The Browser Company will shut down its Arc web browser on 22 December 2026 and is directing users to Dia, its newer AI browser, the company said in a notice on Arc’s website on Thursday.
“We’ve decided to sunset Arc on December 22, 2026,” the notice says. “That’s not an easy sentence to write.” The company gives security as its reason. “Keeping a browser secure takes constant, dedicated work that is only increasing in the age of AI,” it says. “Dia was built from the ground up to meet today’s security standards, so that’s where our engineering and security teams will focus moving forward.”
Arc stops working on Mac and Windows on 22 December
The notice sets out three dates.
From 22 October, new Arc accounts can no longer be created. “For existing Arc members, nothing will change yet,” it says. The latest version of Arc adds an option to export all data out of the browser and what the company calls “an even smoother import into Dia”. Until the shutdown, Arc for macOS and Windows “will continue to work as usual and will receive basic updates”.
On 23 November, Browse for Me and “other AI features” will be disabled on iOS and Android. Arc Search will keep working as a browser, but users will no longer be able to sign in or sync their tabs. The notice’s FAQ says iPhone users will still have “a lite version of the mobile browser”.
On 22 December, Arc will stop working on macOS and Windows and users will no longer be able to sign in. Arc accounts will be deactivated, “with their personal data deleted within 30 days”. Arc Search for Android will be “deprecated fully, removed from the Google Play Store and from the devices it’s installed on”.
The company says that after that date it “will no longer be able to identify or retrieve Arc user data for data requests”. Users who want to keep their data must export it or import it into Dia before 22 December. For people with both Dia and Arc accounts, only Arc data is affected. Support remains available through the Arc Help Center at resources.arc.net until the shutdown.
Dia is pitched as Arc’s replacement, with the AI optional
The notice says passwords, bookmarks, extensions and history move across to Dia, along with Spaces, Folders and Tab Groups. Spaces become Profiles in Dia, and the sidebar layout of vertical tabs is kept. Dia is free to download for macOS and Windows.
The company makes two claims for Dia that it does not back with published figures: that it “now surpasses Arc benchmarks in stability, speed, and security”, and that it is “a lot faster”. It also promises that “the browser features you use in Arc are free in Dia, and the AI is optional.”
Dia’s own website presents it as “the browser for better days at work”. It advertises a Morning Brief summarising calendar, inbox and key links, an assistant that pulls context from tools such as Slack, Notion and Teams, and a Dia for Work tier with single sign-on and admin tools. It says user data “is never sold or used to build ad profiles” and that Sync is end-to-end encrypted.
Atlassian bought The Browser Company to build a work browser
That positioning follows Atlassian’s purchase of the company. In a press release filed with the SEC on 4 September 2025, Atlassian said it had agreed to acquire The Browser Company “for approximately $610 million in cash”, with the aim of “making Dia the AI browser for work”. Chief executive Mike Cannon-Brookes said: “Today’s browsers weren’t built for work, they were built for browsing.” The release said the deal was expected to close in Atlassian’s second fiscal quarter of 2026. The Verge reports that Atlassian acquired the company last year, and that new feature development on Arc ended last year when the company moved on to Dia.
Security, not features, is the stated reason for ending Arc
The notice does not mention Atlassian, user numbers or cost. It frames the decision around one argument: that a second browser could not be kept secure with the team’s attention elsewhere. The notice also confirms Arc has been receiving only “basic updates”. Larger rivals’ recent security work shows the pace involved: in the past week, Mozilla said it blocked compromised eMudhra intermediate certificates in Firefox within hours of a report, and Google added new scam warnings to Chrome’s Enhanced Protection mode.
But the shutdown also completes a shift in who The Browser Company is building for. Atlassian’s release and Dia’s homepage both describe a product for workplaces, with admin controls and connections into business software, in the same market Mozilla is targeting with Firefox Enterprise. The company’s promise that “the AI is optional” is addressed to Arc users being asked to move. Whether they accept it will be clear from how many import their data before the deadline; The Verge noted that Zen, built on Mozilla’s Gecko engine, is often recommended to people seeking an Arc-like browser. Those who do neither will lose access to their Arc accounts on 22 December, and the company says it will not be able to retrieve their data after that.
Sources
- Arc, “A farewell to Arc” (CONFIRMED): https://arc.net/
- Dia homepage, The Browser Company (CONFIRMED): https://www.diabrowser.com/
- Atlassian press release, 4 Sep 2025, SEC Form 8-K Exhibit 99.1 (CONFIRMED): https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1650372/000165037225000040/ex991pressrelease.htm
- The Verge, 22 Oct 2026 (REPORTED): https://www.theverge.com/tech/1016832/arc-browser-shutting-down
Related stories
- Mozilla Launches Firefox Enterprise, a Business Browser Companies Can Manage on Their Own Servers
- Chrome’s Enhanced Protection Adds ‘Suspicious Site’ Warnings and ClickFix Checks
Follow @tsnmediahub on X for breaking AI news as it happens.
Follow on X
