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Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company

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520 points kevinyew | 2 comments | 04 Sep 25 12:12 UTC | HN request time: 0.002s | source
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al_borland ◴[04 Sep 25 13:50 UTC] No.45127269[source]▶
I lost all faith in The Browser Company when they went into a maintenance-only mode with Arc to shift to Dia, without any real announcement. Just a reply to a Twitter post calling them out. They figured no one would notice. I think they eventually addressed it after some public pressure, but I don’t think they sold the decision well.

AI seems like a feature to add to existing browsers, not something that needs its own dedicated browser. People’s workflows get tied to a browser, especially one like Arc, so to proclaim it done, with no need for any new features after just a couple years, while most expect a browser to carry on for decades, left a really bad taste in my mouth.

I was excited when they launched, but won’t miss them. They felt more like a dev backed hype machine. I’m not sure what Atlassian has planned, but won’t be surprised if they kill the browsers and integrate some tools into their existing product line.

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amykhar ◴[04 Sep 25 14:53 UTC] No.45127985[source]▶
I also hated that they were trying to make it a free tool, which would mean selling user data to make money, and would require growth at all costs.

These days, I'm trying to migrate to paid tools. I would much rather work with a slower growing company that has a real business model other than grow and sell out.

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knr2345 ◴[05 Sep 25 02:59 UTC] No.45134597[source]▶
I share your sentiment but still can’t imagine adding a browser-specific AI subscription alongside my current GPT or Claude sub.
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1. amykhar ◴[06 Sep 25 23:44 UTC] No.45153928[source]▶
I don't really need AI in my browser. I do like spaces in Arc, and how it handles cleaning up my tabs. The color coding of the sidebar for the various profiles is the one feature I haven't been able to find in things like Orion, Vivaldi, Firefox, etc. By color coding, I mean the ability to make the entire sidebar a different color, which helps me make certain I don't do stupid things in prod.
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2. knr2345 ◴[07 Sep 25 23:50 UTC] No.45163331[source]▶
Agreed; the occasional Raycast AI query using their web extension suits me well.

Haven’t used Arc as my daily driver in a while now, but I used a similar setup with a semi-bright green sidebar as my debugging space when my last project was in active development. I’m rarely at a desk these days so back to Safari for the time being, but one thing I miss the most is Arc’s near-borderless window ‘frame’.