arxPublic beta in NovemberSpaces for each part of your day, one bar for everything, and a sidebar that remembers. Native on the Mac, Chromium underneath, and open to the assistants you choose. Free. Forever.
Not a screenshotA live rebuild of the Arx interface. Open a favorite, swipe the sidebar, press ⌘K to search, or ⌘S to hide the sidebar and hover the left edge.
01The sidebar
Pinned tabs and folders sit at the top and keep their place. Everything you open today goes below the line. Rename anything, nest folders, drag rows where they belong.
02Spaces
Work, home, a side project. Each space keeps its own pinned tabs and its own open tabs. Swipe across the sidebar to move between them. Favorites stay with you in every space of a profile.
03Command bar
One field for open tabs, history, commands and the web. Start with a bang like !gh to search a site directly, or add your own search engines per profile.
⌘T⌘L
04Peek
Shift-click a link and it opens in a card over the page you were reading. Close it, keep it as a tab, or send it to Little Arx.
⇧Click
05Split View
Keep the docs next to the code review, or the spec next to the design. Both pages stay one item in the sidebar.
06Little Arx
Links from other apps can open in Little Arx, a compact window that does not touch your spaces. Read it and close it, or move it into a space with ⌘O.
⌥⌘Click
07Gestures
Swipe with two fingers to go back or forward a page. Keep swiping and your history opens: move further to pick an earlier page, then let go.
github.com/capturecontextWorkMain window*.figma.comDesign profileMain windowmeet.google.comCurrent spaceLittle Arxlocalhost:3000Side projectMain windowRules for links that open from other apps. Match a host, a path or a local port, then send it to a space, a profile, or Little Arx.
The migration assistant finds your browsers and previews what comes over before anything changes. Run it again later and only what's new is added.
Each profile has its own cookies, site data, history, extensions and search engines. Spaces belong to a profile, so signing in to work never touches home.
Spaces, tabs and favorites sync through your own iCloud account. No Arx account, and nothing passes through our servers. Cookies, sessions and passwords stay on each Mac.
Arx has a local MCP server built in. Connect Claude Code, Codex or Cursor, choose the spaces it can see and what it may do there, and keep your passwords to yourself.
~ %
The arx command writes the configuration for your tool. The connection still waits for your approval in Arx, so an agent cannot approve itself.
When it changes something
Every change waits for you, unless you give a 15-minute pass.
Reading tabs, taking screenshots, clicking on pages and moving tabs are separate permissions. Each assistant sees only the tools its grant covers.
Assistants are paused until you finish.
When a site asks for a password, the assistant hands the page to you. Every assistant pauses while you sign in, and none of them sees what you type.
Examples above show how the controls work. Agent access is off until you connect an assistant.
Turn on developer mode in Settings and Arx adds the tools you reach for every day, without weakening the security you rely on the rest of the time.
Settings › Developer~ %
arx --headless starts the browser without windows, with a local MCP endpoint and only the grants you pass. Every run ends with a clean stopped event.
Chromium DevTools for any page, pane, Peek or Little Arx. They follow the page across reloads. ⌥⌘I
A closed port, an untrusted local certificate or https against a plain-HTTP server each get a real explanation.
Load an extension folder into one profile, edit it, reload it. Chrome extensions install per profile.
Honest notes, and admittedly biased ones. In the order we'd recommend them.
YabThe one we'd pick if Arx didn't exist. Fast, light and private, made by Serafim, the creator of 21st.dev.
Watch out for: WebKit quirks, since sites are tested against Chromium first. Closed source, and built by one person.
ArdiaSolid all round, with Chromium compatibility and Chrome extensions.
Watch out for: Built to match Dia, which we'd rather keep our distance from. The interface isn't native, a personal ick.
HeliumA private, open-source Chromium from imput, with Google's background services taken out. Arx's engine builds on its patches.
Watch out for: A classic browser interface, far from Arc's.
ZenArc's ideas on Firefox, actively developed and maintained by its community.
Watch out for: It's Firefox, so no Chrome extensions or Chromium compatibility.
DiaFrom the makers of Arc. In some ways a more stable Arc, with a large company behind it.
Watch out for: Its makers are retiring Arc, the browser we loved. And the company is now Atlassian 🤡
AsideAn AI browser from a Y Combinator startup, with an agent built in.
Watch out for: Closed source and venture-backed. After Arc, that kind of company is hard to trust with your browser.
| arx | Yab | Ardia | Helium | Zen | Dia | Aside | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Engine | Chromium | WebKit | Chromium | Chromium | Firefox | Chromium | Chromium |
| Chrome extensions | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Arc-style sidebar and spaces | Yes | Yes | Yes | Limited: Vertical tabs, without Arc's spaces | Yes | Partly: Optional vertical tabs | Limited: Vertical tabs, without Arc's spaces |
| Profiles | Yes | Partly: Each space uses either the shared sign-ins or its own | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Peek | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes: Called Glance | No: Not built in | Not checked |
| Links from other apps in a small window | Yes: Little Arx | Yes | Yes | Not checked | No: Requested, not built | Limited: Only through community apps | Not checked |
| History swipe gestures | Yes: Keep swiping to pick any page in history | Limited: Pretty swipes, one page at a time | No: Chromium's standard swipe | No: Chromium's standard swipe | Not checked | Not checked | Not checked |
| Bangs in the address bar | Yes | No | Yes: Helium's bang list | Yes: 13,000+, built in and offline | Limited: Firefox's @ search shortcuts, not bangs | No | Not checked |
| Sync | Yes: Through your own iCloud | Yes: End-to-end encrypted | Yes: Through your iCloud Drive | No: Left out on purpose | Limited: Firefox Sync, but workspaces don't sync | Yes | Yes |
| MCP for AI agents | Yes | Yes | Limited: Agents drive it through its CLI, not MCP | Limited: Community servers only | Limited: Community servers only | Limited: Community servers only | Yes |
| Open source | Partly: Opens with the first beta | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Credits-based AI plan | No: Completely free | No: Completely free | No: Completely free | No: Completely free | No: Free, funded by donations | Yes: AI needs a $10 or $100 monthly plan, with credits on top | Yes: 500 credits a month free, then $20 or $200 a month |
| Owned by Atlassian 🤡 | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No |
Missing a browser, or think we got one wrong? Tell us on Twitter
Questions
The public beta for macOS starts by the end of November 2026. Join the CaptureContext newsletter to get an email the moment it opens.
Yes. The source code will be published alongside the first beta, so anyone can read it, build it and check what the browser sends.
Arx is an independent CaptureContext project inspired by Arc's approach to browsing. It is not affiliated with Arc or The Browser Company. You can import your Arc profiles, spaces and pinned tabs when you switch.
For web compatibility and Chrome extensions. Arx runs a Helium-derived Chromium engine under a native macOS interface written in Swift.
No. Agent access is off until you connect an assistant, and each assistant only gets the spaces and capabilities you grant it. You can revoke a grant at any time.
No. When a site needs you to sign in, the assistant hands the page to you and every assistant pauses while you type. Arx tells the assistant whether you finished, never what you typed.
Arx targets current macOS on Apple silicon. Intel builds are not validated yet.