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Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company

cnbc.com

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Re: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company

#481

Post by conradfr »

arnvald wrote: post #17

I really appreciate that there's a company trying to reimagine browsers. Arc was an interesting idea, I used it for a few months, but in the end I switched back to Firefox. I haven't tried Dia yet, and now I'm not sure if I should. I do think that selling a browser is going to be an extremely difficult task, so having an enterprise software machine with huge customer base might help it, but Atlassian strikes me as a…

I never tried it because I was on Windows at the time but I remember my brother raving about it constantly, that I had to try it etc (and reading other people saying the same thing).

I think he's still using it. He probably would have paid something for it.

But then overnight they just weren't interested on building it. So strange.

Re: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company

#482

Post by konart »

youcefb wrote: post #235
porridgeraisin wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't kept track for a while, but whoever I knew that used arc, they found it hard to go back to standard browsers after getting used to its various UI affordances. Even when they pulled the "you need an account" thing most people I knew just sucked it up and created an account. I am assuming a good portion of them will submit to whatever atlassian demands.

why not Zen https://zen-browser.app/ ? I've found it just as good AND it's open source https://github.com/zen-browser/desktop

Because for better and for worse - it is Firefox.

Re: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company

#483

Post by IshKebab »

Waraqa wrote: post #177
jshchnz wrote: post #141

$610M, all cash??? How were they worth that much... all they seemed to ever do was rebrand

"Arc isn’t just a Chromium fork. It runs on custom infrastructure we call ADK — the Arc Development Kit. Think of it as an internal SDK for building browsers (especially those with imaginative interfaces). That’s our secret sauce. It lets ex-iOS engineers prototype native browser UI quickly, without touching C++." https://open.substack.com/pub/browsercompany/p/letter-to-arc...

Cool, but $600m cool? I don't see how.

Re: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company

#484

Post by kiney »

jabwd wrote: post #396
butterfi wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux has entered the chat...

Even though I run it full time now personally; I still think Linux has massive problems something like Windows or macOS don't have: app development. You can't target a thing, you have to target all the things and bloat your app like crazy so you might as well just ship a chromium based app because its practically the same thing anyway (shipping an entire userland because its not stable anyway)

thats been a solved problem for years with flatpak

Re: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company

#485

Post by ghm2199 »

CarbonNanotubes wrote: post #147
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m hopeful for Zen, not just as a successor for Arc but as a Gecko-based browser that sweats the small details. I appreciate that Firefox exists but it’s got a number of rough edges that’ve seemingly been forgotten.

One thing I noticed shortly after when I initially switch Arc a couple years ago from Firefox, ads were more targeted at me and I definitely felt more tracked online. I started using Zen Browser at work because they blocked Arc for Windows (Zen blocked as well but I can run the Twilight build without being blocked :D) and the more I used it I just like it better than Arc in general and it was nice to be back to using…

Arc is based on chromium I believe and that has manifest v3 which means poorer ad blocking afaiu. I won't touch any chromium implementation with a 10 foot pole because of this exact reason. Arc also does not allow you to export bookmarks natively. i had to use a 3p script to do it

Re: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company

#486

Post by xboxnolifes »

crowcroft wrote: post #363
mattlutze wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little surprised how many Chromium browser builders we have in the market, and how each continues to convince a group of investors that _they_ are going to be the ones to finally get it right, while still building on Chrome's skeleton. But, there's a bunch on WebKit and Gecko as well.

On the other hand, it's kind of crazy no one can make an OS except Windows, Apple and Google? Trillion dollar market and no one can compete.

If you mean a paid, consumer OS, you've got to keep in mind that they're essentially tied to a hardware product. The vast majority of your target market is not installing an alternative OS manually. You would need to either sell hardware with your OS or get hardware companies to package your OS over the existing options.

With how mature the personal computer market is, this is a very big hurdle.

Re: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company

#487

Post by bathwaterpizza »

ghm2199 wrote: post #43

I've switched to Zen browser recently (I like it's spaces and folder structure to organize work on a daily basis, same as Arc). fFox nightly is not there yet but it's getting close with tabs on the left..

One big limitation for me is how they can't display DRM protected content like Netflix

Re: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company

#488

Post by utyop22 »

fastball wrote: post #449
al_borland wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This wasn't a new insight by Arc. ChromeOS exists. Palm's WebOS was a thing. Even Apple pitched rich web apps as the avenue for 3rd party developers to make things for the original iPhone, they were just a bit too early. There is even Electron, for web apps to run as desktop apps on all major operating systems. Most browsers can also turn any website into a self-contained web app that lives along side other local app…

Apple wasn't early, they realized that they don't own the web, and therefore that web apps are much worse for them as a business than owning an exclusive App Store.

I dont think it was even that.

The developing for the iphone and app store creates lock-in. I believe the rich web page stuff was just to show the potential of what is possible before influencing developers to build for the app store.

Re: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company

#489

Post by ljbred08 »

Leo_666 wrote: post #165
felarof wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a big fan of Arc too, they should at least open sourced it after abandoning. Anyways, now we are building BrowserOS, an open-source alternative to Dia -- https://github.com/browseros-ai/BrowserOS

I'm also a big fan of Arc, and I'm currently a heavy user. I have zero interest in the upcoming Dia release - I feel like Dia is a step backward compared to Arc.

Yes! What good is a chatbot if you keep the old terrible UX? Chatbot + Arc: great! Chatbot + Chrome: Perplexity already did it pretty well so what's the point...

Re: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company

#490

Post by ljbred08 »

conradfr wrote: post #481
arnvald wrote: post #17

I really appreciate that there's a company trying to reimagine browsers. Arc was an interesting idea, I used it for a few months, but in the end I switched back to Firefox. I haven't tried Dia yet, and now I'm not sure if I should. I do think that selling a browser is going to be an extremely difficult task, so having an enterprise software machine with huge customer base might help it, but Atlassian strikes me as a…

I never tried it because I was on Windows at the time but I remember my brother raving about it constantly, that I had to try it etc (and reading other people saying the same thing). I think he's still using it. He probably would have paid something for it. But then overnight they just weren't interested on building it. So strange.

Right! So many people would have actually paid for Arc to keep active development going, but without even giving that option they switched to Dia...
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