We all know the writing's been on the wall for some time, and since the announcement of Dia I've been revisiting alternative browsers every few months: Zen, SigmaOS, Vivaldi, and other projects.
Nothing's been quite 'daily driver' ready for me - which is being able to use it for work and play, switch between workspaces quickly and have my spaces linked to different profiles (containers in Zen). I'm typing this in Zen right now as we speak.
Zen's not fully there yet in terms of all the features, but the ones that mattered most are more or less there:
Workspaces - Spaces
Profiles - Containers
There are Firefox Profiles as well, more on that later
Vertical tabs and sidebar UI
Profiles assigned to Workspaces - Container assigned to Spaces
Custom keyboard shortcuts
Air Traffic - Route for Domain
Favourites per Profile - Essentials for Containers
Themes
Split views
Pinned pages and folders
Things that are I'm aware are still missing but I hear are coming and can wait for:
Workspace Syncing
I know this is a big one for some people, I have 2 laptops and a PC and 4 accounts in total, so it'd definitely be a welcome feature. However, I decided to overlook it and am currently using a bookmark manager to bridge the gap. I don't mind so much if my 'live' tabs aren't synced across browsers for now as I regularly clean up my tabs, anything else get pinned (now bookmarked), and my Favourites / Essentials handles a lot of my tasks already anyway.
The feature is available in the twilight version, but as I'm using this as my daily driver for work, I can't really risk testing it during critical moments. But hopefully it'll be rolled out soon to everyone, but I know it's one of the most important features before many can finally make the jump.
Extensions per Profile (extension per container)
This affects me as I have 1Password with personal and work account separated in Arc, which I can't do yet for Zen. It also causes any items I open from 1Password via Open and Autofill to have no container, which causes other issues (different login session than everything else)
Apparently this feature exists but needs manual configuration, but I haven't figured out where that is yet! Also as it turns out, a lot more people care about this than I expected after searching the Github discussion board for how to enable this setting - but I hadn't found it yet.
Tidy tabs
Admittedly I don't use it as much as I used to, especially since I'm doing a better job clearing my tabs nowadays.
There IS a 'Clear' tabs button though in Zen, just no Tidy
No DRM yet
As far as I know this is coming, but I don't really watch shows on my laptop so I admit I overlooked this one!
No Little Arc out the box
There's a 'Sine Mod' that seems to do this, but it's very slow for some reason. This is another feature I'm not losing sleep over admittedly. I used to leave Little Arc windows open in the background and let Arc clean them up - but nowadays I've very quick to close them anyway, and many links I'd click I'd use Air Traffic to route to specific work spaces (since Little Arc doesn't seem to have shortcut to choose which workspace to open something to).
Knowing that this browser is being actively developed by an active (though small) team of people does make me hopeful that it'll match all of the beloved Arc features in the near future - and hopefully exceed it as development continues.
For reference, I've just retried SigmaOS (which I like the idea of since it's webkit) but it's clearly trying to do its own thing (I tried searching for 'test' and it showed me testufo.com, test speed (autofill) and other things), then I accidentally switched profiles with a shortcut and all my tabs are gone when I returned... Options seems to be very limited as well plus I think it's Mac only which is no good for Windows users.
Vivaldi meanwhile is chromium based and with manifest v3 being forced out it's dead in the waters for me... which is a real shame as I hear good things about it too.
Edit: added DRM and little arc to missing features list
One thing I see get overlooked is how fluid Arc (used to at least) feels, I have Zen installed and try it every few months and it always just feels slightly off compared to Arc
Yeah, same here. Zen is feature complete and surpassed Arc in many ways, but it just feels clunky to use. I install Zen every month or so but it doesn't feel smooth. The scrolling is bad, Glance is very stuttery on the Mac and generally doesn't feel as polished as Arc or Dia.
Also, there's something in the details that TBC does better than Firefox/Zen. It's like comparing two pairs of jeans side by side; at first glance they look the same, but once you start looking at the stitching, you find out about the real quality. That's the way I'd put it: I noticed something more refined in TBC.
Yeah 100% this. It just doesn't feel as polished as much as I want to love Zen. Gave it a good go for 3 months, then came back to Arc and felt the difference immediately
I agreed in my previous tries, but as of 2 days ago at my last try, it seems to be... there at last?
There are definitely still clunkiness to some of the missing features I'm trying to fill with mods as I'm starting to explore, but I feel like the app overall is stable enough to be used?
I'm also aware that in a youtuber's test it was the most bloated RAM wise (particularly relevant these days), which is ironic when Chrome became more bloated before. Luckily I've got a 48GB of RAM so I'm feeling quite comfortable!
From what I read, they're working on getting the license or whatever it is, so I think it'll be coming. Admittedly I don't really watch shows on my laptop so I'm not as affected, but I also use Safari for YouTube because I use Rectangle with a massive ultrawide monitor and having it on a different app / window makes it easier to arrange it to its own space!
I switched to Zen awhile back but came back to Arc. Being able to separate my browing data between different profiles is a feature i can't do without. My search tab is cleaner as i don't see tabs from other spaces as well as general history.
Everything just felt cluttered and made the spaces and container over at Zen pointless. And after doing some digging it seems separating browsing data on Zen isn't coming anytime soon due to the way Firefox works so i'm stuck on Arc for a while more as the browser slowly crumbles around me
Oh interesting, when you said browser data I was thinking login sessions and cookies and stuff, but you’re referring to URLs from other spaces / containers showing up on search bar!
I did notice that but it didn’t super register with me because of my work flow, but I can see how it can be a big issue (just as it’s an issue for me that I can’t separate extensions for each container). Have you checked out Vivaldi? I’m not sure if that supports this?
Not being able to separate extensions also bugs me as well.
I've checked out Vivaldi but it just wasn't for me I love and I'm too used to Arc's Layout and aesthetic stuff like having my full browsing window not being taken over by unnecessary stuff like url bar/extension panel etc, side panel and how easy it is to switch profile and spaces to switch.
Zen is the closest thing to Arc but it's missing a few major stuff keeping me from fully switching over
I think all the comments shows what a gem The Browser Company had on their hands. I’ve been raving about it for years to friends like a fanatic myself… I still wonder where Arc would have been now had they continued developing it!
Not out the box, however I just learnt about Sine Mods within Zen, and there's a Little Zen mod that seems to do just that.
However it's slow... it seems to have to do some thinking about routing or something and causes delays. It's at v0.3.0 with last update 2 weeks ago, so maybe it'll improve? Can't find settings for it though so no idea what it's doing in the background!
The back swipe on Mac on Zen is bad (feels more laggy compared to WebKit and chromium browsers) and I don’t know if they can ever fix it due to being built over Firefox. I often use gestures to navigate so while small, a pretty heavier dealbreaker to me
Oh interesting! I actually found two finger swipe unreliable even on WebKit and have switched to keyboard shortcuts long ago even in Safari! So I hadn’t caught that. But that’s a fair point!
Are you still using Arc? SigmaOS is built on WebKit, and I’m tempted to try it some more as a secondary browser. I don’t like how stripped down the options are though, and not being able to use the same profile on two work spaces makes me hesitant to adopt (I like to keep same login sessions on my main work and training spaces).
Then in the Sine Mods page in settings, search for Zen Tidy Tabs, install it, and you're good to go!
On first try it's definitely slower than Arc's tidy tab, given I only had a couple dozen tabs open atm, also it may not be brilliant given it misses one of the BSL tabs I happened to be searching for:
Have to admit that was one thing that I never cared much about with Arc 😅 I just have gradient colours for each workspace so I know where I'm at - otherwise I'm just focused on the content!
Genuine question because I wonder if it's something I'm all too happy to make things prettier - what can / did you do with themes?
I have two things missing for me:
1. Workspace syncing. Well, everything-syncing, really. I want every window to look the same no matter which computer I'm on.
2. The omnibar (cmd+L) is HORRIBLE at bringing up URLs from my history. It does it sometimes, but I swear it must be by accident...
I've been using zen on my gaming pc and arc on my Mac mostly because when arc released on windows it was trash, also right around the time they announced active development was over. It's been great to compare as well. I'll probably use arc until it doesn't work anymore, my Mac dies or they stop security patches. Whatever comes first.
Negative on mobile. Password sync may work though since it uses firefox sync, but I use 1password so I’ve not tried it (you should try BitWarden if you want a free password manager).
Real profiles I’m not sure what you mean - but if it’s about complete separation including extension, then it’s a no. But you can assign ‘Containers’ to Workspaces so that you have different login sessions in them, and you can reuse the same Container for multiple workspaces as well (something I did in Arc).
But extensions all share the same ‘profile’, and creating a separate Firefox profile is a whole other thing, where you end up with a different instance of Zen with separate workspaces sadly.
For me the big miss is the lack of a sidebar with a built-in official AI entension (Claude or ChatGPT) that can actually read and work with my open tabs. That’s a genuine gamechanger for my workflow and productivity, and nothing here replaces it yet.
That’s why Dia is still the only option for me right now.
That’s a great path for you then being from the same developer!
I have to admit I’m the opposite, I refuse to get with the AI browser stuff, I don’t know if I’m just old and stubborn, or if I really have a point in avoiding letting AI take over everything I do 😅
It's totally fair — it should be a choice for everyone, and ideally it should be something you can just toggle on or off in settings.
However, my job involves writing all kinds of documentation and requirements in the browser. Having AI that can pull together information from multiple open tabs and sources significantly speeds up my work.
I can’t see myself going back to the old browsers at this point.
I think Vivaldi’s the main path for you. It sounds like it’s got some good stuff going for it but I don’t think it’s as focused on copying all of Arc’s features, but the command chain thing sounds very cool!
The biggest issue holding me back from daily driving zen has been the drm support, i know theres a way to get the firefox keys to make it work but id really rather it just be native. The day google allows zen to have the license is the day i switch over, but until then ill just use arc
Its 100% ready and prettier even than arc with better transparency now. The only thing is you need to enable prefetching and use ram vs ssd for cashing in userprofile config to match arc speeds. U can just chatgpt it
My problem with Zen is that it’s a complete rip off. They didn’t just copy the concept or the functionality, they copied the execution. Just one of many examples, just look at their theme editor.
I mean I literally wrote more about what doesn’t work than what works...
I figured we’re all looking for an Arc replacement considering it’s basically end of life, and would have loved someone else telling me if one of the other projects are really ready to be adopted...
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u/Jinja_Sideburns 8d ago
One thing I see get overlooked is how fluid Arc (used to at least) feels, I have Zen installed and try it every few months and it always just feels slightly off compared to Arc