Arc

Arc is a browser from The Browser Company built around Spaces and Profiles for separating different areas of life, Split View, themes and a reshaped interface, available for Windows and Mac, with the company now directing new users to its successor Dia.

The status notice is the most important thing on the page and should shape any decision to adopt it. The Browser Company states plainly that Arc receives Chromium updates only, and directs users wanting active security patches and enterprise-grade protection to download Dia instead. That is unusually honest and it means Arc is in maintenance rather than development.

What Arc got right is worth recording regardless, because its influence outlasted its development. Moving tabs to a collapsible sidebar, treating Spaces as separate contexts with their own tabs and bookmarks, and letting the interface disappear entirely challenged an arrangement nobody had questioned since tabs arrived.

Spaces and Profiles together are the idea most worth borrowing, since a person's work browsing and personal browsing have different accounts, different sites and different mental modes, and every other browser makes switching between them awkward. Arc is free to download for Windows and Mac.