Reading a Letter to Arc Browser Users in 2025
language
eng
date
Dec 17, 2025
slug
letterToArcBrowser
author
status
Public
tags
Product
PM
ArcBrowser
TheBrowserCompany
summary
Saying goodbye to Arc Browser reminded me that what we love and what survives aren’t always the same.
type
Post
thumbnail
category
😎 Daily
updatedAt
Jan 4, 2026 04:43 AM
As someone who’s used Arc for a fairly long time, the news that Arc’s development was being effectively wound down hit me harder than I expected. The Browser Company had invested a lot into branding and storytelling—through essays and videos, not just to market the company, but to market Arc itself. And it worked: among people who care about IT and productivity, Arc earned real mindshare.
That’s why the sudden pivot to an “AI browser,” and the announcement that Arc would no longer receive new feature development, left existing users with a lot of question marks.
The Browser Company then introduced a new product: Dia. Opinions on Dia are still mixed, but one thing is clear—it’s now consistently mentioned whenever people compare major AI-focused browsers. While they were promoting Dia in a way that felt familiar from the Arc era, the company brought Arc back into the conversation once more, with a post titled:
“Letter to Arc members 2025.”
By the time that letter was written, Arc was already essentially in maintenance mode and the team was focused on Dia. So the post doesn’t read like a defense or a persuasion campaign. If anything, it feels more like a farewell letter to a product they poured real passion and care into.
If you build products for a living, this letter is worth reading at least once. It lays out—calmly, with numbers—why they had to let go of something they’d worked so hard on, and why they couldn’t simply “pivot Arc” or merge it into Dia, despite both being browsers.
One detail that stuck with me: Arc’s signature features—things people online praised as cool and innovative, like Spaces, Live Folders, and Calendar Preview—were used by only a tiny fraction of real users. Most people used Arc the way they used Chrome, and retention didn’t meet expectations.
Here’s an excerpt from the letter (emphasis mine):
On top of that, Arc lacked cohesion — in both its core features and core value. It was experimental, that was part of its charm, but also its complexity. And the revealed preferences of our members show this. What people actually used, loved, and valued differs from what the average tweet or Reddit comment assumes. Only 5.52% of DAUs use more than one Space regularly. Only 4.17% use Live Folders (including GitHub Live Folders). It's 0.4% for one of our favorite features, Calendar Preview on Hover. Switching browsers is a big ask. And the small things we loved about Arc — features you and other members appreciated — either weren’t enough on their own or were too hard for most people to pick up. By contrast, core features in Dia, like chatting with tabs and personalization features, are used by 40% and 37% of DAUs respectively. This is the kind of clarity and immediate value we’re working toward.그뿐만 아니라, Arc는 핵심 기능과 핵심 가치 모두에서 응집력이 부족했습니다. 실험적이었고, 그것이 매력이기도 했지만 동시에 복잡성의 원인이기도 했습니다. 그리고 회원들의 드러난 선호가 이를 보여줍니다. 사람들이 실제로 사용하고, 사랑하고, 가치 있다고 여긴 것은 평균적인 트윗이나 레딧 댓글이 추정하는 것과 다릅니다. DAU의 5.52%만이 여러 Space를 정기적으로 사용합니다. Live Folders(깃허브 Live Folders 포함)를 사용하는 비율은 4.17%입니다. 우리가 좋아하는 기능 중 하나인 ‘캘린더 호버 미리보기’는 0.4%에 불과합니다.브라우저를 바꾸게 하는 일은 큰 요구입니다. 그리고 우리가 Arc에서 사랑했던 작은 것들 — 당신과 다른 회원들이 높이 평가했던 기능들 — 은 단독으로는 충분하지 않거나 대부분의 사람들이 익히기에는 너무 어려웠습니다. 반면 Dia의 핵심 기능들, 예를 들어 탭과의 채팅과 개인화 기능은 각각 DAU의 40%와 37%가 사용합니다. 우리가 지향하는 명료함과 즉각적 가치는 이런 것입니다.
In the end, the letter reinforces something blunt: being cool or “hip” and being successful as a product are not the same thing. Building a fandom and building a sustainable product are not the same thing. Making something you personally love and having it survive in the market are not the same thing.
And as a real-world example, only a few months after the letter was published, Atlassian (the company behind Confluence and Jira) entered into an agreement to acquire The Browser Company, positioning Dia as part of a broader “browser for work” strategy.
In a way, it wasn’t Arc—the beloved browser—that opened the next chapter for them. It was Dia, the browser that took more criticism, that became their path forward.
P.S.
If you’re still using Arc, Dia can import Arc data by default, so it’s worth trying that migration feature. If you’re moving to a different browser entirely, it’s a good idea to export and back up your Arc data—there are GitHub tools/scripts available for export, so keep a backup before you switch.
arc-bookmarks-exporter
dharminnagar • Updated Jan 3, 2026
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