I hate that I like Dia now

I loved the Arc Browser. It was (is?) such a good web browser that stood out for re-thinking what a browser UI should look like. They weren't held back by what other browsers do; they looked at how people use the web browser and all the things you can do on the web now, and worked on making something that enhanced it. In doing so, it became massively influential, causing pretty much all other browsers to rethink their UIs in some way.

It did, however, fail to fulfill the ambitious goals The Browser Company had for it. The reason, their CEO said, is that its radical departure from classic browser UI (you might say Arc's raison d'être) was too unfamiliar for the mainstream. So, they stopped Arc's development and launched Dia, a very "pivot to AI" moment, to please investors. Having zero interest in Dia, I struggled but found a decent alternative in Vivaldi.

Lately though I've been looking up the Dia updates and the feeling I get is that they realized they can't compete with Google and OpenAI in that regard, so they pivoted to doing what they do well: offering a good UX. It offers some of Arc's goodies (like the sidebar UI) while keeping some classic browser concepts (like bookmarks being separate from open tabs), which, now that I got used to that workflow again, is a plus in my book.

They don't seem to be trying to remake Arc, but instead are trying to apply some of Arc's improvements into a more "classic" browser experience. It's not as radical, but it is undeniably good. It also has some UX touches that are a clear sign that someone who cares works there. My favorites:

• How it automatically organizes related tabs in groups, even adding context-aware names to them;
  • Vivaldi has some of this, but Dia does it better;
• How the address bar blends in with the page content by picking the right background color;
  • Vivaldi tries picking an accent color automatically, but honestly, it's disastrous;

What it doesn't have yet are the two-level tab stacks I adore in Vivaldi, but its sidebar for vertical tabs is really well-designed and makes them largely irrelevant to me. The bigger miss is Spaces (Arc's way of opening multiple profiles in the same window, like keeping work tabs separate without affecting the rest of your browsing). It was one of Arc's best features, so maybe it's coming, but no public plans yet.

The Turn-Offs

Now, the part that can be a major turn-off for a lot of people: the built-in AI cannot be turned off yet. I'm sure the option to turn it off will come at some point, now that it is owned by Atlassian and will pursue enterprise customers for sure, but right now it's mandatory, and damn, it feels very invasive.

Even if you don't use it, it will still analyze everything you do on your browser and surface it in some places. It was kinda scary to see it suggesting I send messages to my work colleagues about stuff I worked on the day before. Today, it surprised me with a "Morning Brief" where it suggested I check out an error log I received in my work email (!), telling me that the error was important because the client spent X amount of money in ads (!!), information it fetched from a Slack channel I never even opened (!!!).

Technically speaking, it is kinda amazing that it was able to cross-reference all that. But the fact you can't turn it off at all makes it feel incredibly invasive! I don't want this and I feel most employers wouldn't even allow workers to use it without prior authorization. They claim this kind of data is encrypted and never leaves your device, but it doesn't feel good at all.

Wrapping Up

This last point is probably enough for most people reading this to not consider using it, at least not beyond a test drive, and is also the reason I do not recommend it. But credit where it's due, a shoutout to The Browser Company was in order. The direction they're going seems to be a good one and Dia has enough substance to be a solid Arc alternative, as long as they add an AI off switch soon.