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Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company

(www.cnbc.com)
520 points kevinyew | 1 comments | 04 Sep 25 12:12 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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thor-rodrigues ◴[04 Sep 25 16:27 UTC] No.45129033[source]▶
I’m not sure whether I find it more worrisome or fascinating that we live in a world where a company that, as far as I know, has never generated a single dollar in revenue has managed to exist for over five years, employ more than 100 people, and still get acquired for this amount.

This isn’t criticism or sarcasm — I’m genuinely impressed, but also very curious about the rationale behind it.

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colelyman ◴[04 Sep 25 16:41 UTC] No.45129191[source]▶
Agreed, to make it even more interesting Browser Company discontinued Arc earlier this year. So not only did they do all of the things OP listed, but also didn't have a current product when acquired.
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emoII ◴[04 Sep 25 16:46 UTC] No.45129257[source]▶
Where can I read about this? It still gets regular updates and is front and center on the browser company website
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hashbig ◴[04 Sep 25 16:49 UTC] No.45129300[source]▶
It was put on maintenance mode with minimal security updates to favour the development of their newer product Dia (AI browser).
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emoII ◴[04 Sep 25 16:57 UTC] No.45129400{3}[source]▶
Damn, I really appreciate the decision to do this in a new product. Arc is the best browser I've ever used, and I'd hate to see AI features forced upon me. Thanks Browser Company!
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hashbig ◴[04 Sep 25 17:56 UTC] No.45130156{4}[source]▶
I agree. I think Arc was the biggest innovation in browser UI since Chrome.

I think you will eventually have to switch because it will lack behind given that it's not their priority anymore. Zen browser seems like viable alternative but I haven't used it enough yet to know how well polished it is.

https://zen-browser.app

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1. Valodim ◴[04 Sep 25 18:50 UTC] No.45130840{5}[source]▶
It is impressive what a single person with a vision can achieve hacking away on Firefox, especially considering Mozilla's track record in recent years.

A bus factor of 1 is still a bit red flag on something as involved as browser maintenance. Hopefully a community can emerge around the project.

ref: https://github.com/zen-browser/desktop/graphs/contributors