Recently The Browser Company ↗ talked about how they are discontinuing Arc ↗, which is still my favorite browser to use. In that article they talked about Dia ↗, their new version of the browser built with AI as the focus. I wrote about this ↗, and how I’m skeptical of it, and frankly irritated that the browser I love is getting killed off.
I remain skeptical, but they have opened up the beta of Dia now to Arc users. I’m a sucker for trying out new software, so naturally I downloaded it, and… I kind of love it.
It’s not quite what I liked about Arc. I miss the side tab bars (Dia puts them back up top where Chrome does), and it’s missing a lot of the settings and developer features that Arc had that I liked, but it does have the best feature of all, which is the one I use dozens of times a day and honestly feels like a feature I can’t live without - ⌘ + Shift + C to copy the current URL. It’s just incredibly useful. I’ve tried some Chrome extensions since writing about all this that are supposed to do this, but they just don’t work well.
The AI features I’m not 100% sold on yet, but I have to admit it is helpful to have a little chat you can open right on any page and ask questions about it, summarize it, have it help you do research, etc. I find myself using it more than I thought I might.
It feels like a bad idea to really start heavily using and relying on another browser from the company that just took away my favorite one. They have yet to make any money as a business, this is all venture backed and at this point, essentially a proof of concept. It’s only a matter of time before they start charging for it or enshittifying it ↗, or just run out of money and go away. I hope they figure out a model that works this time.