A farewell to Arc browser

ChrisArchitect

Previously in May 2025: Letter to Arc Members 2025 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44102709

an0malous

Never trust a product that takes VC funding. Take advantage of the subsidized prices but have your backup ready.

slipwalker

would be most gracious from them to open-source it. It would completely removes the bad aftertaste from those who trusted the product and the company.

tinyhouse

Is this just the product Arc or the entire company? (The Browser Company)

zachwdc

Arc users, what are you moving to?

jamie_ca

Writing was on the wall once they pivoted to Dia, I'm pretty happy having switched to Zen (though for a few things that matter, it's Firefox-based not Chrome). https://zen-browser.app/ They picked up a lot of cues from Arc - sidebar tabs, pinned vs generic tabs, global bookmarks, spaces...

shikshake

I really enjoyed using arc years ago. But I also remember asking the devs, both on a livestream and over email, what their plan was to build a sustainable business. They obviously had no answer because their real plan was to entice users to join while surviving on VC funding, then eventually sell user data or squeeze value out of them some other way. Left a bad taste in my mouth so I stopped using their products. Just another example of a cancerous VC-backed business.

jjuel

So the new browser uses AI to read your tabs? No thanks!

falloon

I was quite angry when they first announced that they weren't going to support Arc last year and refused to switch to their new 'AI-powered' Dia browser. After a year to cool off, I gave Dia a shot. Despite wanting to hate it, I like the browser a lot. You can turn off the shit AI features, and it's a well designed and thoughtful UX. As much as Josh is a tool, this is genuinely a great product and the team at TBC has executed really well.

Aurornis

I had to look Arc up because I forgot what it was. For others confused like me: Arc was an alternative web browser with novel UX and AI features built-in. The company was acquired for $610 million by Atlassian and development was halted in favorite of Dia, another browser with AI features and novel UX (which I also had to look up)

esafak

I tried it briefly, but it just did not solve a pain point for me. I want my browser to be faster and lighter, not whatever Arc did.

arjie

Enjoyed using it to start with but soon returned to Chrome. Now I have a personal browser/terminal hybrid I use. Lots of the ideas from arc were good. Sidebar tabs, splits, page editability.

impure

Oh well, looks like I'm going to need a new browser. "Keeping a browser secure takes constant, dedicated work that is only increasing in the age of AI." I thought it was supposed to be the other way around.

drewbeck

Damn. I’ve been riding hard for Arc since I installed it years ago. Dia looks like it has a lot of the same UI sugar thankfully, tho I’m sure there are things I’ll hate. I’m still pulling for Atlassian to do Interesting Things with the app. AI can be part of it but I think there’s a ton of opportunity for a browser for the enterprise / organizations and atlassian is well positioned to do that, AI or no. Things like: - shared company file Management accessible directly in app - cross saas–app workflows enabled at the browser level, managed centrally by the org — slack, zoom, screen sharing/recording and other collab tools natively baked into the app So many people spend all their work day flipping between different apps and docs in the browser and there’s sooo much more we (as humanity) could do to improve that experience. The browser is a natural site for it and I hope someone gives it a shot.

aorth

I have seen the Arc posts here and on r/browsers over the years so I am loosely familiar with it, but what is Dia? The post doesn't say and doesn't even link to it. Venture capital funded, closed source, and AI... doesn't sound good. Posting from Ladybird BTW (compiled from git today), which is starting to take shape!

lowkey_

As someone who loved Arc a lot and is still using it, this is sad to see. It also annoys me because they had such a clear path to success with such a huge head start. I was rooting for them. It was obvious there was an opportunity to build a much better browser, but the team couldn't figure out how to bring those changes into a browser we knew and were familiar with. From my POV, it was mostly a product & design leadership failure. Ironic, because the team had phenomenal design and product work individually. They took a cheap way out with building a second browser, lost most of their userbase, and in doing so, admitted that users didn't want what they were building the way they were building it. It wasn't magical or intuitive, or else it would've been fine to build into Arc. But instead of doing the hard overarching product & design work and making the tough calls, to build that roadmap step-by-step and add the magic, they decided they couldn't reconcile these two ideas into one, and needed two browsers. One anecdote: Despite sharing mutual investors and connections with them, I never even heard back on any feature ideas or bug reports sent to the founder.

usrme

I've been using Arc for years now and am really sad to see it being sunset, but am now trying my luck with Zen browser. I'd really want to be on Dia as I have much respect for its original creators, but Atlassian being behind it kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I even tried to import my Arc account into Dia to get everything done and dusted quickly, but it failed to do so, asked me to try again in a few minutes or contact Atlassian support...

crab_galaxy

This is honestly very sad news. The Arc UX is still my favorite desktop browser UX out there even to this day, even though feature development stopped over a year ago! The auto-hiding sidebar, the pins, the smart folders, split tabs, command bar… I will miss you Arc! Now to find a new browser ;(

HackerThemAll

I found it funny that people use Chromium-based browsers and pretend they're unique. If you want freedom, features and manifest v2 then just use and support Firefox.

ghusto

Another Apple Silicon only app, another pass. This one doesn't even do you the courtesy of informing you you're downloading an Apple Silicon only binary, just presumes you're not on Intel. I honestly don't understand the thinking behind not clicking the checkbox for the universal binary when compiling.