[HN Gopher] Orion is a new WebKit-based browser for Mac
___________________________________________________________________
Orion is a new WebKit-based browser for Mac
Author : mpweiher
Score : 204 points
Date : 2021-10-08 13:28 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (browser.kagi.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (browser.kagi.com)
| solarkraft wrote:
| I've been using it for a few months and i'd day it's _almost_
| ready for public consumption.
|
| It's essentially a better Safari, but (and this is what makes it
| the ONLY alternative to Firefox) with tree style tabs.
|
| Progress has been rapid and the interaction with the dev(s) has
| been great. I see a bright future ahead for this browser.
| KitDuncan wrote:
| Have you tried the iOS app as well? Interested to hear your
| experience with it.
| solarkraft wrote:
| I have (semi-daily) and would say it's somewhat close to
| being day to day usable. They recently added Safari-style
| back and forth gestures and you can choose to arrange your
| tabs vertically (though not in a tree).
|
| The main thing preventing daily driving is that it's not in
| the App Store yet, leading to it not being selectable as a
| default browser. I also experience occasional crashes with
| hundreds of tabs open.
| wil421 wrote:
| What benefits does this give me over Safari or Firefox? Not
| really an Adblock or extension user. The websites I frequent
| don't have invasive ads and the one's that do get put into reader
| view, even if it means losing part of the content or weird
| picture placement. If you have invasive ads I'm not coming back.
| freediver wrote:
| Hi there (founder here)
|
| Both Safari and Firefox are rock solid browsers with excellent
| heritage. Just being put in the same basket as them for
| consideration is very flattering for us to begin with.
|
| If you care about browser speed, then Orion is faster than
| Safari in almost all benchmarks (and Safari was already fastest
| browser on Mac to begin with).
|
| We have a section about this in our FAQ if you are interested:
| https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html#safari
| rising-sky wrote:
| I guess you're not the target consumer, so none. The main
| selling points are privacy ("like no other") and cross-platform
| extensions, which don't matter to you
| wil421 wrote:
| How does Safari not have privacy features? Or Firefox? Apple
| has very publicly been trying to block tracking on its
| platforms and has the resources that are comparable to nation
| states. The also publicly fought the FBI and, if the blogs
| are true, severely hindered FaceBooks tracking.
|
| Kagi is bootstrapped by a somewhat unknown founder presumably
| in Serbia or from Serbia. Serbia has not always been a friend
| of the West/US and the government can compel people to do
| things that are not privacy friendly. I mean no offense by
| this statement and I have spent time in Serbia. My ears do
| perk up when I hear Serbia/Balkans or Eastern Europe related
| to privacy.
| Applejinx wrote:
| So is that actually Kagi again, or did some founder buy out
| the name and .com as one of the assets in the bankruptcy?
| wil421 wrote:
| I went to the about page on Kagi.com and read. Did a
| quick google search but the name is common.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| He lives in the US and isn't exactly 'unknown' considering
| his company was aquired by godaddy and he worked as their
| VP of product during acquisition.
|
| I do not understand what being serbian has to do with
| anything.
| Dingus25 wrote:
| I just got added to the Orion beta last night, and have been
| using Kagi for a while now. Both seem remarkably polished for
| beta products, but still have their own quirks and rough spots.
| In my experience I've mentioned a couple things that I'd like to
| have, and the team was super quick to get them acknowledged and
| implemented. It's going to come down to how the team chooses to
| monetize these for me, but I'd be more than happy to subscribe if
| it means I'm giving less to Google.
| gls2ro wrote:
| If possible (a.k.a if Apple allows this) please integrate
| Keychain with this browser.
|
| I am not sure if there are many people like me, but I am using
| Keychain and it is the reason why I default to Safari and using
| any other browser it takes effort that I am doing, but I really
| wish Keychain could be integrated in other browsers too.
|
| LE: It seems they already support this as stated in their
| FAQ/"How does Orion store my passwords?"
| VOBOSHI wrote:
| The FAQ mentions that this is possible / done with the latest
| Safari.
| gls2ro wrote:
| Yes, thank you for that.
|
| Found it here: https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html
|
| > Orion uses native macOS Keychain integration, same as
| Safari.
|
| GG, I applied to be a beta-user. Let's see!
| specialist wrote:
| Ditto Firefox. I'd use it a lot more. Right now, only for
| YouTube.
|
| Also, I hope Orion has hooks needed for uBlock. (Preparse
| hook?)
|
| For whatever reason, Safari + 1Blocker doesn't filter YouTube's
| ads.
|
| I'll use fulltime which ever browser that has both keychain and
| blocks youtube ads.
| NmAmDa wrote:
| When you open the browser website you find in the middle
| photo of HN on orion with uBlock as the only extension (as
| illustration of extensions support.
| perardi wrote:
| A bit of a tangent, but not that much:
|
| I loathe the new Safari "tabs", with as much scare as you can get
| in those scare quotes. But, I still can't leave Safari be, as I
| appreciate the history and Keychain sync with my iOS devices.
|
| It's that tight macOS/iOS integration that makes me stay on
| Safari, along with the relatively lighter energy usage versus
| Chrome. This looks nice in terms of using native UIKit elements
| _(probably, it's just screenshots)_ and probably the system
| WebKit, but I would really miss password syncing.
|
| _(Yes, I know, there are innumerable password sync options, but
| Keychain sync really does "just work" between iOS and Mac.)_
| imbnwa wrote:
| Orion has Keychain sync (won't re-use your Safari keychain
| items obviously) and you can use Sign in with Apple
| rado wrote:
| Yes, but the UI is not the worst new Safari feature:
| performance is severely degraded too.
| musha68k wrote:
| Long term Safari fan here. The new tabs have terrible UX but
| what's worse is stability. Whoever is "at fault" there - don't
| try to use jira with the latest Safari as it _will_ crash
| eventually.
| handrous wrote:
| Yep. I'm seeing weird bugs with e.g. middle-click-to-open-
| link-in-new-tab doing what it should--but then replacing it
| with the blank-tab content a quarter second after I switch to
| the new tab.
|
| I'm not used to Safari being buggy. It's part of why I've
| stuck with it for years.
|
| I'm actually kind of loving the tab groups--it's a little
| weird to me that we have that _and_ the concept of a window,
| still, and the two are separate, but whatever--but the tab UI
| itself is really, really bad.
| selectodude wrote:
| It's successfully pushed me to Firefox. I love safari and how
| gentle it is on the battery but I'd rather have 6 hours of
| functional browsing than 10 hours of dealing with Safari's
| nonsense.
| krrrh wrote:
| This can import your passwords from Safari 15 and then can sync
| with Kagi for iOS which is a bit of a help.
|
| For me the biggest loss would be Apple Pay, and "Sign in with
| Apple" which is incredibly useful for signing up to services
| while maintaining some level of privacy.
| imbnwa wrote:
| Beta tester here, "Sign in with Apple" works in Orion
| sleepybrett wrote:
| I haven't looked, but is there something stopping other
| browsers (say firefox) from integrating with keychain on the
| mac side other than maintainability/pride/whatever?
| vosper wrote:
| > Keychain sync really does "just work" between iOS and Mac
|
| FWIW so does Lastpass, in my experience :)
| jonplackett wrote:
| Here you go, someone 'fixed' the tab highlighting for you, and
| for only $2!
|
| https://apps.apple.com/app/activetab/id1588852241?mt=12
|
| (via John Gruber: "I don't know whether to laugh or cry")
| [deleted]
| zoul wrote:
| The new Safari tabs are so bad that I'm sure they can't stay
| that way for long. I was hoping I would get used to the broken
| active tab highlighting, but after a few days I'm still
| clicking the wrong tabs in the tab bar. I can't believe it.
| krrrh wrote:
| The compact layout may not be for everyone, but it plus
| turning on show full url in address bar, makes it obvious
| which tab is active.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| With the tradeoff of not showing you the title of the
| active tab, if I'm remembering correctly?
|
| I tried it for a bit before that annoyed me into switching
| to the taller layout, which is a visual downgrade from the
| previous design but at least has the same information
| visible.
| saagarjha wrote:
| On iOS, Kagi is UIKit/SwiftUI and uses the system WebKit, yes.
| On macOS it's AppKit and ships a mildly forked WebKit to better
| support web extensions.
| akrymski wrote:
| I hated them at first, forced myself to live with them and now
| I love them. So much more vertical space on the screen.
| Tagbert wrote:
| I think it depends on how may tabs you have at once. If you
| only have a handful of tabs, then compact mode works and
| gives you a small amount of extra vertical room. If you have
| more tabs though, they quickly get squeezed too much to be
| useful. Then it is horizontal space that becomes a premium. I
| prefer having the tabs and the address bar on separate lines
| to give the tabs their space and to give the address bar and
| the other icons in that are enough room to be useful. The
| idea that the content should be dominant is fine but I'm also
| using the browser features to interact with that content and
| don't want to sacrifice the browser functionality.
|
| The styling of the tabs as buttons and the reversed
| highlighting of the current tab are just broken UI for no
| apparent benefit other than someone thought it looked cool.
| (It doesn't really).
| wodenokoto wrote:
| What do you use for Adblock?
|
| I prefer FF due to ublock and better floating videos / Picture
| in Picture
| phrz wrote:
| I use 1Blocker, a very mature ad blocking tool that just
| added JS-based blocking rules, and StopTheMadness is a
| popular tool for tweaking websites e.g. forcing videos up
| front, stopping auto play, and showing their controls. This
| allows macOS native PiP on most websites that don't usually
| support it.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| How well does its autofill integrate with Keychain Services? I
| think that might be the only compelling reason to use Safari,
| that and maybe iCloud tabs.
| solarkraft wrote:
| I use a separate password manager (the plug-in is perfectly
| compatible, by the way), but it seems on par with Safari to me.
| imbnwa wrote:
| It has writes its own items in Keychain. You can't just pop it
| open and re-use your Safari Keychain items but you _can_ import
| them into Orion.
| feep wrote:
| Sign me up.
|
| The performance charts & graphs look nice. And (from Safari) I am
| excited to see what WebKit can do with extensions and other power
| features.
|
| And, iPhone version.
|
| Also:
|
| 1. The search engine (https://kagi.com/) is super cute (don't
| have a login to try it).
|
| 2. Apparently this is what happened to the kagi.com (shareware
| payment) domain. Nice.
| icodestuff wrote:
| I was wondering if it was the same Kagi. Guess not.
| freediver wrote:
| Hey everyone,
|
| I am the founder behind Orion, bootstrapping the project. Started
| working on it three years ago with a small team just to see if it
| would be possible to build something like this from scratch and
| we just kept going. Orion is today a daily browser for a few
| dozen beta-testers and it warms my heart to see that we got that
| far considering the competition.
|
| Few questions about Orion answered that I see pop put in the
| comments:
|
| - Orion uses native Keychain integration for passwords and will
| use iCloud Sync to sync between devices. We have full import from
| Safari, including passwords [1]
|
| - Orion uses a slightly modified WebKit which allows us to run
| Chrome/Firefox extension support layer on top of it (about 70% of
| all extensions currently work in Orion - including uBlock
| Origin). We are planning to complete the support in the upcoming
| months.
|
| - Orion is currently trying to get to the feature parity of the
| reference browser (Safari).
|
| - Orion features developer tools from Safari with a few extra
| ones like the Error indicator in the address bar [2] We just
| started with this, expect many useful additions in the future.
|
| - Orion is designed as a zero-telemetry browser.
|
| - Orion iOS also features a number of useful innovations like the
| Data saver mode [3] and multiline URL edit [4]
|
| - The business model for Orion is to have a Pro version for those
| who want to support its development.
|
| I was the founder of ManageWP [5] which got acquired by GoDaddy
| in 2016. Moved from Belgrade, Serbia to SF Bay Area as part of
| the acquisition. Spent a couple of years there as VP of Product
| and then decided I want to build Orion and Kagi (privacy-
| respecting alternative to Google search), because one ambitious
| project was not enough :) Main reason for this is the concern for
| the future of the internet and the web my children will grow into
| using.
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/vladquant/status/1431290547877007363
|
| [2] https://twitter.com/vladquant/status/1445301620187693056
|
| [3] https://twitter.com/vladquant/status/1429588837391507458
|
| [4] https://twitter.com/vladquant/status/1441511763631960074
|
| [5] https://managewp.com
| lemming wrote:
| This looks like a very interesting project! Do you have plans
| to support anything like Firefox Containers? They're a really
| fantastic feature for the privacy-conscious.
| freediver wrote:
| Yes, on our roadmap. Trying to solve for UX and reduce
| complexity.
|
| Imagine a menu:
|
| Open in New Tab
|
| Open in New Private Tab
|
| Open in New Container
|
| Open in New Window
|
| Open in New Private Window
|
| Open in New Container Window
|
| + Tab groups! Oh my...
|
| It is a bit too much, needs to be simplified.
| sylvinus wrote:
| Congrats for the project! Love the simple UI and extensions
| support.
|
| Don't you fear being held back by WebKit, which is notoriously
| slow to implement new web platform features? Can you give some
| insights on how you chose the engine?
|
| Thanks!
| freediver wrote:
| Thank you!
|
| To answer the question, we need to go a step back and answer
| how did we chose the platform first. The decision to go with
| macOS first was made in 2018 for the simple reason that we
| thought macOS has a bright future as a consumer OS. This was
| pre-M1 so we are glad to see macOS adoption grow!
|
| Once we settled on macOS, WebKit was a natural choice as it
| is the web rendering engine supported by the OS manufacturer.
| This would enable us to have best performance and OS
| integration features. The drawback was lack of any browser
| app frameworks so we basically had to write the browser app
| from scratch.
|
| I am not that worried about WebKit's slow(er) pace of web
| platform feature adoption (although I'd love to see something
| like AVIF support etc.) partly because I know that these
| decisions are carefully weighted for their impact (what is
| the right level of hardware/browser/web separation for
| example). In the future, if Orion becomes success, we hope to
| be able to have full time contributors to help accelerate its
| development.
| Shadonototra wrote:
| Closed source?
|
| What kind of data they'll suck in order to monetize the browser?
| threatofrain wrote:
| Will this support Apple's new Private Relay, which is akin to
| TOR-lite for grandma?
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| I stumble on this few days back and I felt good about it. I'm
| now a grandma-in-training.
| znpy wrote:
| <<Orion is _a_ new WebKit-based browser for Mac>> -- FTFY
| airstrike wrote:
| +1... Title is misleading / clickbaity
| remram wrote:
| From the title I thought this was an official Apple project.
| This is just a product from a random developer.
| [deleted]
| pier25 wrote:
| Is there any crossplatform WebKit browser?
| freediver wrote:
| Not any more to my knowledge. But if Orion becomes a success
| there might be one! (founder here)
|
| Current situation is - WebKit works great on Linux so that is
| not a problem. We've built WebKit on Windows too and while it
| works, it's not great. We are talking few developer-years of
| effort there (performance is main issue).
| pier25 wrote:
| Why does WebKit perform poorly on Windows?
| freediver wrote:
| I do not know, but in Windows tests it performed about 30%
| worse than Blink (Chromium).
| saagarjha wrote:
| AFAIK the only major contributor to it is Sony.
| Febra33 wrote:
| I still can't get over the fact that Orion is the name of a sex
| store chain where I am from.
| pavlov wrote:
| Anybody else remember the original Kagi.com? It was an early
| payment processor for independent software developers.
|
| I sold my first shareware license on Kagi. Probably less than ten
| people in total bought my screensaver, but it inspired me to
| switch careers to software.
|
| RIP OG Kagi!
| rgovostes wrote:
| I was wondering if it was related. Wonder if reusing
| established domains like this is beneficial for search result
| rankings.
|
| https://www.macrumors.com/2016/08/01/kagi-shuts-down/
| Applejinx wrote:
| Huh, I lost a few hundred bucks out of the collapse, bankruptcy
| and dissolution of OG Kagi. Before then, that was what
| Airwindows used for a payment processor, for years.
|
| Them going bust was the impetus for me moving to Patreon and
| fully open source. I've been talking about Kagi in the past
| tense for years. Now that's a name I've not heard in a long
| time...
| eddieh wrote:
| Yes! I remember a bunch of shareware developers I respected
| used it. I chose to use eSellerate, because the fees were
| lower.
| tecleandor wrote:
| Oh my, I probably have both Kagi and eSellerate emails in my
| old archive.
| [deleted]
| tnorthcutt wrote:
| I don't see any mention of developer tools, but in case anyone
| working on this is here, that's something that would probably be
| interesting to the HN crowd. Since the home page has a screenshot
| of HN, I'm guessing devs are the target market.
| traveler01 wrote:
| In my experience most browsers based on these major engines,
| like Vivaldi, Edge or whatever have broken dev tools.
|
| You'd be better using Safari for that imo.
| jefftk wrote:
| Edge's devtools seem to work very well to me -- what have you
| run into?
| solarkraft wrote:
| It has 'em (as seen in Safari). You can put the inspector
| button in your header bar through the customization menu and I
| think they're pretty good.
|
| One thing to note is that even with caching disabled in the dev
| tools it caches aggressively, which is why I don't usually use
| it for development. But that's why it's a beta :-)
| saagarjha wrote:
| As a WebKit web browser, Orion ships with the same Web
| Inspector. You can disable resource caching from the
| "Network" tab, by clicking on the cylinder-looking icon in
| the right (it'll tell you that it disables caching if you
| hover over it.)
| herodotus wrote:
| The sales pitch for this browser is really well done. What is
| lacking is information about who made this, and why we should
| trust their claims. Seems important too me if privacy is the main
| selling feature.
| dmitriid wrote:
| "Kagi - Better Web for our Children"
|
| Well... It's a pass from me. Anything claiming something is
| "think of the children" is at best facetious.
| solarkraft wrote:
| I was also thrown off by this line, but I interpret it as
| intending to improve the internet not through censorship, but
| promoting freedom (a long way into the future).
| tablespoon wrote:
| > "Kagi - Better Web for our Children"
|
| > Well... It's a pass from me. Anything claiming something is
| "think of the children" is at best facetious.
|
| That's taking it too far. It's _really good_ to "think of
| the children," it's just that we have to be mindful of when
| that's used as a _smokescreen_ to distract from a particular
| policy 's highly objectionable consequences. That kind of
| expression also has multiple senses (e.g. "children are
| vulnerable and must be protected" and "we should build a
| better future for our children to enjoy"). The people behind
| this browser may not have English as a first language, so
| they may not be able to precisely tailor their language to
| English very online sensibilities.
| freediver wrote:
| Thanks, yes, that was the intent - and I realize it did not
| turn out to sound in the best way.
|
| I thought we'll have time to figure it out before we launch
| but it did end up getting featured on HN unexpectedly.
|
| The core of the idea is a 'more humane web' and we will be
| adjusting the messaging accordingly in the future.
| krrrh wrote:
| It seems a lot closer to "Wu-Tang is for the children!" The
| project is very pro-privacy.
| jcoder wrote:
| To be fair, the about page says _who_ made it
| https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html#about
| tnorthcutt wrote:
| The about section says:
|
| > Orion is created by [Vladimir Prelovac][0], a tech
| entrepreneur with a track record of executing ambitious ideas
| that go beyond conventional wisdom. Orion was created in 2019,
| is bootstrapped by the founder and is being built by a world-
| wide passionate team.
|
| > We are also building a privacy-respecting alternative to
| Google search, currently in private beta.
|
| > If you'd like to know more or get involved, please feel
| welcome to reach out to vprelovac@kagi.com.
|
| [0]: https://vladimir.prelovac.com/
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Orion is created by [Vladimir Prelovac][0], a tech
| entrepreneur with a track record of executing ambitious ideas
| that go beyond conventional wisdom. Orion was created in
| 2019, is bootstrapped by the founder and is being built by a
| world-wide passionate team.
|
| I have nothing against that guy, but it'd be nice to have
| more than a promotional self-description. Does he have a good
| individual reputation (e.g like Raymond Hill)?
| dymk wrote:
| I've never heard of Raymond Hill, so I think it wouldn't
| make much of a difference
| linux2647 wrote:
| Raymond Hill created the uBlock ad blocker, and now
| maintains uBlock Origin (https://github.com/gorhill)
| jasonlotito wrote:
| Why is Raymond Hill not working on uBlock anymore? Why is
| there uBlock and uBlock Origin?
| saagarjha wrote:
| He stopped working on it and gave it away to someone
| else, who promptly used it to raise "donations". This led
| him to decide to fork back the project under the name
| "uBlock Origin".
| linux2647 wrote:
| Here's a short summary of what went down with links for
| more info: https://www.reddit.com/r/ublock/comments/32mos
| 6/ublock_vs_ub...
| jasonlotito wrote:
| > it'd be nice to have more than a promotional self-
| description
|
| Literally linked in the description provided to you:
| https://vladimir.prelovac.com
|
| This is being spoonfed information.
|
| > Does he have a good individual reputation (e.g like
| Raymond Hill)?
|
| Better.
| [deleted]
| smoldesu wrote:
| I wonder what exactly has changed since the last time this was on
| Hacker News. There's a plethora of Webkit-derivatives to choose
| from, I don't see why I should choose the one that won't let me
| _also_ install it on my other devices.
| hirako2000 wrote:
| A comparison with Brave would be most welcome.
| StevePerkins wrote:
| Pros:
|
| * Supports both Chrome and Firefox extensions, vs. Brave
| supporting Chrome only.
|
| * Not so much with the skeezy crypto emphasis.
|
| Cons:
|
| * Brave has a multi-year head start, and has worked all the
| kinks out. Sync works, etc.
|
| * This is Apple-only. Brave works on every major device.
|
| I won't be leaving Brave anytime soon. But competition is a
| good thing, and this beta is worth keeping an eye on.
| askonomm wrote:
| Saying that a purposely Apple-only product has a con that it
| is Apple-only is like saying a vanilla ice cream has a con
| that it is not chocolate.
| zdragnar wrote:
| When the ask is to compare it with Brave, noting that it is
| an Apple-only product is indeed a con against Orion.
| tpowell wrote:
| I've (M1/16GB MBA) got my usual 40+ tabs open and Brave is
| only using 536MB of memory. It's rock solid. I use
| G-Suite/Workplace and everything has been buttery smooth
| since I turned off Brave's crypto/BAT notifications. I agree
| that keychain is the only reason I still use Safari for some
| things (and perfect sync with iPhone), but I lean more on
| 1Password these days.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Are you sure you're not just looking at the main process?
| hunterb123 wrote:
| I count Brave's emphasis on crypto as a pro and necessary for
| our hopefully one day ad-less future.
|
| If you block ads without allowing the ability to donate a
| token you are effectively stealing from site owners and
| causing the rise of paywalls and other restrictions on the
| internet.
| StevePerkins wrote:
| Putting aside legitimate qualms about Brave's ad blocking
| business model, "skeezy" refers to Brave themselves showing
| me by default multiple home screen ads for various crypto
| wallet and NFT brokers. Opinions vary wildly on HN, but for
| me that entire scene is kissing cousins with MLM.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| Yeah affiliates is how they make money. You can hide all
| that stuff, but it's a good way to support them if you
| buy crypto often.
|
| Beats being the product using Google, or having a product
| fall behind like Mozilla because you had to fire all of
| your engineers.
| Ransid wrote:
| "If you block ads without allowing the ability to donate a
| token you are effectively stealing from site owners and
| causing the rise of paywalls and other restrictions on the
| internet."
|
| No
| hunterb123 wrote:
| Great rebuttal buddy.
|
| Sites costs money, users need a way to pay site owners.
| jmnicolas wrote:
| > you are effectively stealing from site owners
|
| This is "you wouldn't download a car" level argument.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| Maybe I could have phrased it better, but the point is
| site resources cost money.
|
| If no one is viewing the site, it probably doesn't cost
| anything.
|
| Once people start using the site, it starts costing
| resources to run it.
|
| Currently, there's two ways to pay for those resources,
| ads or subscriptions.
|
| BAT allows you to easily take tips and continue the
| service for free that people expect, without ads.
| webmobdev wrote:
| I'd use this if you can remove all the Apple crap features:
|
| - All the crap of AI / machine learning to prevent cross-site
| tracking that's useless to me in "Private Browsing" mode - just
| give me back control over cookies (manually and through third-
| party extensions), and keep Apple away from my data.
|
| - Remove the crap _" Web Advertising: Allow privacy-preserving
| measurement of ad effectiveness"_ code from webkit. Keep
| advertisers, and Apple's online advertising networks, away from
| my data.
|
| So just as there are many Chrome clones that advertise they've
| removed all Google spying code from it, please offer a Webskit
| browser without Apple's crap baked into it. If possible also
| reverse the changes Apple made to Webkit that actually slightly
| cripples adblockers, like uBlock, from working effectively on it.
| ezfe wrote:
| Do you understand what "Web Advertising" checkbox _does_? Like,
| I 'm curious if you've actually read how it works.
|
| And I assume you're aware that "all the crap of AI / ML" is
| disable-able with a checkbox right?
| webmobdev wrote:
| > And I assume you're aware that "all the crap of AI / ML" is
| disable-able with a checkbox right?
|
| Yeah, just like how "opting out" of Telemetry in Firefox &
| Windows truly means Firefox (
| https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/mozilla-does-
| not-... ) & Windows ( https://old.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comm
| ents/o9zswt/disabling... ) honour them. Or like iPhones
| _never_ send location data to Apple when you turn it off ( ht
| tps://www.gsmarena.com/iphone_11_pro_devices_collect_locat...
| ). /s
|
| If I am searching for a _privacy_ first alternative to Apple
| Safari, it should be obvious that it is because I don 't
| trust Apple.
| duskwuff wrote:
| > All the crap of AI / machine learning to prevent cross-site
| tracking that's useless to me in "Private Browsing" mode
|
| Private Browsing, on its own, can only limit the scope of
| cross-site tracking to a single Private Browsing session. It
| does not prevent cross-site tracking within that session. (For
| example, if you visit two web sites within a Private Browsing
| session which both use Facebook widgets, Facebook may be able
| to correlate your activity across those sites.)
| saagarjha wrote:
| WebKit's ITP is works entirely on-device. And Orion supports
| uBlock (via the WebExtensions API) if you happen to trust that
| more than content blocking.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| For someone so enthusiastic in their dislike you sure as hell
| haven't looked very hard at how to turn those off :)
| webmobdev wrote:
| Actually I don't even bother using Safari at all because of
| crap like this. Should have been obvious that if i am looking
| for a _privacy_ first alternative to Apple Safari, it is
| because I don 't trust Apple.
| freediver wrote:
| > changes Apple made to Webkit that actually slightly cripples
| adblockers, like uBlock, from working effectively on it
|
| We already did that, uBlock Origin works on top of WebKit in
| Orion.
|
| Also, Orion is zero-telemetry by default to address your other
| concern. Fire up a network proxy when using Orion and you will
| be welcomed with a wall of silence.
| shmoe wrote:
| I know if I was developing a browser, the solarwinds product that
| Russia hacked is where I'd turn for the name too :)
| janandonly wrote:
| Being able to use both chrome and firefox extensions and having
| an iOS and macOS app is wonderful :-)
| franga2000 wrote:
| Will those features transfer to iOS though? Last time I checked
| truly custom browsers are not allowed there and extensions
| could be easily interpreted as running downloaded third party
| code, which is also a common excuse for Apple to throw apps off
| the store.
| jaflo wrote:
| The FAQ says their iOS version does support extensions
| solarkraft wrote:
| Definitely not perfectly yet, but initial support is there
| for Chrome and Firefox extensions, though I also wonder how
| this will work with the app store policies.
| connor-brooks wrote:
| The one thing that is lacking from Safari is extensions. If this
| does what I believe then it will be my main browser. Safari
| adblocking sucks atm.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Strongly recommend ad blocking on the network level with
| something like a pihole, one of the best tech related things
| I've ever done
| cpmsmith wrote:
| It's true this is nice, but it's no replacement for a browser
| extension, and only does anything while you're at home.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| I haven't left my home in what feels like 1000 years
| jonwest wrote:
| Unless you're also automating a VPN connection to your home
| network when you leave it, which can be very helpful if
| you're running something like pihole
| [deleted]
| franga2000 wrote:
| Network-level blockers are very crude and tend to cause
| errors that are hard to debug and fix. I get it if you have
| no other option and they work well enough with a very
| conservative blocklist, but in my experience a dedicated
| extension will block more ads, block them better (no blank
| spots in pages), break legitimate content less often and when
| it does be far easier to temporarily bypass.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| I've tracked down the "legitimate content" a few times and
| these are usually trackers, just baked in so deeply they
| break the content too.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Sure but the point is a browser level adblockers can
| separate the tracker content from the legitimate content
| while a network level blocker can either block both or
| neither.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Yes, but I can't install browser ad blockers on gaming
| consoles, TVs, and whatever other appliances the internet
| of shit will produce.
| indianets wrote:
| Also other apps.
| cpuguy83 wrote:
| I've had pinhole straight up break real sites. Took me a bit
| to figure out it was pihole and not some browser extension.
| maxmcd wrote:
| So many large sites have started serving ads through the
| hostnames that serve their applications. It feels like a
| losing battle to keep only blocking at the DNS level.
| qsort wrote:
| I have been happy so far with Adguard. It's not ublock origin
| but it will do the job.
| drcongo wrote:
| Safari has extensions. Apple has just made them incredibly
| difficult to find by burying them in the Mac App Store.
| ezfe wrote:
| I use Wipr for Mac and it blocks all ads I've seen in Safari,
| including YouTube ads
| imbnwa wrote:
| Am a beta tester, Orion has growing support for WebExtensions
| API. You can run uBlock Origin and Dark Reader right now, for
| example.
| dubya wrote:
| The adblocker Wipr has recently added something beyond the
| Content Blocker API with Wipr Extra. I only found it because I
| had forgotten to switch to AdGuard on my office Mac, and Wipr
| Extra showed up in an update. Lots of restrictions and caveats
| though about what it can and can't do. Some details at
|
| https://giorgiocalderolla.com/wipr-faq.html#what-is-wipr-ext...
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| I'm on Safari, with the occasional testing and account
| segregations with Chrome. The combination of AdGuard[1] (found
| via SetApp[2]) and NextDNS[3] works for me well on Safari.
|
| 1. https://adguard.com
|
| 2. https://setapp.com
|
| 3. https://nextdns.io
| ezfe wrote:
| I use Wipr and nothing else and don't see ads in Safari
| drcongo wrote:
| I use the AdGuard extension too, with a Raspberry Pi running
| AdGuard Home which in turn uses NextDNS. I highly recommend
| every part of this setup, it's maintenance free, extremely
| reliable and I can't remember the last time an ad or tracker
| got through it.
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