Arc put on ice as The Browser Company bets big on AI-powered Dia

AI is rapidly reshaping how we use the web, or so The Browser Company founder Josh Miller argues. That belief helped drive his team's decision to stop building new features for its Arc browser and shift focus to an "AI browser" dubbed Dia. For the unfamiliar, Arc is a design-heavy, Chromium-based browser that tried to rethink …

[IGotOut]

Never heard of them before...

...and will almost certainly never hear of them again, least not in a good way anyway.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Never heard of them before...

Also the name of long-establisehd FOSS drawing S/W. It would be confusing if I installed a second application with this name on my computers so I won't.

[elDog]

Arc - I barely even got to know ya.

Well, to be honest - never heard of it - and I do like to give new toys a spin.

Dia? I guess the open-source diagramming package won't mind some company. (Or the Defense Intelligence[!] Agency.) After all there are only so many 3 or 4 letter combinations out there.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Arc - I barely even got to know ya.

And Driving Instructors' Association, Drug Information Association & doubtless many more.

Also Arc includes Arena Racing Company, Application Registration Card, Association for Real Change and again many more.

It sounds like a company that needs a decent browser to check the web when it's selecting its names.

[Phil Ni'Sophical]

Re: Arc - I barely even got to know ya.

It's also the Irish for god. Maybe they're trying to say something?

[tony72]

Web browsers long ago reached that sort of plateau of utility, where there is a de-facto core feature set that everybody knows and expects from a web browser, and trying to innovate much beyond that is really just not helping anymore. As the Browser Company found, even the vast majority of people who were willing to try a new browser didn't use the novel features of Arc, they just stuck to the core feature set that you get in any browser. It's worth improving browsers in ways that complement and support that core feature set, but anything radically new is going to have to be just mind-blowingly good before you're going to get any traction.

[Valeyard]

bs

AI is rapidly reshaping how we use the web, or so The Browser Company founder Josh Miller argues. That belief helped drive his team's decision to stop building new features for its Arc browser and shift focus to an "AI browser" dubbed Dia.

absolute bullshit. we all know there's no "belief" and no "why". we all know there was 0 research done into the slightest way AI is changing how anyone uses the web and zero market research as to the business value of doing this.

the only why was "we thought that bandwagon looked cool so hopped right on"

[pogul]

> Rather than layering new features onto aging browser architecture

It mentions multiple times in the article that it's built on Chromium, so I guess the register is just happy buying into any marketing BS that comes its way?

[Irongut]

"We want to make money off copying all your stuff but our source code? No, you can't have access to that." Miller admitted.

Never heard of him, his company or his now dead browser and I suspect I never will again. I certainly will not be trying their new AI browser.

[bitteOrca]

The Browser Company realized they couldn't keep getting VC money if they were just making yet another Chromium fork, of course they pivoted to a new AI grift.

[JessicaRabbit]

Why would you trust these fools and their products if they just kill them off as soon as a new shiny comes along? It's pretty obvious their (badly named) new browser is going to die too (deservedly) and I wouldn't want to use it anyway but I wouldn't trust whatever nonsense they come up with next either.

[Valeyard]

but what if the AI is on the blockchain