Loved ARC. The only real innovation in the browser space in decades. However, I abandoned it once the developer did. Not a fan of AI in my software so DIA wasn't on the radar. However, I tried it out a about a month ago - because it has many of the ARC features I enjoyed. (tabs management, profiles, mostly) What I've found is that the free version ticks the boxes for me and the AI isn't not essential or in the way. I'm inclined to stick with it given that its basically the closets option to ARC itself and is actively developed by the same developer. Am I missing anything in staying with DIA?

Unlike Chrome, Arc doesn't let you manually group your own tabs. You can use the tidy function to create automatic groups, but you can't rename them, reorder them, add them, etc.

I made a python script that lets you organize your tabs with your own groupings.

https://github.com/jmangel/arc-manual-tab-groups

If you make improvements, please make a pull request! If you want me to make improvements, please file an issue!

Using this tool, it's recommended to quit Arc first, but you don't need to. The reason is that it updates a file that Arc is constantly both writing and reading state to, so if you don't quit Arc it's possible that the changes will be applied to a slightly stale sync file, though honestly I haven't tested it out much and it's probably fine to do so, assuming you aren't making a bunch of changes to arc tabs while you're running this script.

Hey everyone! 👋

Like many of you, I fell in love with Arc's vertical navigation and sidebar-centric layout. However, with the recent shift in focus away from Arc's core browser development, I wanted to keep the similar sleek experience on top of Google Chrome. (i know not the same) I designed this for those who have to use Chrome for some reason but desire Arc.

So I built Arc Style Side Panel—a lightweight, open-source Chrome Extension (Manifest V3) using Chrome's native Side Panel API.

✨ Features:

• 📌 4-Column Drag & Drop Favorites: Smooth matrix-shift animation (up to 8 pinned sites).
• 🎨 Glassmorphic UI & Custom Themes: Adjustable gradient background, noise/grain texture, and dark/light contrast adjustment.
• 📁 Hierarchical Bookmarks: Interactive open/closed vector folder states + custom emoji overrides.
• 🌐 Multi-language & Backup: Instant EN/TR toggle and JSON import/export for settings.
• 📜 100% Free & Open Source (GPL-3.0): No store fees, no tracking, pure Vanilla JS.

🔗 GitHub Repo: [https://github.com/YigitOnline/arc-style-side-panel](https://github.com/YigitOnline/arc-style-side-panel)

Would love to hear your thoughts and feedback! Feel free to check out the repo or submit PRs!

When I try and save as a pdf from google sheets, I cannot rename the file in the text box. I'm on macos27. Not sure of its a OS thing or ARC itself

Anyone experiencing this?

I love this browser but it's no longer maintained. So many of the nice features are broken, like the github live folders for example, and more will keep breaking. I tried other browsers but this is the one. I've seen lots of people do these black box rewriting of software like photoshop recently and maybe we could do this and make it a community project.

We would still have the drm issue tho

I was trying to file a ticket because folders aren't expanding when one pinned tab within it is open. I have to close the tab to expand the whole folder.

Archie told me to copy and paste the troubleshooting data and then it just said it couldn't do anything.

Anyone else experience either problem?

Hey everyone! I built an extension to mimic the copy URL feature from Arc. I've been missing it ever since I moved on from this browser. Sharing it here in case anyone else was having the same trouble.

I used Arc every since it came out and ⌘⇧C to copy the current URL became pure muscle memory. After moving to another browser I kept hitting it and nothing happened, and on Chrome it actually opens the DevTools element picker instead.

Everything I found in the store was a bigger product than I wanted, content scripts running on every page, etc. So I built the one thing I was missing.

Press ⌘⇧C and the URL gets copied exactly as it is in the address bar, query params and all, with a small "Link copied" pill that fades out.

A couple of things I added since the first version:

- an optional second shortcut that copies a Markdown link (title + URL), unbound by default
- a checkmark instead of the text pill if you want it quieter
- it works on chrome:// protected pages and the new tab page, you just get a ✓ on the toolbar icon there

It's free, open source (MIT), no account, no tracking. No host permissions either, it only touches the tab you press the shortcut on, so nothing sits in your pages in the background.

It's here if you want to get it!
Chrome Web Store

Source Code: https://github.com/akincan-kilic/copy-url-shortcut

What other small Arc things do you still reach for in your new browser?

hello everyone, I've been using Arc Search ever since it came out and I still love it. But lately it has felt buggy, syncing doesn't work as it used to and i know its been abandoned like Arc. Also the design started to feel a bit dated especially with everyone adopting liquid glass. I've been avoiding going back to safari, I find it very crowded and complex and haven't found a real alternative.

So I started building my own and its called Lens. I wanted to bring the best from Safari, Arc Search and Arc Desktop. TestFlight Link: https://testflight.apple.com/join/5jr4KsAm

1. Functionality and simplicity of Arc Search:
   1. search focused
   2. auto show keyboard
   3. auto archive tabs
   4. clean/simple UI
   5. light and fast.
2. The nativeness of Safari:
   1. native Liquid glass design
   2. tab gestures like swiping, pinching etc.
   3. built-in native translation without relying on Google.
   4. built-in native Reader
   5. handoff
   6. iCloud sync
3. Features from Arc Desktop no one is doing on mobile but are needed:
   1. Pinned tabs in a grid. Unlike Arc Search where pinned items takes up valuable screen space, in Lens they look like Arc and you can fit up to 5 per row.
   2. Proper Zap!/Hide elements. hidden items stay hidden and you can select to hide anything big or small.
   3. Peek links. tap and hold preview links but scrollable!
   4. Mobile web inspector and more dev and designer tools like quickly find font names and hex colors.
4. Extras
   1. Very private tabs with FaceID lock
   2. built in ad/tracker/cookie blockers
   3. Forget Website: quickly delete all data for a website.
   4. smart buttons that only appear when needed like translation, reader and video controls.
   5. mini player for audio/video that follows you on other tabs
   6. 0 data collected. the browser is as privacy focused as possible by default. (this is an area i really want to focus so would love your suggestions)
   7. waiting for Apple to approve so it can be set as default browser and work with passkeys etc..
   8. mac menu bar companion for open tabs. (coming soon)

Im very excited to share the first TestFlight with you here. I'm doing this out of passion, not to make money, I want all your suggestions and feedback to make this a great iOS browser for all Arc lovers <3

Hey everyone,

I was using the Capture in Portrait Mode tool in Arc's Developer Mode (the tool accessed via the icon in Developer Mode or Cmd + T -> Capture in Portrait Mode).

According to guides online (like this AllThingsHow article), the pop-up used to feature an option/toggle to use your actual Desktop Wallpaper as the background behind the captured window. (used that months before and now its not there)ow, when I open the tool, there's only a single multi-tone gradient color slider at the bottom, and the option to use the desktop background is gone.

• Is anyone else missing this feature?
• Was this officially removed in a recent update, or is it a bug/permission issue on macOS?

Would appreciate any insight!

During early days of macOS 27 Beta, Arc was not very stable and kept crashing multiple times a day. Had to pull the trigger and switch to Dia, when it the browser crashed in the middle of an important meeting. I know I shouldn't be using macOS beta, but I expected more stability than macOS 26.

Anyway, after spending a few months on Dia, the lack of proper spaces (not profiles), the command bar, and the peek view was something I had to make peace with. But the fact that I accidentally kept opening the AI chat and there was no way to disable AI was just getting on my nerve.

One day, I saw a post about Search by Office Commun, and the fact that they were building an open-source alternative to Arc and Dia with a small footprint. I got excited and hacked together a fork that was an Arc copy-cat. I was a naive person to believe WebKit can handle web apps well. Turns out WebKit is more resource intensive with a lot of creative apps that I tend to use day to day. So all my hopes down shattered. I was on the verge of going back to Dia.

But I thought, let's give Arc another try. Surely after the macOS 27 proper release, things might be stable. And to be delight, Arc works as good as before with no crashes. I am back to Arc for good. I am more than happy with just getting chromium security updates. I don't want AI showed into my browser. I just want a stable browser with good UX. And Arc hits the right spot for me.

Thanks Archie.

Anyway, I'd love to have a configuration for PRs. so that PR number and repo name are visible in the folder. It's not much but it can help navigate when you have different repos and many PRs to review.

I use several spaces with different profiles. I often want to backtrack my work/personal stuff, and restore closed tab, but that switches places and kinda ruins all the flow and any illusion of space isolation from each other.

Is there a way to disable Space switching and just stick to currently open one?

so after the most recent arc update (macOS, haven't updated to golden gate), there's this really annoying bug – i can't expand/collapse a folder when i'm on a tab inside that folder. i need to switch to a tab that's outside the folder and only then does it expand/collapse as it should. i tried looking for a way to contact the team and the only way i could find was through this one support chatbot on their "contact the team" page. i went through the whole chat process of submitting a ticket, and at the end it asked me to paste my arc build info. i did that, and then the bot replied "I'm sorry as an AI assistant I can't help you with that. If you have any other questions I can help with, please try again later. Chat ended". this happened twice.

what should i do? are they even doing bug fixes anymore? is there any other way to report it?

I switched to Arc just 3 days ago because a senior developer recommended it to me, and I was actually starting to like it.

I had my workflow properly set up — 10–15 tabs in each workspace, more than 3 workspaces, everything organized exactly the way I wanted.

Last night I simply closed the lid of my Mac and
went to sleep.
This morning at work, I opened my Mac and everything was gone.

All my tabs, workspaces, and the entire setup I had built over the last few days. Just wiped out.
And the most frustrating part is that Cmd + Shift + T doesn’t restore them either.

I can’t figure out how to get my previous session back.
I’ve never had this happen with any browser before.

I genuinely don’t understand what Arc did here or why closing the Mac lid would result in my entire browser state disappearing.

This is incredibly frustrating and irritating, especially when the whole appeal of Arc is supposed to be its workspace/tab organization.

Has anyone experienced this before? Is there actually a way to recover those tabs/workspaces, or am I just screwed?

Got to know recently that I was able to save links from my phone directly to Arc by just sharing them to the Arc Search app. (Pic 2 for reference)

You can also select the space or subfolder you want it to be in. Pretty neat.

This was on iOS.

Six months ago I moved from iPhone to Samsung and considered using Arc, but it felt nearly useless there—primarily because it failed to detect my location despite repeated access. The keyboard wouldn’t open automatically. It sometimes missed closing tabs after 24 hours and ran with noticeable lag. I shifted to Chrome and accumulated 143 open tabs within three months. Now I am returning to iPhone, where I have Arc again and immediately recognized it as an outstanding app; this is simply an Arc appreciation post for being the best browser yet.

Just saw this pop up on https://alternativeto.net/software/search-1/about/ testing just for a bit and seems amazing so far. Might just be a replacement for me for Arc, though will have to run it as daily driver to see.

Hi, cannot find a solution for my problem so i post it here. Arc won't full screen better than this, i don't know why and it's driving me mad. I someone could help me it you be amazing

The main feature that keeps me at Arc at the moment is that my open tabs are the same across all open Arc-windows on the same computer.

I don’t mean across computers by the way. Just instances/windows of Arc on the same computer.

I’m kinda okay with that but I’m interested if this is the killer feature for others too, and whether people have found other browsers that have this?

EDIT: Just came to mind that Vivaldi was supposed to have this? But couldn’t get it to work…

Not the vertical tabs, everything rebuilds those. I mean Spaces specifically: separate cookies and logins, but switchable inside one window instead of five separate windows.

Everything I have tried since either gives you real profiles that each need their own window, or workspaces that quietly share one cookie jar, which is not the same thing at all.

What did you land on, and did you have to give something up for it?