Turn your Android TV or handheld into the emulation station it was meant to be!
ARC Browser is a ROM collection browser and emulator frontend that organizes your games into a searchable database and lets you play them with your preferred emulators. It shines on Android phones, tablets, and Android TV, offering automatic artwork and metadata scraping along with extensive emulator templates and launcher capabilities. With 10,000+ total downloads and 39 in the last 30 days, the app shows steady demand within its arcade-focused niche.
Pros & Cons
Niche ROM browser + emulator frontend with an organized database
Automated scraping for box art/backgrounds and theming
Large set of emulator templates (200+) for broad compatibility
Android TV channels and launcher support
Does not bundle emulators or games, requiring users to provide ROMs and external emulators
English-only interface (support available in English or Swedish)
Extensive permissions (external storage, network, and system access) may raise privacy considerations
About ARC Browser
ARC Browser is an arcade app developed by LDX Technology.
Download Statistics
ARC Browser has been downloaded 29 thousand times. In the last 30 days, the app was downloaded 39 times. It is ranked in the top 100 arcade apps.
User Ratings
ARC Browser is rated 3.76 out of 5 stars. The rating is based on 580 ratings.
App Information
ARC Browser costs $7.99 to download. The APK download size is 21.48 MB. The latest version available is 1.27.1. The last update was on January 26, 2026.
Technical Requirements
ARC Browser requires Android 4.2+ or higher. The app has a content rating of Everyone. The app has been available on Google Play September 2015.
Description
ARC Browser is a rom collection browser and emulator frontend that maintains a database of all your games, presented in a user friendly way, and let's you play them using your favorite emulators. Suitable for both phones and tablets (provided you have a gamepad), Android-powered arcade cabinets and of course Android TV!
FEATURES * A searchable database of all your games, indexed by systems and categories * Automatically scrape data about your games and download boxart and background images * Integration with RetroAchievements - View the achievements available for your games and track your progress * Support for native Android games * Roms with the same filename (excluding text in parenthesis or brackets) are automatically grouped and presented as a single game. When you press Play you can choose which version to load. Useful not only when you have different versions of a game, but also for multi-disc games * More than 200 configuration templates for different emulators and RetroArch cores * Can be used as default launcher * Support for Android TV channels
IMPORTANT * Gamepad highly recommended - Touch screen navigation works, but has some issues. If you need to use the app without a gamepad, Arcade is the recommended layout mode for that. * Screenshots in the Play Store have been blurred or otherwise altered to avoid copyright and trademark infringement * This application does not include any emulators or games * Artwork and metadata scraping from online databases may require the availability of third-party services. The developer of this app is not responsible for the availability of such services
SCRAPING Your roms should be named as close as possible to the original game name. There are however multiple settings that you can use to fine-tune the scraping process. For example, converting ", The" in a filename to "The " and ignoring text withing parenthesis and brackets. If no match is found, it will also try replacing any instance of " - " in the filename with ": " automatically.
BOX ART, BACKGROUNDS, THEMING AND MORE All of the images in ARC Browser, including but not limited to box art and background, can be customized. For example, if you don't like the automatically scraped box art, you can use your own. You can also further change the look and feel of the app with themes.
LANGUAGE The app is in English only. Support will be given in either English or Swedish.
MORE INFORMATION AND RESOURCES Documentation is available at https://arcbrowser.com If you're having issues and need help, feel free to send an e-mail to support@ldxtech.net
Recent changes: * Scraping from gamelist.xml is now possible with an empty or missing name node for the game entry in the xml file. The name will default to what it would have been for a missing game entry. * Bugfixes for scraping from gamelist.xml. * Updated Android SDK to version 36.
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Ok I went to their site And I am now awaiting the fix and I will be giving you 5 stars now as I love ARC BROWSER But the Update Nvidia Shield TV did mess up everything Thanks for the reply and help.
★★★★★Dr. Gorilla Nuts· Feb 28, 2021
I'm always looking for the best retro emulator frontend. Arc Browser and the active dev have so many positives, that I think the future of this frontend is so bright! The customization is what I look for cuz I love to design themes to my specifications. Arc Browser is the only front end that has RetroAchievement implementation for Android right now too, which is huge! I just wish there was a Discord to discuss the frontend, and a place to offer suggestions for the dev. Fantastic app though!
★☆☆☆☆Noah Weiner· Nov 28, 2024
I can't for the life of me get this setup it's so freaking hard, it doesn't find any of my roms when I select the correct directory and every other front end seems to have no issue... Waste of $10
★☆☆☆☆Garrett Eagle Child· May 20, 2022
After the latest update on the nvidia shield arc browser no longer can read rom files. When attempting to it says 'permission denied' useless if it can't read the roms. Paid for, so I'm going to request a refund.
★☆☆☆☆Calvin· Apr 22, 2022
Broken with android 11. Don't use with shield tv. Too much time to set up and android 11 has blocked external drive access with retroarch and many other emulators with no fix. Would love to use with classic boy (which works), but Arc browser keeps prompting it doesn't exist.
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Trust & Safety: The app requests network and storage permissions to scrape metadata, manage ROM assets, and support offline access. It does not include bundled emulators or games, which helps limit bundled content risk. Users should review storage and external access needs in light of their privacy preferences.
Each subscription will automatically renew 3 days before the expiration date for
the same time period. Subscriptions can be cancelled at any time before the renewal.
