Launching today
Zigzag Browser
The polished, native Mac browser for life after Arc
95 followers
The polished, native Mac browser for life after Arc
95 followers
A native Mac browser for people leaving Arc, with the sidebar and spaces you're used to. Built on WebKit, not Chromium, and that's the point: the whole app is 18 MB (Arc is 871). Switching takes a minute. One import brings over everything, so you're already logged in. Colored spaces you swipe between, split view, peek, Chrome extensions like 1Password and Tampermonkey, and ad blocking built-in Open source, no account, no AI. Nobody can shut it down.
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Hey Product Hunt 👋
I'm Zigao, a high school student in Shanghai. I used Arc every day, and when it went into maintenance mode, nothing else felt right: the alternatives were Chromium wrappers or missing what made Arc great. So I built my own.
Zigzag is a native Mac browser, written in Swift on the WebKit that ships with macOS. That's why it's only 18 MB (Arc is 871 MB on my Mac). No account, no telemetry, no server of mine it depends on, and it's fully open source (Apache 2.0), so nobody can ever switch your browser off.
What you get:
- Your tabs in a sidebar, grouped into colored spaces you swipe between
- Split view (drag a tab onto the page), Peek (shift-click a link), a command bar
- Import from Arc in one go: spaces, pinned tabs, folders, passwords, and even your sign-ins, so Google and GitHub are already logged in
- Chrome extensions from the Web Store: 1Password, Dark Reader, uBlock Origin Lite, Tampermonkey…
- Built-in ad blocking, YouTube included
- Just shipped: a full Simplified Chinese version
It's in beta and it's my daily browser. I'd love your feedback, especially the honest kind. What would make you switch?
Hey congrats on the launch l. I just wanted to ask if it’s possible to get it on an Intel Mac on 14.8.9
That’s how far my Mac can go and I’ve been looking for a lightweight browser that won’t be too tasking on my MacBook.
@nonsooo Thank you! Intel Macs are supported, the app runs natively on both Intel and Apple Silicon. The catch is the macOS version: Zigzag needs macOS 15.4 or later, because that's when Apple added the extension support it's built on. So on 14.8 it won't open, sorry. If your Mac ever gets 15.4 through something like OpenCore Legacy Patcher, it should run fine there, and it is pretty light since it uses the Safari engine already on your Mac.
Thats really bold of you to present here Arc alternative with dozens of clones out already. Especially with Nook, Search and a bunch of other WebKit altson the market.
I appreciate the move, very confident.
Is there any Roadmap published to keep an eye of the progress to become 100% Arc alternative? Or the goal is to became even better with some more features from Dia or your own?
@ruslan_mrsidze Ha, thanks. Fair point, there are a lot of them now. There's no formal public roadmap yet. Everything happens in the open on GitHub (issues and the changelog), and most of what ships comes straight from people's reports. Yesterday's comments here and on LINUX DO (a huge Chinese developer community) turned into fixes within hours. The goal isn't to be a 100% Arc clone. It's to keep the parts of Arc people actually miss, then do things Arc never did: tabs that tidy themselves, built-in ad blocking, a password manager that imports from any browser. I'll probably put a short roadmap up on GitHub soon since you're not the first to ask.
I recently moved from Arc to Zen. I'll give it a try if Zigzag can convince me to move away from Zen as well, because, being Firefox-based, Zen has some limitations with newer extensions that I'd unfortunately like to use. Let's see...
@harsxv Welcome, Harry! Ngl, I personally think Zen is not that bad, but here's why I think Zigzag is worth the switch:
It's a real Mac app. Zigzag is written natively in Swift on the WebKit engine already built into macOS, not a Firefox or Chromium fork. The download is 18 MB, it starts instantly, and it's easy on battery and memory, the way Safari is.
It feels like Arc. The sidebar, colored spaces you swipe between, split view, peek, the command bar and one-click Arc import, all polished down to the small details.
It moves fast. I fix what people report within a day, and today alone I shipped several updates from launch-day feedback.
Extensions come from the Chrome Web Store. 1Password, Bitwarden, uBlock Origin Lite, Tampermonkey and Violentmonkey all work. Tell me which ones you're missing in Zen and I'll check them first.
Give it a day and let me know what you think 🙏
@zigaowang Yep, Zigzag feels so lightweight and fast. Great!
How do you keep track of bug reports and user-reported issues? Do you monitor this Product Hunt thread, or should we report them through GitHub Issues?
Re: extensions, I rely on FoxyProxy for my daily work. It would also be a big plus if you could support ChatGPT and Claude extensions. Neither currently has an official Firefox-based extension, so support would definitely be a selling point for me.
@harsxv Thanks so much Harry, really glad it feels fast!
For bugs, GitHub Issues is the best place (github.com/ZigaoWang/zigzag/issues), since I can track everything and close it when it's fixed. You can also use Help › Report a Problem… right in the app, and I read this thread too, so anything here won't get lost.
On extensions, to be honest, FoxyProxy relies on Chrome's proxy API, which WebKit doesn't give extensions yet, so it can't switch proxies in Zigzag today. For now Zigzag follows your Mac's proxy settings. Proper support is on my list, and your vote moves it up.
ChatGPT and Claude's extensions are great picks. I'm testing both tonight, and I'll fix whatever they need and report back here. If there are other extensions you depend on, send me the list and I'll go through them first 🙏
@harsxv Following up: in 0.7.0, FoxyProxy works in its single-proxy mode, including proxies with a password and sites to skip. Its pattern and PAC modes don't work yet because WebKit has no way to run proxy scripts. ChatGPT search shows up as a search engine choice once you add it, and Zigzag asks before switching. Claude's extension still can't work because it needs Chrome's debugger API, which WebKit doesn't have.
Chrome extensions like Tampermonkey and 1Password on WebKit is the part of this Arc replacement that actually has to work.
@igorblink Exactly right, and it's where most of the work went. WebKit has its own extension support, but much of Chrome's API is missing, so Zigzag fills the gaps itself. Tampermonkey needed Chrome's userScripts API, which WebKit doesn't have, so Zigzag builds it on WebKit's content scripts. Your scripts run, even on strict sites like GitHub. 1Password talks to its Mac app through native messaging. If an extension you rely on misbehaves, tell me which one and I'll look at it. Thanks for checking it out!
I can’t wait to try it. I am crushed that Arc is sunsetting. I tried Dia and initially didn’t love it.
@rhenee_k_bartlett Same, Arc sunsetting is what got me building this. Import takes one click, so your spaces and pinned tabs come over as they are. Would love to hear how it feels once you try it!
Thank you all for trying Zigzag today, and for every comment and bug report. It's been a wild first day!
A fairly big update is already in the works: Bitwarden's inline autofill, Violentmonkey, a smarter Clear that only closes the tabs you've drifted away from, ⌘-number hints, much faster History search, and background tabs that sleep when they burn energy.
Heads up: I'm in China, so I'm on a different clock from most of you, and I have school and exams coming up. Replies might take a few hours instead of minutes, but please keep the feedback coming. I read every comment and I'll get to each one 🙏