Arc is shutting down: Where does my digital life go?

When I switch between personal tasks and work for different companies, it often happens in my browser’s sidebar. A different Space, the appropriate accounts and the pages I need there. The folders are already there, the important tabs pinned. I barely have to think about where anything lives.

That is how Arc became part of my routine. And that is why losing it feels more personal than I ever expected a browser to feel.

On December 22, 2026, Arc will shut down on macOS and Windows. The Browser Company has announced the end; from that date, the desktop browser will no longer be usable. I saw it coming. Having an actual date still hurt. Announcement on X, Farewell and timeline

Now I am looking for a replacement and discovering how much of my working day depends on this one application.

My browser is my WeChat

The comparison with WeChat on a smartphone feels right to me. When daily life happens inside one application, what starts to matter most is whether that application runs. Android or iOS becomes a secondary question.

My browser fills that role. Email, calendars, web apps, AI tools and managing different services all come together there. I have Teams and Zoom installed locally, but a glance at the sidebar covers a substantial part of everything else I do.

That is why the browser question even follows me into thoughts about my next operating system. Will I stay with macOS? Could I eventually move to Linux, perhaps Omarchy? A browser that carries my way of working with it would make that move considerably easier. Of course, I need to account for the different platforms these candidates actually support.

Arc had spared me that decision for a long time. I had found my place and settled in.

What lives inside my Spaces

Spaces are separate work areas inside the same browser window, each with its own tabs, folders and pinned pages. Switching between them feels a little like switching browser profiles, but within one shared interface. A Space can be assigned its own profile for separate accounts; that profile keeps logins and cookies apart. Several Spaces can also share a profile. This lets me organize my personal accounts alongside the accounts of companies I regularly work with. Spaces and profiles in Arc

What I particularly like is the switching itself: on Mac, I swipe left or right with two fingers on the trackpad over the sidebar and move into the next Space. Keyboard shortcuts work too, such as Ctrl + 1 or Ctrl + 2 to jump straight to a particular area. All that organization stays inside the same window. I want to keep that combination of work areas and easy navigation in my next browser. Switching Spaces

A familiar order has also grown inside the sidebar. A folder for related pages, pinned tabs for things I need constantly. I know where to look. Those small actions have become so automatic that I barely notice them. Trying another browser reminds me how comfortable they had become.

An iPhone app would be welcome in a replacement. Open source also carries more weight for me now. Both are on my wish list, but keeping personal and work accounts separate and finding a sensible home for my folders comes first.

Dia has a trust problem for me

With Dia, the move would probably be easiest to explain: import the Arc data, call the old Spaces Profiles and carry on. Familiar features are making their way across. I understand why that is the obvious route for many people.

I am struggling with it. I organized my work around Arc and now have to pack it up again. Rebuilding that much trust in the same provider straight away is difficult after this experience.

For all my disappointment, I am also grateful to the team. Arc introduced me to a way of using a browser that felt new and changed my habits. Spaces and the sidebar organization became so familiar that I am now looking for them elsewhere. I am glad several projects are picking up these ideas. They preserve some of what made Arc matter to me.

There is a substantial business behind it now too. In 2025, Atlassian announced its acquisition of The Browser Company for approximately $610 million in cash. That was the price for the company behind Arc and Dia, including its team and technology. I am happy for Josh Miller and the team to have that business success. I do not know how much of the acquisition price reached him personally. Meanwhile, smaller projects are adopting precisely the Arc ideas I cared about. A recreated Space is obviously not a whole company. Still, it feels odd to find my familiar way of working again in those smaller projects.

My enthusiasm for the AI browser has faded too. OpenAI has already retired Atlas as a standalone browser; browser-based AI work continues in the ChatGPT app browser. Thinking about which product should hold these capabilities can change quickly. I would like to keep my workplace for longer.

I enjoy using AI. But I want to choose the tools and providers myself. Dia’s AI features are optional according to the company, yet the overall package and its many integrations feel excessive to me. Since version 1.52.0, signing in with an Atlassian account also connects Dia to Atlassian automatically. And the additional login for my browser already bothers me.

When I connect my browser to other services, I want to understand which data goes where and who can access it. The close integration in Dia leaves me uneasy. Together with the loss of trust, that is enough for me to decide against it. I will therefore be moving beyond The Browser Company for my next browser. I can be grateful for Arc and still say goodbye to its provider.

So I am looking more carefully before settling in again. Open code could let others continue an abandoned project. It guarantees neither maintenance nor updates. Together with a useful data export, though, it would give me a little more room to maneuver if I had to move again.

Alternative browsers to Arc

The longer I look, the less interested I am in a grand feature contest. I want to find my work again and spend as little time thinking about the browser as possible. I am approaching the following projects with very different expectations. I checked their features against the project websites on October 26, 2026; testing in my own day is still underway.

The same requirement applies to every candidate: development must keep pace with security updates too. With a Chromium browser, I therefore look at how quickly engine fixes actually reach me as browser updates. For a critical vulnerability, two additional days of waiting would be too long for me. The Chromium version alone is not enough to judge this; what matters is whether the specific fix is included and the update is available. With WebKit-based candidates, I will examine their respective update paths. I will be watching this over the next two months as well. A browser holding my personal and work accounts needs to earn my trust here too.

• Crest comes close on paper to what I want to keep. Spaces, sidebar folders, pinned sites, Split View and Peek are there. On Mac, I can use Chromium and WebKit, and there are iPhone and iPad apps with iCloud sync. I like the open code. Crest is therefore high on my test list, although it is still in early access. Over the next two months, I will test Crest for speed and stability.

• Yab interests me mainly because of its closeness to Arc. The WebKit browser adopts Spaces, pins and folders alongside Peek and Split View. It supports importing the Arc structure, and an iPhone beta is available too. Its AI features can use an existing Claude or ChatGPT subscription. That is closer to my wish to choose my own tools. Yab remains in testing.

• Ardia is getting a closer look alongside them. Chromium, separate profiles and Chrome extensions make an interesting foundation for my different accounts. There is also a sidebar, Split View and built-in ad and tracker blocking. The code is open. Organization will matter most for me here: can I still find my tabs and groups quickly when several work areas are busy at once?

• Zen was already on my radar when Arc entered maintenance mode. It was one of the obvious options: open source, Spaces and a sidebar. But I do not get on with the Firefox foundation. In my daily use, I find its RAM consumption higher and its performance worse. That is my experience; independent tests also show Firefox strengths depending on the task.

• Dia would have a practical head start with its direct Arc import. Profiles, pinned tabs, Tab Groups and Split View would make the move more familiar too. But my reservations about its integrations, login and provider now outweigh that convenience. Dia is therefore out of the running for me.

• Helium is a project I have already tried and still find interesting. An open-source Chromium browser focused on privacy, with a restrained interface, appeals to me. The missing Spaces stop me. The tab workspaces request in issue #245 dates back to October 2025. There is now an effort classification but no committed delivery date. I do not want my move to depend on whether this feature eventually arrives. There is also the lack of Widevine DRM support, the copy protection used by certain streaming services. Those protected videos may therefore not play at present. That is another limitation in daily use.

• SigmaOS has several things I want, including workspaces, vertical tabs and split views. Then there is the Airis AI assistant. The overall package loses me, though: it feels overloaded. I want to organize my work in the browser without feeling I am learning another operating system.

• Phi initially points in an interesting direction with its native Mac interface and open Chromium browser core. But the focus moves to a personal AI companion, its memory and automation. That is not why I am looking for a browser right now. I want to choose my own AI tools. The product idea therefore does not fit me, regardless of which model choices Phi technically allows.

• Brave is another familiar option from my earlier attempts. Open source, Chromium and built-in ad and tracker protection are good arguments for it. Apps for the main desktop and mobile platforms are useful too. I particularly like that Brave Origin can be used without extras such as the VPN and crypto wallet. But its organization still lacks the Arc feel for me: I want my profiles or work areas together in one sidebar, where I can switch between them quickly. Vertical tabs alone do not give me that. For the next testing round, I am therefore staying with Crest, Yab and Ardia.

The move has to survive a working day

The decision will probably come down to an ordinary moment. I want to switch between personal and work areas, continue with the right account and find the tab I was working on. If I keep having to search for my new filing system or correct my logins, the most attractive feature list will do little for me.

Exporting my Arc data also belongs on the list before December 22. The export feature exists. But a list of links still needs turning back into a workplace where I can find my way as naturally as I do now.

I will write about my eventual choice in a follow-up post. For now, I am still testing, and each candidate helps me understand a little better what I had with Arc.

What are you doing? Staying with Arc until the end, moving to Dia or already settled on a replacement? I am particularly interested in your experiences with separate accounts, Spaces and folders. That is where quite a lot of my time is going right now.

Until next time,
Joe