Back when they came up with Arc it looked like a promising browser to me, with a new UX and interesting features. Since then it looks like they decided to throw away all of that to jump on the AI...
Back when they came up with Arc it looked like a promising browser to me, with a new UX and interesting features.
Since then it looks like they decided to throw away all of that to jump on the AI train, so they abandoned Arc and started Dia. And now they merge with a business bloatware maker.
Oh man, I'm still pissed over it. Arc Browser was interesting because it forced the user to rethink how they browse the web, by using simple design tricks. It might be another chromium browser but...
Oh man, I'm still pissed over it.
Arc Browser was interesting because it forced the user to rethink how they browse the web, by using simple design tricks. It might be another chromium browser but it brought something new to the table.
Speaking for myself, it made me realize that I did have a terrible habit of having too many tabs open, always with the idea of leaving them open "for later", but I always ended up just closing them eventually.
But, somehow, some way, someone at the company decided to throw it in the trash in favour of another new browser. And somehow, some way, they also thought that it wasn't worth it to at least reuse several of those design ideas... Dia, unlike Arc, really does look like just another chromium browser
It was also novel in that it was trying something different on the UI technology front. Instead of just using the UI framework built into Chromium like most Chrome forks do, it used SwiftUI+AppKit...
It was also novel in that it was trying something different on the UI technology front. Instead of just using the UI framework built into Chromium like most Chrome forks do, it used SwiftUI+AppKit on macOS and WinUI 3 on Windows. This made Arc feel more at home on both platforms than the other Chrome forks do, including even Edge for Microsoft’s own OS!
The reason they threw it all away is because they were chasing mass appeal. They weren’t happy to just carve out a niche with a group of extremely enthusiastic users, they wanted to butt heads with Chrome and Firefox.
You could check out Zen, its a FOSS Firefox Fork that works to emulate and improve on the Arc experience, my limited early tests when they first came out was decent, now they have some funding and...
You could check out Zen, its a FOSS Firefox Fork that works to emulate and improve on the Arc experience, my limited early tests when they first came out was decent, now they have some funding and backing it seems.
I have used Zen for almost a year and it's pretty neat. Zen's sidebar and vertical tabs are cool, and I think I prefer them over normal horizontal tabs now. I'm not sure the way Zen handles...
I have used Zen for almost a year and it's pretty neat. Zen's sidebar and vertical tabs are cool, and I think I prefer them over normal horizontal tabs now. I'm not sure the way Zen handles vertical tabs is much different or any better than the various Firefox extensions one could install (or your modification that you linked, that looks cool by the way). So, I can't really come up with any compelling reasons for why people should use Zen over rolling their own solution in Firefox... other than that with Zen, you don't have to roll your own solution in Firefox I guess.
Actually, Zen does have other neat features than just vertical tabs. Its "peek" feature that opens a link as a temporary window (inside the browser's window), rather than a new tab, is cool. Split-view for tabs, customizing keyboard shortcuts (the lowest hanging fruit, c'mon Firefox), and Zen mods are all useful. I also like the way Zen presents pinned tabs in the sidebar better than how Firefox handles them.
I wouldn't feel like I lost much if I had to go back to Firefox, but Zen brings enough of its own features that I'll continue to use it as long is it keeps up with Firefox updates.
Yeah Zen is pretty great and the closest thing we have to an actively developed Arc. They just added folders to the pinned tab section which is great. However there is one feature stopping me from...
Yeah Zen is pretty great and the closest thing we have to an actively developed Arc. They just added folders to the pinned tab section which is great. However there is one feature stopping me from switching over: seamless tab sync between devices. As someone’s who switches between machines fairly often, I now miss that feature so much when it’s not there. As far as I can tell Arc is the only browser to have that feature which is pretty wild. I’d even be happy with just pinned tab sync. Also the way Arc Search handles viewing your opened desktop tabs from mobile is super neat. You can get basically the same functionality with Firefox bits it’s a little less smooth. But yeah, if Zen implements an option for cross device tab sync, I’ll be all in.
For me workspaces are the biggest draw and thing I appreciate with Zen. I've also been daily driving it for about 6 months now. Got a couple side gigs and different personas and it's nice to have...
For me workspaces are the biggest draw and thing I appreciate with Zen. I've also been daily driving it for about 6 months now.
Got a couple side gigs and different personas and it's nice to have a seperate view and essential tabs for what ever I'm working on.
This also links in well with the inbuilt Firefox containers, I'm sure this could be replicated using profiles etc but works for me!
Shame it's Mac only! I like the ideas. My biggest concerns would be cross device connectivity. I really like the convenience of sending a tab from my desktop to my phone or laptop or wherever I'll...
Shame it's Mac only! I like the ideas.
My biggest concerns would be cross device connectivity. I really like the convenience of sending a tab from my desktop to my phone or laptop or wherever I'll need it next. Bookmark syncing is the other critical feature for me.
Btw, your linked demo is inaccessible for me.
Edit: It does have bookmark syncing via Mozilla! It's fully cross-compatible with Firefox!
Not Mac only, appears their auto detection is broken, you can find their most recent release binaries here for all sorts of platforms, https://github.com/zen-browser/desktop/releases/tag/1.15.4b
Reading this just made me depressed... productivity metrics!. Also Dunno why but this smells like LLM writing.
But most of those tabs represent a task that needs to get done. A meeting to schedule. A design to review. A work item to update in Jira. A memo to write. Before you know it, it’s hard to see through the forest of tabs.
Reading this just made me depressed... productivity metrics!.
As someone that has to use Atlassian tooling every day for work, I can't see this going well. I mean, Atlassian has bought a bunch of companies as part of their tooling, and they still have at...
As someone that has to use Atlassian tooling every day for work, I can't see this going well. I mean, Atlassian has bought a bunch of companies as part of their tooling, and they still have at least 3 different flavors of Markdown depending on what product you're in. It's infuriating.
I can't wait for Jira to have a banner suggesting you "upgrade" their new, recommended browser. They should spend the money on making Confluence search actually useful instead.
I can't wait for Jira to have a banner suggesting you "upgrade" their new, recommended browser.
They should spend the money on making Confluence search actually useful instead.
Atlassian has full stack generalists and back end specialists, but they don't have any front end specialists to my knowledge. I'm convinced that's part of why their interfaces are a mess.
Atlassian has full stack generalists and back end specialists, but they don't have any front end specialists to my knowledge. I'm convinced that's part of why their interfaces are a mess.
It'll be interesting to see where Atlassian takes Arc and Dia. From what I heard from friends at Atlassian, the CEO is a big lover of Arc and has gone back and forth before with The Browser...
It'll be interesting to see where Atlassian takes Arc and Dia. From what I heard from friends at Atlassian, the CEO is a big lover of Arc and has gone back and forth before with The Browser Company to improve Arc. The acquisition announcement is heavily focused on Dia but it also sounds like Arc isn't going to die immediately so it'll be cool to see where they take it.
Back when they came up with Arc it looked like a promising browser to me, with a new UX and interesting features.
Since then it looks like they decided to throw away all of that to jump on the AI train, so they abandoned Arc and started Dia. And now they merge with a business bloatware maker.
Oh man, I'm still pissed over it.
Arc Browser was interesting because it forced the user to rethink how they browse the web, by using simple design tricks. It might be another chromium browser but it brought something new to the table.
Speaking for myself, it made me realize that I did have a terrible habit of having too many tabs open, always with the idea of leaving them open "for later", but I always ended up just closing them eventually.
But, somehow, some way, someone at the company decided to throw it in the trash in favour of another new browser. And somehow, some way, they also thought that it wasn't worth it to at least reuse several of those design ideas... Dia, unlike Arc, really does look like just another chromium browser
It was also novel in that it was trying something different on the UI technology front. Instead of just using the UI framework built into Chromium like most Chrome forks do, it used SwiftUI+AppKit on macOS and WinUI 3 on Windows. This made Arc feel more at home on both platforms than the other Chrome forks do, including even Edge for Microsoft’s own OS!
The reason they threw it all away is because they were chasing mass appeal. They weren’t happy to just carve out a niche with a group of extremely enthusiastic users, they wanted to butt heads with Chrome and Firefox.
You could check out Zen, its a FOSS Firefox Fork that works to emulate and improve on the Arc experience, my limited early tests when they first came out was decent, now they have some funding and backing it seems.
https://zen-browser.app/
https://github.com/zen-browser/desktop
Edit: I maintain a FF modification that allows you to use Sidebar tabs, with tree style tab support (via Sidebery) that might be of interest.
https://codeberg.org/macleod/FirefoxSidebar
Demo :: This is a slightly older looking version, but it gets the idea across.
I have used Zen for almost a year and it's pretty neat. Zen's sidebar and vertical tabs are cool, and I think I prefer them over normal horizontal tabs now. I'm not sure the way Zen handles vertical tabs is much different or any better than the various Firefox extensions one could install (or your modification that you linked, that looks cool by the way). So, I can't really come up with any compelling reasons for why people should use Zen over rolling their own solution in Firefox... other than that with Zen, you don't have to roll your own solution in Firefox I guess.
Actually, Zen does have other neat features than just vertical tabs. Its "peek" feature that opens a link as a temporary window (inside the browser's window), rather than a new tab, is cool. Split-view for tabs, customizing keyboard shortcuts (the lowest hanging fruit, c'mon Firefox), and Zen mods are all useful. I also like the way Zen presents pinned tabs in the sidebar better than how Firefox handles them.
I wouldn't feel like I lost much if I had to go back to Firefox, but Zen brings enough of its own features that I'll continue to use it as long is it keeps up with Firefox updates.
Yeah Zen is pretty great and the closest thing we have to an actively developed Arc. They just added folders to the pinned tab section which is great. However there is one feature stopping me from switching over: seamless tab sync between devices. As someone’s who switches between machines fairly often, I now miss that feature so much when it’s not there. As far as I can tell Arc is the only browser to have that feature which is pretty wild. I’d even be happy with just pinned tab sync. Also the way Arc Search handles viewing your opened desktop tabs from mobile is super neat. You can get basically the same functionality with Firefox bits it’s a little less smooth. But yeah, if Zen implements an option for cross device tab sync, I’ll be all in.
For me workspaces are the biggest draw and thing I appreciate with Zen. I've also been daily driving it for about 6 months now.
Got a couple side gigs and different personas and it's nice to have a seperate view and essential tabs for what ever I'm working on.
This also links in well with the inbuilt Firefox containers, I'm sure this could be replicated using profiles etc but works for me!
Shame it's Mac only! I like the ideas.
My biggest concerns would be cross device connectivity. I really like the convenience of sending a tab from my desktop to my phone or laptop or wherever I'll need it next. Bookmark syncing is the other critical feature for me.
Btw, your linked demo is inaccessible for me.
Edit: It does have bookmark syncing via Mozilla! It's fully cross-compatible with Firefox!
Not Mac only, appears their auto detection is broken, you can find their most recent release binaries here for all sorts of platforms, https://github.com/zen-browser/desktop/releases/tag/1.15.4b
Reading this just made me depressed... productivity metrics!.
Also
Dunno why but this smells like LLM writing.
I'd rather switch to using Lynx than use a browser owned by Atlassian.
As someone that has to use Atlassian tooling every day for work, I can't see this going well. I mean, Atlassian has bought a bunch of companies as part of their tooling, and they still have at least 3 different flavors of Markdown depending on what product you're in. It's infuriating.
I can't wait for Jira to have a banner suggesting you "upgrade" their new, recommended browser.
They should spend the money on making Confluence search actually useful instead.
Atlassian has full stack generalists and back end specialists, but they don't have any front end specialists to my knowledge. I'm convinced that's part of why their interfaces are a mess.
It'll be interesting to see where Atlassian takes Arc and Dia. From what I heard from friends at Atlassian, the CEO is a big lover of Arc and has gone back and forth before with The Browser Company to improve Arc. The acquisition announcement is heavily focused on Dia but it also sounds like Arc isn't going to die immediately so it'll be cool to see where they take it.
So I can just make 7+ digits by making a Chrome skin and selling it?
Ah. So that’s how the browsers make money! By getting acquired!