Technology @lemmy.world fne8w2ah @lemmy.world 1w ago

The Arc Browser Is Dead

62 comments

When I eventually managed to test Arc, I felt it was a very overhyped browser. I couldn't see what the fuss was about.
So, no Windows, no Linux, no head?
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.
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.
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
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.
- They're obviously going for a zero adoption policy and trying to think of the most repulsive options
- 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
Never even heard of it until now.
Zen Browser is open source and in active development!
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
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.
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
with the TF2 engineer's voice

THE ARC IS DEAD?

62 comments