Not sure if you're aware of this, but many major publications have obituaries pre-written for influential people. Lurking among their databases is a series of morbid documents updated and ready for politicians and celebrities that look like they're close to kicking the bucket. It's a fairly common practice, one upheld by respectable and experienced journalists. At least that's what Arc Search's AI-powered Browse for Me told me. Which would never lie, right?

My cosplaying as a tech journalist endures, dearest reader, as I continue this practice and pre-write an obituary for The Browser Company's (or TBC) Arc Browser. It's more of a eulogy if I'm being honest, Arc and I have history. I installed the damn thing over a year ago and now every other browser is lesser. I liked this app so much I've drowned myself in Arc-related propaganda: I have sat in on design meetings, listened to a 10 episode podcast series, switched to a very unfinished beta Windows port, and even watched a multi-part documentary. A documentary series that was suspiciously abandoned at the AI-centered "We Ruin the Internet" episode (foreshadowing for later). 

You might detect a larger amount of snark and cynicism in this post than normal. That's largely due to how much I genuinely enjoyed Arc and how disappointed I feel at its pseudo-cancellation and the direction of its replacement. But before we get into all that, let’s remember the (almost) deceased.

Arc is Simply Better

Guys, gals, and non-binary pals, we are gathered here today to remember Arc. Arc (was) is a web browser whose goal is to become the internet computer, your operating system for the web. It's a browser that "doesn’t just meet your needs — it anticipates them." This concept resulted in TBC attempting to translate design concepts from other operating systems into a web browser. That resulted in a series of clever and compelling features:

• My favorite feature is the all-powerful Ctrl + T shortcut opening up a command bar instead of creating a new tab. When I inevitably space out and hit Ctrl+T then The Verge Arc will take me to the pinned Verge tab rather than creating a duplicate. This dramatically cuts down on the amount of tabs I have open at once, since it always felt like I ended up with six different duplicates of The Times or my email on other browsers.
• Arc has the correct interface for different profiles and spaces. It lets you separate different groups of favorites and tabs into individual vertical slices that you can swipe between. I had a dedicated space for just my work tabs, another for my favorite newspapers and blogs. I loved separating these out into their own individual areas so I could focus on one thing at a time, but everything still felt within reach.
• Arc also has the correct approach to syncing tabs. There are no desktop vs laptop vs mobile tabs that I need to manually swap. A tab in my reading space is open everywhere, regardless of what device I’m using. I can start reading an article on my MacBook and finish it on my Windows desktop without even having to think about the switch.
• You can save split screens in Arc as favorites. Every morning I am exactly one swipe and tap away from opening both my work email and Slack and being instantly caught up.
• Ctrl + Shift + C has become another one of my favorite shortcuts. It just copies the URL of the current website I’m on. Why don’t other browsers have this?! It makes sharing nonsense to my spouse or group chat a breeze.
• Arc is also beautifully designed. I love how colorful and expressive the animations can be. I adore how you can hide the sidebar and get a full screen of whatever page I’m on. No tabs, or extensions, or favorites in view - just the content I want to look at.

These might seem like minor tweaks or nitpicks, but combined they have an undeniable effect on how you browse the internet. Creating and organizing tabs is the foundation of a web browser. What is modern digital life if not a collection of frequently visited tabs? Freelance work, personal finance, Deadlock meta updates - all of these flow through the gates of Arc. And Arc makes it a pleasure to switch between, and keep up with, all of these aspects of my digital life.

2024 was the summer of Arc. The Windows app was getting regular improvements with new features on the horizon. There was a podcast hyping up this big 2.0 refresh. And Arc Search became the first app to dethrone Safari as my default web browser on my iPhone. Choo choo, we were on the Arc train. Then, it was derailed when TBC released a video on their YouTube channel.

Et tu, Arc?

All the recent controversy about Arc begins here. In the video, Josh Miller, the CEO of The Browser Company, announces that the Arc 2.0 update has taken a bit of a turn. There is no 2.0 update. Arc is no longer in active development and will not be receiving any new features. Instead, most of the team has pivoted to this un-announced, un-finished new product whose main selling point is its AI integration. It’s going to be like the Waymo of web browsers—in fact, it might not be a web browser anymore, considering its supposed radical departure from the norm.

Oh dear. That’s quite a turn.

In the announcement, Josh swears that Arc isn’t going anywhere. “The Arc you know and love isn’t going anywhere. It’s going to stay stable, performant, secure.” I’m personally not sold on that one. It’s not that I don’t believe the CEO of a tech company, it’s just that I don’t believe the CEO of a tech company. Historically, things have not gone well for beloved apps that do not generate revenue. I feel like Arc is now one bad funding round, one uneasy quarter, one tough business decision away from being taken out back and put down. It doesn’t help that this “Arc isn’t going anywhere” message is coming after a summer of hyping a 2.0 update to its most passionate supporters; only to then pull the rug out from under everyone. The switch-aroo does not inspire confidence.

So, if Arc is on its way out (again, my interpretation, not TBC’s word), then what is rising from its ashes? Well, we don’t know and TBC kinda knows? It’s currently just a series of prototypes and design concepts. But whatever it is, it isn’t built for the core Arc users. In the video, Josh states that many of Arc’s selling points are too niche and complicated for everyday folks. TBC constantly saw new users get caught up on the vertical and pinned/favorite tabs and bounce off the app. This happened enough to spark the user-friendly 2.0 revamp of Arc. That iteration process led to the baby, bathwater, and Arc being thrown out the window. As an Arc user, it is distressing to hear that this Arc replacement is specifically not being built for me. It’s not great hearing that the features I adore are a problem that needs to be solved, not expanded on or improved. I’m now stuck on a workflow I adore with an app that will slowly decay. There will be no more major updates or improvements, which sucks because Arc isn’t finished. It’s noticeably slower than other browsers like Firefox or Safari. Pinned tabs, extensions, and profiles are not included in Arc Sync. The Windows app still needs a lot of TLC (not that TLC) and general stability improvements. Now, I’m not sure how much, if any, of those improvements we’ll get. An acorn that will never become a tree. A foundation that will never become a home. You can ask ChatGPT to make the final flowery analogy.

Hey, speaking of AI - the new app. At the core of this new experience are going to be large language models of the ChatGPT or Claude fashion. Not sure if you remember the previous “I’m simping for Arc” section, but I did not list AI as one of my favorite Arc features. Now, before we go any further, I’m putting my cards on the table. I am an AI-skeptic of the Ed Zitron variety.

I have a lot of reservations, but I liked Arc and TBC so I gave their AI products a shot. I was open to being convinced. I stared at that Arc Max toggle and was excited for the future to flow through my veins and convert me into a productivity machine. I waited for the totality of human knowledge, paired with decades of cutting edge research, to radically change how I view, not just the internet, but everything. This is a platform shift, a paradigm shift, the world will never be the same again thanks to the power of AI. With my heart pounding and hands shaking, I enabled Arc Max… and pretty quickly forgot it existed.

That’s the most damning critique I could give about TBC’s AI products, I just never noticed when they were active. I would enable Arc Max for a month, then disable it, and I could never tell you if it was on or not. Most of the features are some variation of summaries, and I don’t think I find those are particularly useful? Clicking on that article link was a deliberation action, I did it for a reason. If I didn’t want to read an article I just wouldn’t open it? I feel similarly about Arc’s mobile app, Arc Search. Its AI-powered Browse for Me is cool – I adore the design around the call Arc feature – but it didn’t change my life. Arc Search already has a built-in ad blocker which removes the worst aspects of the mobile web. There also isn’t a solution for the whole it-can-lie-to-you thing, which is alarming for a product that is intended to inform me. But it’s a huge bummer knowing that Arc will wither away and its replacement is focused on the weakest part of that package.

Life Beyond Arc(?)

So, what now? Well, I’m publishing this post on Arc so it looks like I’m going to stick around for the meantime; however, I do have one foot out the door. I manually moved all my bookmarks to Firefox/Safari so I can jump ship at any time. Fun fact, Arc doesn’t have any export options which is a fun twist of the knife. Arc was already a slower browser, if it starts getting worse then I’ll just pull the trigger and leave. After trying for a bit, I think trying to recreate the Arc experience on other browsers is a fool’s errand. They simply are not set-up to do the same thing, and if they are, it’s nowhere near as seamless. Safari comes the closest with its profiles and groups, but it's not on Windows so that’s a half solution for me. Firefox’s container groups extension and profiles is nowhere near as seamless as Arc’s spaces features, I don’t know why people pretend it is. Opera doesn’t do tab syncing between desktop and mobile so that’s out. Vivaldi’s mobile app looks not great, I think there’s a good reason why nobody else uses “desktop-style tabs” on mobile. It’s a cold, hard world out there.

As for the Arc replacement, I’m skeptical about it. It’s not(?) a web browser and it’s not being built for me. TBC’s AI efforts are my favorites and they haven’t exactly won me over. But I adore TBC’s approach to design, they make apps that are delightful to use. That alone is enough for me to insta-sign up for the alpha and give it a shot, but I am not holding my breath. I would love to be proven wrong, it’s happened before (sorry Notion). I'm also not exactly mad at Josh or TBC for the direction they've taken. Creating a product like Arc is expensive. And they signed a deal with the venture capital devils that demands unreasonable returns for their investment. I'm just disappointed it worked out this way and suspicious of their recent claims.

Friends, family, beloved readers, let’s take a second to thank the (almost) deceased. Arc, thanks for the memories. You released and instantly made everyone else look bad, which is something I respect immensely. You made browsers with decades of lead time look clunky, boring, and inefficent. Your view of a colorful and fun web is one to strive for (apart from the fact that AI summaries are the opposite of that but whatever). There is an Arc-sized hole in my Arc-sized heart, I’ll miss you now that you’re (almost) gone.

UPDATE: While finishing this post, TBC released a teaser showing off their Arc replacement. It's a new web browser called Dia. There didn't reveal a ton of new info, it is a web browser and its main selling point is that AI at the core of every interaction.