alt Hacker NewsArc had a lot right.
The closest thing right now is Orion. It does the vertical tabs and the page modification in the same way. Webkit based.
It's made by the Kagi guys who I really agree with - bootstrapped and not VC backed. A sustainable business. And charging for a service instead of making your customers the product. That's real ethics to me.
Their browser is not open source, though, which is a major blow. But it would seem most browsers are not truly now, if you look into it.
The reason I switched was because it is the only browser that, on iOS, allows chrome/firefox plugins. I'm not even sure how they're doing this as I thought banning non-crippled plugins was part of the 'device is not mine' policy from Apple. But it's there. All my plugins. Including the ones I made myself.
I realize this sounds like an Ad. Not affiliated. I just think they're doing good stuff.
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Orion has no Windows, Linux, or Android versions though. So for many of us not a viable alternative to Arc.
I really like Orion, wish more people would give it a try as it is a very solid browser.
I like Orion too. No source but at least it’s zero telemetry
Orion is also great for iOS devices as you can't install a proper Firefox an them. For those that don't know, apple is being apple and Firefox is forced to use the WebKit engine on those devices so complete shite and no proper ad blocking.
Last time I checked Orion was the only decent solution with at least some ad block capabilities.
Orion? No, the closest thing to Arc in Zen. I don't believe that's up for debate -- nothing else has the same level of feature parity.