This is an editorial pick, not a submission — Talmyn’s own research into a product we think got something genuinely right, published as part of our ongoing Best App coverage.
Arc is a web browser built by The Browser Company, founded by Josh Miller and Harsh Agrawal in 2019. Rather than treat browser design as mostly settled — a tab bar, an address bar, a handful of extensions — Arc rebuilt basic interactions from scratch: vertical tabs instead of horizontal ones, organizable “Spaces” for separating work and personal browsing, and a level of visual customization that most browsers treat as an afterthought.
Why this made the list
Design wasn’t a surface-level feature for Arc — it was structural to the company. The Browser Company’s design team includes people who previously worked on interactions at WhatsApp and Apple’s Safari team, and that shows in how deliberately Arc’s default behaviors were rethought rather than reskinned from an existing browser’s conventions. Vertical tabs sound like a small change; in practice, it’s the kind of decision that only makes sense if a team has actually rethought how people use dozens of open tabs, not just moved a UI element to a different edge of the screen.
The honest update, worth including rather than glossing over: The Browser Company has since shifted its primary focus toward a newer, AI-first browser called Dia, and development of new features for Arc itself slowed significantly starting in 2025 following the company’s acquisition by Atlassian. That’s a real and relevant part of the story — a well-designed product whose own maker moved on to a different bet. It doesn’t erase what Arc got right about interaction design; it’s a reminder that a strong initial product decision doesn’t always translate into the company’s long-term roadmap.
Talmyn’s Best App coverage looks for a specific design decision that actually changed how the product feels to use. Arc’s rebuilt approach to basic browser interactions is a clear example, even as its own future stays genuinely uncertain.
