There was a time when the internet felt different—when it wasn’t a maze
of dark patterns designed to manipulate your attention, when software
was built for the user, not for the highest bidder. Back then, a browser
was simply a tool, a window to the world, not a marketplace disguised as
an app.
Somewhere along the way, that changed.
Today, browsers are riddled with engagement traps. They
track you, sell your data, shove crypto schemes in your face, and call
it ‘innovation.’ But real innovation isn’t about bloated AI assistants
or endless monetization tricks. Real innovation makes life simpler, not
more exhausting.
I built Zen because I believe the browser should serve you. It should be
fast, transparent, and private by design—not as a checkbox feature, but
as a philosophy. It should get out of your way, so you can get in, do
what you need to do, and step away from the screen without feeling
drained.
I’m not a corporation. I don’t have a marketing team
crafting sleek slogans, nor a boardroom plotting engagement metrics. I’m
just a developer who saw what was wrong and decided to fix it. Zen isn’t
about gimmicks. It’s about respect—for your time, your privacy, and your
right to a better web.
It won’t be perfect, and I won’t
pretend to have all the answers. But with the help of a passionate
community, I know we can build something that matters. A browser that
doesn’t fight against you, but works with you.
There was a browser that kind of did this — Arc.
For a while, it felt like a breath of fresh air: a browser that
challenged conventions, that cared about design, that aimed to make
browsing feel intentional rather than chaotic. It rethought the
interface, introduced thoughtful features, and for a moment, it seemed
like someone finally got it.
But then, things changed.
The Browser Company, Arc's VC-backed creators, became ambitious, and they decided that their loyal user-base still fell short of their goals to compete with the big names like Chrome, right from the start. Thus, they announced that Arc was "good enough" and went off to work on a new AI-powered browser.
Yet, it wasn't. The Windows version was a shadow of what was promised—slow, unstable, missing core features. The MacOS version was in a better state, but performance and stability gradually degraded with every update. What started as a vision for a better browser quickly became yet another company chasing after monetization, pivoting to AI gimmicks and engagement loops instead of refining the core experience. Thus, Arc was finished, before it had even reached its real potential.
I won’t pretend Arc didn’t inspire me. It did. There’s a lot to admire
in its design philosophy, in its willingness to rethink how we interact
with the web. But inspiration isn’t imitation. I’m taking the
good—thoughtful UX, a clean interface, a focus on user control—and
cutting out the bad. No forced online accounts. No feature bloat
disguised as innovation. No chasing trends just to stay relevant.
Zen
isn’t about maximizing engagement. It’s about minimizing friction. It’s
about building a browser that works with you, not on you. And beyond
that, I’m exploring my own ideas—rethinking not just how a browser
looks, but how it feels to use. How it fits into your life without
demanding more of your attention than necessary. While it's still in
early development, I'm excited to share it with you, and to hear your
thoughts on how we can make it better together.
The internet deserves better.
So do you.