4w ago

The Arc Browser Is Dead

www.howtogeek.com The Arc Browser Is Dead

I guess it wasn't the future of the Internet after all.

Technology @europe.pub

www.howtogeek.com /the-arc-browser-is-dead/

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86 comments

It’s dead and they’re replacing it with an AI-first browser. Gross.
If you want the main things Arc gives you (vertical tabs, tab groups), you can get them with Firefox or a Firefox spinoff like Librewolf.
- Zen browser is basically FireFox made to look like Arc
  
  Zen made sense until Firefox rolled out vertical tabs, but there's little reason to endure all the growing pains and bugs now you can set up basically the exact same thing directly on FF.
  
  Zen makes something like 84 external connections, which is around double what even Edge makes (and Microsoft has basically become a malware company).
- tab groups in firefox are surprisingly good! even alongside a tab group management addon. they complement each other, like when you don't want to create a bunch of subgroups for an exclusive view but just collapse them
- Does any other browser let me open 2 windows with the same synced tabs? Also, permanent per-space tabs, please.
  
  Zen does
- They're obviously going for a zero adoption policy and trying to think of the most repulsive options

No shit it died. They stopped supporting it and on top of it it’s a browser that requires you to be logged into an account to use, which is a turnoff to techie people who are the most likely to adopt nee things early.
Oh and Microsoft Edge can do most of the things Arc does.
- Yep. Save reason I won't use Kagi and I don't use AI much. Surveillance capitalism will only ever lead to authoritarianism and dystopia. I don't want anything to do with it.
  You can't trust any company to not sell you out and pick your carcass clean.
  
  Isn’t kagi's point that they store very little about you to the point there no search history and you have to pay for the service provided?
  
  Can you cite me some instances of surveillance from Kagi? Genuinely asking.
  
  What do you use instead of Kagi?
  Also you can search without tying your searches to your account with Kagi.
- When i left Chrome, one of the things I was looking for was vertical tabs and was willing to try anything. I wasn't fond of a mac first option, but I decided to try it. Installed it and the first thing it did was to force me to make an account, uninstalled it instantly.
  I'm not against the option of having an account, but forcing it makes me distrust them. Was not long after that there were also some major security flaws found as well. They really didn't make it easy for people to change, almost like they thought the apple form over function would appeal more broadly.

Never even heard of it until now.

Zen Browser is open source and in active development!

Never heard of that thing, but apparently it was Apple exclusives? Deserved death then.
I'm hoping ladybug will be operational for mainstream use, before the enshittification of Firefox progresses too far.
- LadyBird
  
  Right, thanks!
- It wasn't supposed to stay Apple exclusive. In fact, when I last used Windows there was a beta build out for Arc. However, there were also multiple Firefox styles in the CSS Store that made Firefox into Arc.
  Then Zen Browser came out, and I'm currently watching it get very popular. I don't doubt that Zen Browser is one of the reasons Arc is shutting down. It's nearly an exact copy, but now with more features (and is constantly coming out with even more faster than Arc can think of them).
  I'm excited for Ladybird as well, but I'm not expecting anything crazy when it comes out of alpha and beta. I fully expect to wait a bit, maybe download to contribute some troubleshooting, but it may not be viable as a main use browser for a long time yet.
  
  It'll be a great browser by 2029 IMO, and honestly that's not that long compared to the development time all other browsers have had.
  We shall see, I'm excited to start testing it out next year when it's in Alpha
- Well that's shooting yourself in the damn foot.
  Apple users are a tiny percentage, and most of the sort that happily uses whatever Apple gives them without question or concern for other options. I have no idea what this thing did, but if it did something different than every other browser should start targeting Windows and Linux.
- Its not apple exclusive. I have it on both my macbook and windows computer

what a fucking joke, the best thing it did was create the zen browser project, and before that Vivaldi existed that took the spot of zen without the hype

No Linux build, not git link, why would anyone care?
- Because 96% of people aren't using Linux to browse the web.
  
  That figure is entirely irrelevant when you need to target users who are willing to try a new unknown third party browser in the first place.
  And you'll find orders of magnitude more of those among Linux users than you do on Mac, which is where Arc launched on.
  
  it couldn't be too popular as a windows only project. I assume it was too lite known, like I never even heard about it here or other places

It probably has something to do with being only available on Macs for so long.
- Or them completely shifting development to their AI browser

The Browser Company, the developer behind the Arc Browser, has announced that Arc is going away
Where? Where did they do this? Why is there no link? They said several times, very recently, that it was not going away. They were just basically going into maintenance mode.
please know this: we’re not trying to shut Arc down.
- 2 weeks ago

When I eventually managed to test Arc, I felt it was a very overhyped browser. I couldn't see what the fuss was about.

It was a fun little experiment to use for about 15 minutes. Won’t miss it.

Most regular people just use what came with their computer, unfortunately.
So this is a case of a company that made a browser to appeal to techies that didn't see widespread adoption, is pivoting to a new browser that is focused on the central conceit of a product that most techies decry...
Read the room, Arc. Read the room.

So, no Windows, no Linux, no head?
- There is a windows and mobile tab on their website

I really liked the layout of Arc, but ended up going back to Firefox because uBlock still works on it.
- Try Zen, it used Arc as its main inspiration for the UI and features

That's very sad to hear. I am currently using Arc as my main browser for work (I am a web developer) since its launch on MacOS. Guess I need to switch browsers soon then...
- It's not dead. As far as I can tell the author just made that up, because they didn't cite any sources, and the actual official sources indicate otherwise. But I can recommend switching to Zen nonetheless.

with the TF2 engineer's voice
THE ARC IS DEAD?

I hated arc but I really really wanted to like it. It was just too awkward to use

I remember i used to use Windows i didnt like that i couldnt test arc Browser on Windows Sandbox

This was the browser that required an account to even start using, it was just ridiculous.

The Devs at the browser company said themselves that they aren't killing Arc, it's just on maintenance mode as they are working on another browser, an AI first one, which I have mixed feelings about personally.

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