An Arc browser review now that development has stopped

Arc is still a good browser to use in October 2026, but it is no longer a browser to build a working setup around. It installs, it runs, and it still receives Chromium engine updates. What it does not receive is new feature work, and its maker now points security conscious users to a different product. If Arc holds one Space and a few pinned tabs, staying is low risk. If it holds several Spaces and a stack of signed in work accounts, it is time to plan a move, slowly and on purpose.

Most reviews ranking for this query were written in 2023 or 2024, when the question was whether Arc was worth switching to. The question now runs the other way. This review covers what the vendor has said in writing, what still works well, what the usage data says about who actually needs Arc, and how the alternatives compare on price and limits checked on October 18, 2026.

Where Arc stands in October 2026

Three public documents define Arc's position today, and all three are worth reading in the original.

The first is the letter to Arc members that The Browser Company published on May 26, 2025. It explains the pivot to Dia, its second browser. On Arc, it says two things plainly: the company keeps doing regular Chromium upgrades and fixing security vulnerabilities, and it has stopped actively building new features. It also says the company is not trying to shut Arc down.

The second is the Arc homepage itself. Checked on October 18, 2026, it carries a one line notice above the download buttons stating that Arc receives Chromium updates only, and that users who want active security patches and enterprise grade protection should download Dia instead. The same page promotes Dia with weekly security updates and SOC 2 certification.

The third is Atlassian's announcement dated September 4, 2025, of an agreement to acquire The Browser Company. The announcement is about making Dia a browser for knowledge workers. Arc is mentioned as part of the team's history, not as part of the plan.

Reading the three together

None of these documents announces an end date for Arc. All three point in the same direction. Engine updates continue because they are cheap to ship and protect the users who remain. The layer above the engine, which is the part that makes Arc feel like Arc, is in maintenance. The parent company's attention is on Dia. A browser in that state usually keeps working for a long time, and then a site, an extension, or a macOS release changes something and the fix does not come.

What Arc still gets right

It would be wrong to review Arc as if it had already broken. The product most people fell for is still the product you download today.

The vertical sidebar is still the best reason to use it. Tabs sit in a column on the left, pinned tabs stay above the line, and unpinned tabs clear themselves out after a while instead of piling up. For people who keep twenty or thirty tabs open, that alone changes how a day feels.

Spaces and Profiles still work as designed. A Space is a separate sidebar with its own pinned tabs, and each Space can be tied to its own profile, which means its own cookies and its own logins. Work and personal Google accounts can live in different Spaces without signing out of either.

Split View, themes, and the command bar are all still there. The homepage still lists Split View and Themes as headline features, and Arc for iPhone and Arc for Windows are still linked from its footer.

Arc is also free. There is no paid tier to be pushed onto, and the homepage repeats the company's privacy position that it does not know which sites users visit or what they search for. For a single person using one Space, nothing about the experience has got worse since development stopped.

The real strength was calm

What long term users describe, in the reviews ranking above this one, is less a list of features and more a feeling that the browser stays out of the way. That quality has not changed. It is also the hardest thing to replace, which is why many people put off leaving even after reading the vendor's own notice.

Where it falls short now

The weaknesses are not bugs. They are the predictable result of a product with no roadmap.

There will be no new features. Anything Arc does not do today, it will not do later. If a workflow depends on something Arc almost supports, that gap is permanent.

The security wording is cautious. The vendor's own homepage separates "Chromium updates" from "active security patches", and recommends Dia for the second. Users who enter banking, payroll, or client admin credentials in a browser should weigh that sentence on its own terms. It does not say Arc is unsafe. It says the vendor has chosen where to put its effort.

Problems will be solved by users, not by the vendor. A product in maintenance fixes security issues and serious breakage. A layout glitch after a macOS update, or an extension that stops behaving, may simply stay that way. The community forums become the support desk.

Moving gets more expensive the longer the setup grows. Every pinned tab and every Space added this month is one more thing to rebuild later. This cost is invisible until the day a move becomes necessary.

There is also a smaller point that matters for teams. The enterprise grade protection mentioned on the Arc homepage is attached to Dia, not to Arc. Organizations that need security commitments from a browser vendor are being directed to the newer product.

The usage numbers that change the review

The single most useful fact for anyone deciding whether to stay is a set of figures the vendor published about its own users. In the May 2025 letter, The Browser Company stated that only 5.52% of daily active users used more than one Space regularly, only 4.17% used Live Folders, and only 0.4% used Calendar Preview on Hover.

That means roughly one Arc user in twenty used the feature that most reviews treat as the reason to choose Arc in the first place. For the other nineteen, Arc was a very pleasant single window browser with a sidebar.

This splits readers of this review into two groups.

If Arc is one Space for you, the risk of staying is small and so is the cost of leaving. Most of what makes Arc pleasant can be approximated in any mainstream browser with vertical tabs. Bookmarks export in the standard format. There is no urgency.

If Arc is several Spaces for you, the situation is different. Several Spaces, each tied to its own profile and its own set of logins, is not really browsing. It is running a set of web apps, each in its own container, with accounts kept apart. That is a different kind of software, and it has its own dedicated tools. Those users also have the most to rebuild, so they gain the most from starting early.

A quick count

Open Arc and count three things: the number of Spaces used in a normal week, the number of separate accounts signed in across them, and the number of those accounts that belong to the same service, such as two Gmail inboxes or three Slack workspaces. The third number decides which alternatives are worth a look, because running two accounts of the same service at once is the feature most often placed behind a paywall.

Who should stay and who should move

Situation	Suggested move	Why
One Space, personal browsing	Stay on Arc for now	Low risk, free, nothing to gain by moving today
One Space, but work logins for banking or payroll	Move those logins to an actively developed browser	The vendor itself recommends a different product for active security patches
Two or more Spaces, separate work and personal accounts	Plan a move within a few months	The setup is growing in a product with no roadmap
Several accounts of the same service at once	Move to an app aggregation browser	That is the core job of that category
A team that needs vendor security commitments	Look at Dia or a managed Chrome setup	The homepage ties enterprise grade protection to Dia

The table is deliberately conservative. Nothing in the vendor's statements suggests Arc stops working next month. The reason to move early is not fear of a shutdown, it is that a calm, planned move costs a weekend and a forced one costs a working week.

How the alternatives compare

People leaving Arc go in three directions. Each fits a different kind of Arc user.

Back to a mainstream browser. Chrome, Edge, and Safari all have profiles, each with its own cookies and logins, and a vendor with a long roadmap behind it. This suits the one Space majority.

On to Dia. It is the vendor's chosen successor, it carries the security and enterprise features the Arc homepage refers to, and it is built around an AI assistant in the browser. It suits people who want to stay with the same team and who like that direction.

Across to an app aggregation browser. These are browsers built to keep each web app in its own window or container, signed in and running, often with several accounts of one service side by side. This suits the multi Space minority. The table below shows prices and free plan limits taken from each vendor's own pricing page on October 18, 2026.

Product	Free plan	Paid plan	Source
Wavebox	2 groups with 2 apps each, 1 extension, 1 dashboard	8.33 USD per month, paid annually	wavebox.io/pricing
Shift	5 Spaces, 10 apps per Space	199.99 USD per year	shift.com/pricing
Rambox	Unlimited apps, up to 2 instances per app; workspaces and multi login are Pro	7 USD per month or 70 USD per year	rambox.app/pricing
Ferdium	Open source and free; the same service can be added more than once	None	ferdium.org

Two details in that table are easy to miss. Rambox lists workspaces as a Pro feature, so a free Rambox setup cannot mirror Arc's Spaces. Wavebox's free plan is enough for exactly two accounts of one service, which is enough for work and home but not for a third client. The comparison with Wavebox and the comparison with Rambox cover the feature differences in more depth.

Leaving Arc without losing a weekend

The order matters more than the destination.

Step 1. Export bookmarks per Space

Arc keeps pinned tabs and folders per Space. Export them before anything else, one Space at a time, so the folder structure survives. Some app aggregation browsers can read Arc's bookmarks directly with folders intact, which removes this step; the FAQ for the tool in question usually says which browsers it imports from.

Step 2. Move passwords to a password manager

If passwords are saved inside Arc, move them to a standalone password manager now, whatever browser comes next. Most password managers run as a Chrome extension, so they follow the move without another export.

Step 3. Rebuild the busiest Space first

Pick the Space used most often, rebuild only that one in the new tool, and run both browsers side by side for a week. That week shows whether account separation, notifications, and link opening behave as needed. If a workspace in the new tool keeps each account apart the way the old Space did, the remaining Spaces are a copying job.

Step 4. Keep Arc installed for a month

Do not delete Arc on the first day. Something will turn out to live only in a pinned tab nobody remembered. A month of overlap catches it.

What to change first

This week, count Spaces and signed in accounts in Arc and write the numbers down. If both are one, stay and stop worrying. If there are several Spaces holding separate work accounts, rebuild the busiest one in a tool built for that job and give it seven days; SpaceDeck is one place to run that test on a Mac.