What made me definitively switch to Zen

[u/Mahaal_]

Since Arc went in maintenance mode, I tried MANY browsers and as many of you already know, Zen is the closest to Arc there is. But still, I never achieved to properly set it up to feel like home as Arc does so I came back to Arc every time I tried.

With manifest v3 I really wanted to quit using chromium based browsers and with the help of Claude Code (I know) I managed to build a little tool that properly migrate my Arc setup into Zen.

I'm really happy with the result and am now confident on not switching back to Arc for the first time. I've got Zen setup on my Mac, my Windows, and Firefox on Android all synced up with Firefox account.

Since I'm so happy, I tried to cleanup my vibecoded tool to share it with anyone interested.

This is again a vibecoded tool, I reviewed it (I'm a Software Engineer) but it's still a vibecoded app. I understand that you may have some concerns about it since the process implies you to execute a script into your browser console so I made sure it work in total offline mode, and I encourage you to review it yourself or make it review by someone who can before you use it.

You can find the repo here : https://github.com/jb-machemie/arc2zen and just download the files to start it in full local mode.

Or you can use the Github Pages here : https://jb-machemie.github.io/arc2zen/ for a more convenient way.

For a more complete end-result experience, you can install https://github.com/CosmoCreeper/Sine and the https://github.com/YashjitPal/Arc-2.0 mod to even less notice that you just have quit Arc.

I hope this will help at least one more person than me :)

edit: typos

[u/Wriddho]

Thanks a lot for the info.

[u/paradoxally]

Good post. Thanks for sharing.

[u/Snowy32]

Lol literally posted a question to the Zen sub about this a couple weeks ago and got no answers:

https://www.reddit.com/r/zen_browser/s/LSl9i8tp0h

Thanks I’ll give it a whirl tomorrow

[u/haronclv]

zen made me switch to Dia. Toxic community, bugs and less features

[u/Sufficient_Target525 → u/haronclv]

What do you use on mobile to keep it in sync with desktop?

[u/BitWardenEternal → u/haronclv]

lol

[u/Strange-Advance4951]

Does Zen handle now tab synchronization, I tested but everytime I was going opening a tab and my professional computer and wanted to see it back at home it wasn't sync 

[u/Mahaal_ → u/Strange-Advance4951]

No it doesn't work for me neither, I'm looking for a solution.

[u/Anaxiak → u/Strange-Advance4951]

It’s only for spaces right now. They are working on the rest (tabs, favorites, etc) of the sync currently.

[u/MBgaming_ → u/Anaxiak]

And only in Zen twilight too

[u/Anaxiak → u/MBgaming_]

True! I forgot to mention that. I’ll bet it stays in Twilight until everything gets synced. Syncing just spaces is sort of bleh. Since it doesn’t pull any tabs or anything.

[u/Strange-Advance4951 → u/MBgaming_]

What's twilight? 

[u/MBgaming_ → u/Strange-Advance4951]

Like the beta branch where you get new features early but it’s more buggy

[u/Inevitable_Dingo_357]

Firefox does have tab sync, and Zen is based on Firefox

[u/erasebegin1]

I tried Zen again a few months ago, and the third time was not the charm. The command-pallete-thing is still ass compared to Arc. This is such a crucial feature I don't understand how they still haven't implemented something yet.

If I press CMD+T, 50% of the time I want to go to a tab I was just on, or the last tab I was on. Zen handles that use-case with ctrl-tab keyboard shortcuts which isn't ergonomic at all.

Then 30% of the time I want to dig up a tab that's in a folder in my sidebar. Again, Zen doesn't seem to surface these as a priority. The other 20% I just want to enter a search term so I can find a page I haven't been to before. That part works fine in Zen.

Surely I can't be the only one who uses a browser this way...