Dia: The AI Browser That Replaced Arc
When The Browser Company announced that Arc would no longer be a priority, I felt jaded—almost betrayed. I had spent two years integrating Arc into my workflow and genuinely loved using it. It had features I wish every browser offered: intuitive shortcuts, the peek functionality for links, and my go-to shortcut—Shift + Ctrl + C to copy the active tab’s URL.
But then came the pivot: The Browser Company was going all-in on AI with a new browser, Dia. Because AI is the trend right now.
At first, I refused to try it. How could they kill off Arc? But then I got an invite to test Dia, and—I’ll admit—I caved.
First Impressions
My initial reaction? It feels like Chrome with Gemini glued on. But after a week of casual use, I’ll admit: it’s surprisingly well-optimized. Unlike Arc, it feels lightweight and minimal—there’s not a lot of bloat.
As for the AI features? They’re just okay. There’s not much here that you can’t already do in Chrome with Gemini. That said, I do appreciate that you can chat with multiple tabs at once, gather context across them, and even insert summaries into apps like Google Sheets. That’s slick.
Final Verdict (for now)
Dia is fine. It’s clean, it works, and it shows potential. But in its current state, I wouldn’t pay for it. I already subscribe to ChatGPT, and that handles most of my AI needs. I can feed it links and get what I need without switching tools.
Dia has promise—but right now, it’s not enough to replace what Arc was, or what other tools already offer.