Arc alternatives not working: what to check, in order

When an Arc alternative is not working, the cause is rarely the new browser itself. It is usually one of five things that did not survive the move: saved sign-ins, extensions, macOS permissions, Arc's Spaces model, or the habit of opening links in the right place. The first thing worth knowing is that there is no deadline. On October 18, 2026, the Arc home page still offers Arc for Mac and Windows as a download, with one note: "Arc receives Chromium updates only. For active security patches and enterprise-grade protection, download Dia instead." Arc keeps running while the replacement is sorted out. So the sensible order is to keep Arc open, find which of the five layers broke, and fix that layer, instead of hopping to a third browser and meeting the same problems again.

This site is run by the maker of a multi-account browser for macOS, so the comparisons below stick to what each vendor publishes.

Why the replacement feels broken

Most of the pages that rank for Arc alternatives are lists: Zen, Vivaldi, Dia, Edge, Safari, Brave, Orion. Lists are useful for choosing. They do not explain why the chosen one feels wrong on day three.

The background matters here. Atlassian announced on September 4, 2025 that it had agreed to acquire The Browser Company of New York, "the team behind the incredible Dia and Arc browsers," and described its plan as making Dia "the knowledge worker's browser." Arc is not where new features are going. That is why people move, and it is also why expectations are high: Arc users built a workflow around Spaces, pinned tabs, a sidebar, and automatic archiving, and every alternative covers a different subset of that.

When something "does not work," it is useful to sort the complaint into one of two kinds before doing anything.

• A fault. Something that should work does not: an account signs out, a notification never arrives, an extension is missing.
• A gap. The new browser simply does not have the Arc behaviour being reached for, such as one sidebar that switches whole sets of tabs, or Little Arc for quick links.

Faults are fixed with settings. Gaps are only fixed by choosing differently or by changing the habit. Mixing them up is how an afternoon disappears.

Check one: what the import actually carried over

The most common fault after leaving Arc is accounts that need signing in again, everywhere, and passwords that are not offered. This is expected behaviour more often than a bug.

Bookmark import and session import are different things. Most browsers can read another browser's bookmarks and, sometimes, its history. Signed-in sessions live in cookies that are tied to the old browser's storage and encryption, so in practice the new browser starts signed out of everything. Passwords depend on where they were saved. If they were in Arc's own store, they need exporting and importing deliberately. If they were in iCloud Keychain or a separate password manager, the new browser needs that manager connected.

A quick order that settles it:

1. Open the new browser's import screen again and read what it says it imported: bookmarks, history, passwords, or only some of them.
2. Check whether pinned tabs came across as bookmarks. Arc keeps pinned tabs per Space, and an importer may bring them across as one flat bookmark folder.
3. Sign in once to each service that is used daily, and confirm that the session survives a full quit and relaunch.

If the session does not survive a relaunch, that is a real fault and belongs to the next check. If it survives, the "not working" complaint was the one-time cost of moving.

Check two: sign-ins that keep disappearing

A replacement that logs out overnight, or loops between the login page and a single sign-on portal, usually has a cookie setting in the way.

Three causes cover most cases.

• Clearing on quit. Privacy-focused browsers often offer to delete cookies when the window closes. If it is on, every service signs out every morning. Turn it off, or add exceptions for the services that need to stay signed in.
• Blocked third-party cookies on a sign-on flow. Some company sign-in portals hand off between domains. Allowing cookies for the identity provider's domain only, rather than switching protection off globally, is the narrow fix.
• Two accounts in one session. Arc users who relied on separate Profiles for work and personal accounts often land in a browser with one profile and try to juggle both in it. The second sign-in pushes the first one out. The fix is a second profile, or containers in a Firefox-based browser, not repeated signing in.

If an account still signs out after all three are ruled out, open the same service in Safari. If it also signs out there, the cause is a policy on the account, often a session limit set by a workplace administrator, and no browser setting changes it.

Check three: extensions and the engine underneath

Arc runs on Chromium, so Chrome Web Store extensions worked in it. Whether they work in the replacement depends on the engine.

Alternative	What it says about workspaces	Engine, per the vendor	Extensions
Zen	"Organize your tabs into Workspaces"	Codebase derived from Firefox	Firefox add-ons
Vivaldi	Workspaces that show only that category's tabs in the window	Built on Chromium	Chrome Web Store extensions
Dia	Profiles with "separate tabs, logins, and AI," plus tab groups	Not stated on the plans page	Not stated on the plans page

The workspace column is quoted from each vendor's own page, checked on October 18, 2026: the Zen Browser home page, Vivaldi's Workspaces page, and Dia's plans page, which lists profiles and tab groups, split view, a built-in ad and tracking blocker and cross-device sync in the free plan. The engine and extension columns come from the Zen FAQ and Vivaldi's help page on extensions, which states that "extensions available in the Chrome Web Store can also be installed in Vivaldi."

The practical point is the right-hand column. Someone who moved to Zen and finds a password manager or a company extension missing has not found a bug. The extension has to be reinstalled from the Firefox add-ons site, if a Firefox version exists. Someone who moved to a Chromium-based option should find the same extension in the Chrome Web Store, but extensions are installed per profile, so a missing extension in a second profile usually means it was only installed in the first.

The same Zen FAQ names a second fault that looks like a bug and is not. Zen "currently lacks DRM support, as it does not yet have a Widevine license," so protected streams from services the FAQ lists, including Netflix, Spotify, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video and Apple Music, do not play. The FAQ's own suggestion is to use a browser that has a Widevine license, such as Firefox, or the service's desktop app. Anyone whose Zen setup "stopped playing music" after leaving Arc has found this, not a broken install.

When a page misbehaves and extensions are suspected, disable all of them, reload, and re-enable them in halves. Four rounds narrow sixteen extensions down to one.

Check four: notifications and permissions

Missing notifications are the most reported problem after any browser move, because three separate permissions have to line up, and a new browser starts with none of them.

1. macOS. Open System Settings, then Notifications, and find the new browser in the list. A browser installed last week may never have been allowed to show alerts, or a Focus mode may be silencing it.
2. The site. Each site asks once for notification permission. A prompt dismissed on day one stays dismissed. In the browser's site settings, find the service and set notifications to Allow.
3. The service. Slack, Gmail and Teams each have their own desktop notification setting, which has to be on in the browser where the service now lives.

Camera, microphone and screen recording follow the same pattern. macOS grants them per application, in System Settings under Privacy and Security, so the new browser has none of the grants Arc had. Join a test call on a quiet afternoon, share a window, and accept every prompt. A screen share that shows a blank rectangle to the other side is almost always the missing screen recording grant.

One more cause applies to browsers that put idle tabs to sleep to save memory. Web notifications generally need the page loaded. A sleeping Slack tab may deliver nothing until it is clicked. Most browsers with this feature let specific sites stay awake.

Check five: the gap that settings cannot fix

If every fault above is cleared and the replacement still feels wrong, the remaining problem is usually a gap. Arc's Spaces combined three things at once: a set of tabs, a profile with its own sign-ins, and a visual identity. Most alternatives split those apart.

• Vivaldi's Workspaces switch the visible tabs, but sign-ins are shared unless a separate profile is used.
• Zen's Workspaces organise tabs, and Firefox containers can be layered on for sign-in separation.
• Dia's Profiles separate tabs and logins, and tab groups do the organising inside each profile.

None of these is wrong. Each is a different split. The way through is to write down, in one line, what Spaces were actually being used for. If the answer is "separating client accounts that are open all day," then the need is per-account isolation that persists, which profiles or containers provide. If the answer is "a fixed place for the eight web apps used every hour," then the need is not tabs at all.

That second case is where an app aggregation browser fits. Each web app sits on a sidebar in its own cookie container, so two Gmail accounts can stay signed in side by side, and links from Slack open in the app and account they belong to. How the isolation works is set out on the workspaces page. Arc bookmarks can be brought in from the Import tab in Settings, which reads Chrome, Edge, Brave, Vivaldi, Arc, Opera, Safari and Firefox, though sign-ins and passwords are not imported, so each service needs one sign-in. The pricing page lists a free plan of 1 workspace with up to 3 apps, a 14-day trial of everything without a card, and Pro from $5 a month billed yearly or $129 once.

A triage table for the first week

Symptom	Layer	First action
Signed out of everything after moving	Import	Check what the importer carried; sign in once per service
Signed out every morning	Cookies	Turn off clearing on quit, or add exceptions
Login loops on a company portal	Cookies	Allow cookies for the identity provider's domain
An extension is missing	Engine	Reinstall from the add-on store that matches the engine
No notifications from one service	Permissions	macOS, then site, then service settings
Camera or screen share fails	Permissions	Privacy and Security grants for the new browser
Works, but feels wrong	Gap	Write down what Spaces were for, then choose by that

Keep Arc installed until every row is cleared. It still launches, so it is the reference for "how did this behave before."

What to change first

Run check one today: open the import screen, read what came across, and sign in once to each daily service, then quit and relaunch to see what stays. If the faults are cleared and the real need turns out to be a fixed place for a handful of web apps with separate accounts, that is the job SpaceDeck is built for.