to start running Android apps from within Chrome.
 
So its basically a emulator meant to run phone apps on a PC?
 
Demon_Skeith said:
So its basically a emulator meant to run phone apps on a PC?
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Yes, it is basically an emulator meant to run Google Android smartphone and tablet apps on a PC after you installed Arc Welder Beta Chrome App onto Google Chrome to use to run apps within Chrome.

Using Chrome to run Android Apps may use less RAM, and CPU resources than running Android inside a virtual machine program like VirtualBox, and VMWare. But, Chrome is known for needing a lot of RAM to run smoothly in Windows, so VMware, and Virtual Box Virtual Machine programs may sometimes use less RAM because they may use less RAM than Chrome. 
 
froggyboy604 said:
App developers probably don't care where their apps are run as long as the apps were legally bought, and the users are not blocking in-app advertisements
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Some of them do care... such as Snapchat, the company that not only does it not release a version for Windows Phone, but it also prohibits any third-party apps, even free ones, to exist in the Windows Marketplace.
 
alakazam said:
Some of them do care... such as Snapchat, the company that not only does it not release a version for Windows Phone, but it also prohibits any third-party apps, even free ones, to exist in the Windows Marketplace.
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Some of those third-party apps are risky to use. I read on a tech blog that some third-party apps leak information which hackers can use to login to account, or steal pictures, and video.

Plus, third-party apps sometimes profit off of content from Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram by putting huge banner and pop-up ads  and in-app purchases onto their app while using other's sites/apps content, and bandwidth to deliver content which people are viewing on third party apps.

I imagine, third-party apps also use up a lot of bandwidth while browsing content which is on the official server at YouTube, Google, and Facebook.
 
Demon_Skeith said:
not sure about it all going through chrome, but a nice deal.
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I think it is best to unplug your computer from the internet if you think Google is secretly monitoring your  app data, and app usage from within Chrome when you are connected to the internet.

But, there is a chance that Chrome will send your app usage data when you open Chrome when your PC is connected to the internet.

It probably be safest to use a bootable USB or CD/DVD Disc with a live operating system like Ubuntu Linux to run Chrome, and Apps in Chrome while not online if you are worried about app usage data collection from Google.
 
froggyboy604 said:
Some of those third-party apps are risky to use. I read on a tech blog that some third-party apps leak information which hackers can use to login to account, or steal pictures, and video.

Plus, third-party apps sometimes profit off of content from Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram by putting huge banner and pop-up ads  and in-app purchases onto their app while using other's sites/apps content, and bandwidth to deliver content which people are viewing on third party apps.

I imagine, third-party apps also use up a lot of bandwidth while browsing content which is on the official server at YouTube, Google, and Facebook.
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When there hasn't been an official app for a certain OS for over 3 years, I would take those risks and use third party apps. It's outrageous how Instagram recently released a new better-looking interface for iOS (iPhone), while the app is still in beta on Windows Phone devices.
 
froggyboy604 said:
I think it is best to unplug your computer from the internet if you think Google is secretly monitoring your  app data, and app usage from within Chrome when you are connected to the internet.

But, there is a chance that Chrome will send your app usage data when you open Chrome when your PC is connected to the internet.

It probably be safest to use a bootable USB or CD/DVD Disc with a live operating system like Ubuntu Linux to run Chrome, and Apps in Chrome while not online if you are worried about app usage data collection from Google.
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I actually feel that all browsers do that by gathering your data and sending it out.
 
Demon_Skeith said:
I actually feel that all browsers do that by gathering your data and sending it out.
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Yes, a lot of browsers maybe gathering data. There are Privacy settings in some browsers which you can opt-out of Anonymous data collection which they use  to improve the browsers.
 
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