Arc Browser Discontinued, New Browser Dia comes as a replacement
The Browser Company has discontinued the Arc Browser app, all because it wants to build a new browser, Dia. In 2022, Arc Browser was termed as the "Chrome replacement" that people wanted.
Is Arc Browser discontinued?
Josh Miller, the CEO of The Browser Company, has published a Letter to Arc members, explaining why the app is being shuttered. Arc was created as an Internet Computer that was designed for work, personal life, as an all-in-one browser. Miller says that Arc failed due to a "novelty tax" problem, it did not manage to retain users primarily because it differed too much from a traditional browser. Its interface was different, and the whole workflow was unique, users were not willing to put in the effort to re-learn how to browse, or even to switch to another browser. When I wrote about it 2 years ago, I pointed out that Arc has a learning curve, and that it could deter users. Apparently, the browser's key features like Spaces, Live Folders, Calendar Preview were barely used.
Dia: Browser Company Arc AIpowered successor
Miller says that his company began working on Dia, a simpler browser. It will get rid of Arc's bloat, and use familiar interfaces. Dia is also touted as a lightweight, snappy, responsive app. The most important thing here is that Dia will integrate an AI. Who would have guessed?
Miller claims that traditional browsers will die, in favor of AI-powered features. He goes on to say that web pages consisting of apps, articles, files will become tools that can be accessed with AI chat interfaces which are basically like browsers. Are they? Dia will act as an AI agent that is also your web browser. He also highlighted that security is a priority for Dia.
One more thing that is worth mentioning here is that Miller had stated that it wouldn't be possible to open source Arc's codebase, because it isn't merely a fork of Chromium, it uses a custom infrastructure called Arc Development Kit (ADK), and that it was the company's secret sauce. ADK is also the foundation of Dia, so it won't be open sourced, not now anyway. This explanation was met with criticism from fans who would rather see the project live on with the help of contributors. Shortly after, when a user proposed a community-run Arc, Miller said he was open to the idea, for which was once again criticized because he had just rejected the notion. I would like to point out that The Browser Company was valued at $550 million in March 2024. It is possible that the company is keeping a closed lid on the source code due to its investors, even though they are claiming otherwise.
Naturally, Arc users were far from pleased to hear about the news about the browser's discontinuation, and have criticized the whole idea. There is absolutely no need to reinvent the wheel here, it would have been better to simplify Arc, i.e. declutter it. But no, the answer is AI.
There you have it, folks. AI is going to solve everything! That's exactly what Microsoft did with Edge and Copilot, Google is adding Gemini AI to Chrome. ChatGPT and Perplexity may be the cool new toys now, but they can't replace a traditional browser or app. There is one lesson that none of these companies have learned, not everyone wants to use an AI, not every task needs an AI!
Totally agree with the article about the learning curve being Arc’s downfall. I gave Arc a try last year and really liked the Peek feature for quickly previewing links, but eventually went back to Chrome just because it was what I was used to. The thing I miss most though is that link preview capability. Found an extension called NoTab that brings similar peek functionality to Chrome, which has been helpful during the transition. Not sure if another new browser is what we need though, especially with all the AI hype.
How will the browser be lightweight if it will be bloated with AI garbage that nobody sane needs?
Like Brave?
I still can’t believe they thought they could compete with Chrome. How naive, how sadly naive!
Just a clown fest of a company…
They haven’t really innovate or done anything but having a custom UI on top of Chromium and done, and then people still gave some type of attention to these companies, it is just like Opera, Vivaldi, Zen and others. Just a makeup and ship it, but they aren’t really building anything to give users something ‘different’.
The worst part is this “Dia” Browser will probably still ask for an account to use it, which was always the most ridiculous thing about Arc and somehow people went with it.
One thing that the article doesn’t understand is at least Google and Microsoft are building their own AI, while others are just leeching from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Microsoft and the Chinese ones etc etc.
They are even saying how “we aren’t going to open source” just like Vivaldi, because all they have is a slow buggy custom UI on top of Chromium and nothing else, they aren’t really adding anything but a ‘prettier’ (subjective) UI.
For example, people might hate and dislike Brave, but the browser and every feature they have added is open source. For example, yesterday Brave started implementing Containers in Brave, it is based on Ephemeral Storage and all they need to do now is to make it so different containers can exist per site, but Ephemeral Storage was already a really nice feature for Brave. Of course the Adblocker is getting improved, so uBlock will be needed less and less, plus unlike Opera or Vivaldi, they aren’t basing the adblocker in ABP, which has less resources and features than uBlock, Brave adblocker is not based on uBlock (that’s not the reason for uBlock fork in Brave repository) but Brave is adding everything uBlock does, the way uBlock does it, using their lists and resources/Scriptlets, but with the advantages of not being an extension. Another feature Brave is working on is an Email Aliases service. Again, not just a ‘custom UI with pretty colors’.
While Brave is also leeching different AI models, at least they have their own search engine which will benefit from Bing dropping their API.
Some people might want a ‘nicer’ UI though, I would rather take the native Chromium UI that takes longer to modify but can take Chromium native featurs, like Split view, even if Brave has its own, they are already porting it to use Chromium one, so it will be easier to maintain, and then adblocker, containers, ephemeral storage, sync without the need of an account etc etc.
I wonder how many are going to use Dia though, how many people really care or trust these weird companies that seem like they just want to grab people’s data and who knows what they want to do with it in the end.
You conveniently omit in your text wall that Brave is also based on Chromium and uses many Google services.
No, he didn’t “conveniently” leave out the fact Brave is based on Chromium, most know it, and if not it should implicitly understood in the context of discussing various Chromium based browsers,.
And what are the “many google services” Brave is using?
Safe browsing, extension store, push messaging.
Google public dns, google search as options.
and more.
As a Brave/Google fanboy you should already know this.
Oh please stop, no need to call anyone fanboy of anything, I am mainly Firefox user although must admit it is far from what it once was, people should also have a look at Palemoon https://www.palemoon.org/ which is continuing some sort of Firefox legacy browser, maybe not so much the code anymore, but at least the idea is there.
– Safe browsing, I run it disabled, anyone can disable it here (brave://settings/security?search=safe) Don’t forget to enable chrome://flags/#brave-override-download-danger-level
– Extension store, so where are you supposed to find all extensions, someone have to provide a repository for them, and what is the problem? That Google see what kind of extensions your are running? Firefox also have its extension in one place. But for any browser, if you know how to do it you can side-load the extension.
– Push messaging, ahem what is that!?? Oh yeah can also be disabled, which I already have (brave://settings/?search=push)
– Google public DNS, can’t remember this being set to default, anyhow you can choose from several DNS from the list provided here: brave://settings/security …or just set your own DNS, how about… https://adblock.dns.mullvad.net/dns-query
– Google search, yeah you really continue trolling with totally minuscule issues, you can set whatever search engine you want.
– Last but not least, don’t forget your anti-paranoid meds so it doesn’t hinder your from having a functioning normal life. :-)
The most useless browser. It required an online account to operate, and the user interface was awful. Hopefully they come up with a usable interface this time around with Dia and not use Chromium.
Well said Ashwin.