5 ms·

Dia – An Early Review

32 points by wyxuan 1y ago

Spartan-S63 1y ago
With Chrome deprecating Manifest V3 and removing it, I'm still perplexed why BCNY chooses Blink/Chromium as their base for both Arc and Dia. Since they were Mac-first, it would make more sense to choose Webkit and it would play nicer with battery life. Additionally, a Webkit-based browser on Windows would be a breath of fresh air for the virtual-monopoly that is Chromium/Blink.
- jonny_eh 1y ago
  How about https://ladybird.org/ https://ladybird.org/?
  - ItsHarper 1y ago
    It hasn't even reached alpha quality yet, basing another browser on it in 2025 would be a wild choice.
- juliendorra 1y ago
  My guess is that it’s easier to build with (WebKit is old, after all) and maybe Apple’s pace on certain features is perceived as slow? A new WebKit browser on Windows might also seem risky for a startup, they probably want a known and safe build path.
ipsum2 1y ago
Thought this was Dia, an awesome open source conversational TTS model (similar to NotebookLM) that came out less than a month ago: https://github.com/nari-labs/dia https://github.com/nari-labs/dia. I have no affiliation with them, but an early review: it sounds really good and its Apache 2.0 licensed.
- guappa 1y ago
  I thought it was about dia… you know… the thing I used to make diagrams in all my papers.
darkwinx 1y ago
First thing that come to my mind Dia Diagram Editor (http://dia-installer.de/ http://dia-installer.de/)
- rdtsc 1y ago
  Thought so too!
jatins 1y ago
> BCNY gives up on building Dia and instead figures out how to continue with Arc They have already given up on Arc, haven't they? I believe Arc isn't under active development anymore. Always seemed weird to me that they decided to abandon existing browser to create a ... browser? Maybe there were some technical issues with Arc that they couldn't build on or maybe just marketing play
- aspenmayer 1y ago
  > Always seemed weird to me that they decided to abandon existing browser to create a ... browser? Maybe there were some technical issues with Arc that they couldn't build on or maybe just marketing play This might be relevant. Gaining access to anyones Arc browser without them even visiting a website - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41597250 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41597250 - September 2024 (513 comments)
skarat 1y ago
Arc was cool, although it had some quirks that made me not use it as my daily browser. This just feels like a feature
gnabgib 1y ago
Related The company behind Arc is now building a second, much simpler browser (30 points, 6 months ago, 17 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41942007 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41942007
- aspenmayer 1y ago
  Gaining access to anyones Arc browser without them even visiting a website - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41597250 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41597250 - September 2024 (1469 points, 513 comments)
danpalmer 1y ago
Watching "BCNY" (why they aren't called Arc I shall never understand) looking for product-market fit has been a fascinating study in startups. Arc got immediate traction, but the traction was for features that could never be a business model. They pivoted, seeing AI as the future, and started adding a bunch of AI features, but they were throwing things at the wall to see what stuck, and my personal feeling was that none of it did (the features were fine, but nothing transformational). It felt like increasingly they were just trying whatever and not really focusing on one thing and trying to do it well. Arc for Mobile was interesting, because again it started out with a "wow" feature and traction – instantly dropping you into a search on every launch/foregrounding. I loved this. But again, there was no business model there. They started throwing everything at the mobile app to see what stuck, but between holding your phone to your ear to talk to search (Boomer Search?), and growth hacks like overlaying their own search on top of Google search results, the product started to feel weird. Now on to Dia. From reading this it feels like they're experimenting in a much more bare-bones environment, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Arc -> Dia transition came with layoffs and was a more fundamental business pivot. Perhaps it'll crack it, but so far it looks again like a feature not a product, maybe a feature that will get initial traction, but probably not one that will turn into a business. I'm not a particularly anti-VC person, but it seems like a BCNY that carried on as they were in 2022 and sold Arc as a browser for professionals for $50 a year would probably be making reasonable money for a small business right now. The reason they're not doing that would probably be VC funding and the need to be a big business.
mdrzn 1y ago
Seems an interesting take on a browser. I personally don't like Arc and haven't tried it yet (but have seen a few colleagues try it), but I'd love to give Dia a spin if anyone has an invite.
joak 1y ago
I really enjoy ARC, too bad they are not working on it anymore. They should put the sources online to let others continue with the initiative.
- RamblingCTO 1y ago
  You can just use the zen browser. Arc is dead because of manifest v3 anyway.
  - dbbk 1y ago
    Normal people don't care about Manifest v3
    - RamblingCTO 1y ago
      Yeah normal people do care about adblock
      - dbbk 1y ago
        Which still works
teo_zero 1y ago
> if you search 'werewolves', it still thinks it's a chat query ... and the answer obviously is 'there wolves'!

32 points by wyxuan 1y ago

With Chrome deprecating Manifest V3 and removing it, I'm still perplexed why BCNY chooses Blink/Chromium as their base for both Arc and Dia. Since they were Mac-first, it would make more sense to choose Webkit and it would play nicer with battery life. Additionally, a Webkit-based browser on Windows would be a breath of fresh air for the virtual-monopoly that is Chromium/Blink.

jonny_eh 1y ago
How about https://ladybird.org/ https://ladybird.org/?
- ItsHarper 1y ago
  It hasn't even reached alpha quality yet, basing another browser on it in 2025 would be a wild choice.
juliendorra 1y ago
My guess is that it’s easier to build with (WebKit is old, after all) and maybe Apple’s pace on certain features is perceived as slow? A new WebKit browser on Windows might also seem risky for a startup, they probably want a known and safe build path.

ipsum2 1y ago

Thought this was Dia, an awesome open source conversational TTS model (similar to NotebookLM) that came out less than a month ago: https://github.com/nari-labs/dia https://github.com/nari-labs/dia. I have no affiliation with them, but an early review: it sounds really good and its Apache 2.0 licensed.

guappa 1y ago
I thought it was about dia… you know… the thing I used to make diagrams in all my papers.

darkwinx 1y ago

First thing that come to my mind Dia Diagram Editor (http://dia-installer.de/ http://dia-installer.de/)

rdtsc 1y ago
Thought so too!

jatins 1y ago

> BCNY gives up on building Dia and instead figures out how to continue with Arc They have already given up on Arc, haven't they? I believe Arc isn't under active development anymore. Always seemed weird to me that they decided to abandon existing browser to create a ... browser? Maybe there were some technical issues with Arc that they couldn't build on or maybe just marketing play

aspenmayer 1y ago
> Always seemed weird to me that they decided to abandon existing browser to create a ... browser? Maybe there were some technical issues with Arc that they couldn't build on or maybe just marketing play This might be relevant. Gaining access to anyones Arc browser without them even visiting a website - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41597250 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41597250 - September 2024 (513 comments)

skarat 1y ago

Arc was cool, although it had some quirks that made me not use it as my daily browser. This just feels like a feature

gnabgib 1y ago

Related The company behind Arc is now building a second, much simpler browser (30 points, 6 months ago, 17 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41942007 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41942007

aspenmayer 1y ago
Gaining access to anyones Arc browser without them even visiting a website - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41597250 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41597250 - September 2024 (1469 points, 513 comments)

danpalmer 1y ago

Watching "BCNY" (why they aren't called Arc I shall never understand) looking for product-market fit has been a fascinating study in startups. Arc got immediate traction, but the traction was for features that could never be a business model. They pivoted, seeing AI as the future, and started adding a bunch of AI features, but they were throwing things at the wall to see what stuck, and my personal feeling was that none of it did (the features were fine, but nothing transformational). It felt like increasingly they were just trying whatever and not really focusing on one thing and trying to do it well. Arc for Mobile was interesting, because again it started out with a "wow" feature and traction – instantly dropping you into a search on every launch/foregrounding. I loved this. But again, there was no business model there. They started throwing everything at the mobile app to see what stuck, but between holding your phone to your ear to talk to search (Boomer Search?), and growth hacks like overlaying their own search on top of Google search results, the product started to feel weird. Now on to Dia. From reading this it feels like they're experimenting in a much more bare-bones environment, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Arc -> Dia transition came with layoffs and was a more fundamental business pivot. Perhaps it'll crack it, but so far it looks again like a feature not a product, maybe a feature that will get initial traction, but probably not one that will turn into a business. I'm not a particularly anti-VC person, but it seems like a BCNY that carried on as they were in 2022 and sold Arc as a browser for professionals for $50 a year would probably be making reasonable money for a small business right now. The reason they're not doing that would probably be VC funding and the need to be a big business.

mdrzn 1y ago

Seems an interesting take on a browser. I personally don't like Arc and haven't tried it yet (but have seen a few colleagues try it), but I'd love to give Dia a spin if anyone has an invite.

joak 1y ago

I really enjoy ARC, too bad they are not working on it anymore. They should put the sources online to let others continue with the initiative.

RamblingCTO 1y ago
You can just use the zen browser. Arc is dead because of manifest v3 anyway.
- dbbk 1y ago
  Normal people don't care about Manifest v3
  - RamblingCTO 1y ago
    Yeah normal people do care about adblock
    - dbbk 1y ago
      Which still works

teo_zero 1y ago

> if you search 'werewolves', it still thinks it's a chat query ... and the answer obviously is 'there wolves'!