The Browser Company is building another browser, and it’s not called Arc.

Stop me if this sounds familiar. The Browser Company creates browsers that we believe will make your Internet life a little more organized, a little more convenient, and even a little more fun. Learn new ideas about tabs and what the browser can do for you.

I’ve heard this story before! But the browser Browser Company CEO Josh Miller wants to talk about when he calls me Thursday isn’t Arc, the product he and his team have been developing for the past five years. Even if Miller had it, it wouldn’t be Arc 2.0. speaking in public About Arc 2.0 for a while. It’s a completely new browser. And for Miller and The Browser Company, this is a chance to get back to building the future of browsers they set out to create in the first place.

Miller said something strange has happened in recent years. Arc is growing rapidly, with user numbers quadrupling this year alone. But it’s also become clear that Arc will never become a truly mainstream product. It’s too complex, too different, and too difficult to get into. “There’s just too much novelty and change to reach the numbers we really want to reach,” Miller said. Through user interviews and data, the company believes this is, and always will be, a power user tool.

On the other hand, people who use Arc tend to love Arc. They love the sidebar, they love the space, they love the profile, they love all the customization options. Generally speaking, these users also settle for Arc. According to Miller, they don’t want new features; they just want the browser to be faster, smoother, and more secure. And fair enough!

So The Browser Company faced a situation that many companies find themselves in. In other words, you may have a product that’s popular, but it’s never going to be a game changer. Rather than try to incorporate the next thing into the current one and risk alienating those who like it or never reaching those who don’t, the company decided to simply build something new.

Ark isn’t dead, Miller said. In fact, he says that over and over again, even after I tell him. YouTube video Just released sounds like a company saying right before destroying the product. However, the arc doesn’t change much anymore. There are stability updates and bug fixes, and The Browser Company has a team dedicated to them. “In that sense, this feels like a complete product,” Miller said. Most of the team’s energy and time will be spent starting from scratch.

“Arc was basically a revolution in front-end tab management,” says Miller. “People liked it. It started growing like weeds. Then it started slowing down, crashing more often, felt worse, and I had to learn how to make it faster. And in a way, we lost sight of the fact that we had to do the operating system part.”

The plan this time is not just to build a different interface for the browser, but to build a completely different kind of browser. It’s a browser that’s more proactive, more powerful, more AI-centric, and more aligned with our original vision. Call it the iPhone of web browsers, or the “Internet computer,” or whatever metaphor you like. The idea is to turn the browser into an app platform. Miller still wants to do it, and he still wants to do it for everyone.

what does it look like? Miller is a bit vague on the details. The new browser, which Miller hinted could launch as early as early next year, is designed to have no switching costs, especially with horizontal tabs and fewer ideas for organization. The idea is to make the first 90 seconds easier in order to get more people to switch. And we’ll slowly reveal what this new browser can do.

Miller has some favorite examples of how browsers can help get his work done. he said to me: decoderand elsewhere in recent months. Some teachers spend hours copying and pasting data between enterprise apps. Shopify sellers spend a lot of time looking up order numbers and pasting them into customer support emails. These are the kinds of things that your browser, which has access to all your web apps and browsing data, can start doing on your behalf. And with AI tools like Anthropic’s new “Computer Used” feature, such things are starting to become automated and possible.

Designing a completely new browser that is accessible to everyone is not easy. The browser company has already tried it once and settled here. But Miller is satisfied with the ability to build a great browser over the past five years. Now it’s time to get back to work.