[HN Gopher] Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux
___________________________________________________________________
Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux
Author : HelloUsername
Score : 321 points
Date : 2026-01-09 12:54 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (help.kagi.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (help.kagi.com)
| sergiotapia wrote:
| Orion is their browser built with Webkit.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Lowkey I wish Perplexity would do this for Comet, idk why but I
| use the heck out of their browser on my Mac. I dont always use
| the "browser agent" stuff (lol!), and I dont use it for
| EVERYTHING, but you spend so much time looking things up, and
| sometimes its nice to just be able to highlight text on a page
| and go "yo ELI5 this for me pls I feel dumb" and it just does it.
| yellow_lead wrote:
| Curious why they would use webkit, I checked their FAQ, but
| couldn't find any answer.
| ericyan wrote:
| It also runs on iOS/iPadOS and Webkit is the only allowed
| engine on these platforms (outside Japan).
| jsheard wrote:
| You have to use the _system_ Webkit though, right? So even
| though Orion is based on Webkit they are still constrained
| compared to other platforms, where they can patch the engine
| if necessary.
| jlarocco wrote:
| That limitation is only on iOs, though.
| the_other wrote:
| Guessing: it's not Blink, but it's easier to work with than
| Firefox's engine. I know people fork FF, but I vaguely recall
| hearing the engine itself was harder to separate and integrate
| into other systems. I'm sure someone closer to the issues can
| correct me.
| al_borland wrote:
| I'm in favor of browsers going with anything that isn't
| Chromium, to slow Google's complete ownership of the browser.
| f311a wrote:
| Battery life and performance on MacOS
| mghackerlady wrote:
| chromium is the devil and I understand them not using it, and
| when Orion started development firefoxes engine wasn't really
| re-usable iirc. Plus it started life on MacOS
| troad wrote:
| Wild that I can't use Kagi in Safari on iOS, where my search
| options are _still_ locked down to three~four Apple-approved
| choices, of which at least one is just a multi-billion-dollar
| paid product placement.
|
| (Yes, I know about the extension that hijacks your searches to
| redirect them to Kagi, but how is that an acceptable state of
| affairs?)
| testfrequency wrote:
| Move to Japan?
| al_borland wrote:
| This upsets me as well. I've sent Apple feedback[0] about it, I
| suggest others do the same.
|
| I wanted to use Safari at work, but this proved too big of a
| barrier. I can't use the App Store at work, so no extensions. I
| was more willing to give up Safari than Kagi.
|
| [0] https://www.apple.com/feedback/safari/
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Just submitted feedback as well. This is honestly what's
| holding me back from buying a Kagi subscription at this
| point. Here is what I submitted:
|
| _I'm requesting that iOS Safari allow users to set any
| search engine as their default, rather than limiting choices
| to a pre-approved list. Currently, Safari only offers Google,
| Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, and Ecosia, preventing users from
| choosing legitimate alternatives like Kagi.
|
| While workarounds exist, they're cumbersome and don't provide
| a seamless experience. Please consider allowing users to add
| custom search engines as default options, similar to macOS
| Safari. This would enhance user choice without compromising
| security.
|
| Thank you for considering this feedback._
| trvr wrote:
| Don't let this hold you back. Use a mobile browser that
| lets you use Kagi; it's worth it.
| Zambyte wrote:
| Or even better, a computer that does things when told.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| If you can tell me what phone can give me access to all
| the standard apps I would need, has good build quality,
| doesn't funnel my data to Google, is backed by an entity
| capable of providing multi-year device support, has cloud
| storage integration that lets me keep my data securely
| offloaded from the phone's storage, can handle modern
| apps and websites as far as performance, has a very good
| camera, and has the equivalent of AppleCare such that
| if/when I shatter my screen I can replace it for $30, I
| am all ears.
| Zambyte wrote:
| I haven't found one. I don't carry a phone unless I have
| a specific reason (ie: gps). I use my desktop or tablet
| (Daylight Computer) with a voip service (jmp.chat) when I
| need to use a phone number, and I carry a Sony ZV-1 in my
| pocket for my camera.
| 76SlashDolphin wrote:
| I have a Pixel 8 running GrapheneOS and it does most of
| the above: - slightly lesser build quality than my iPhone
| 15 Pro but comparable - doesn't funnel data to Google
| unless you explicitly let it, you can circumvent a lot of
| the Google Play stuff by restricting permissions and
| using Aurora Store - is backed by, well, Google and the
| Graphene team porting over security updated. They have a
| fairly good track record by now. - can use any of the N
| backup services that already exist unlike the iPhone's
| silly restriction on background apps - don't notice
| performance differences between it and my iPhone 15 Pro
| in day to day use. If anything, biometrics are way faster
| on the Pixel since iOS 26 made FaceID slow as molasses
| for me - the default camera is pretty good (uses all the
| Pixel fancy processing hardware) but if it's not good
| enough you can just install the stock Google camera which
| works fine. You can turn off network access if you don't
| want it snooping. Photos are neck and neck with the
| iPhone but the iPhone is way better at videos, no Android
| phone has cracked that yet IMO. - Yeah, but no other
| brand can give you an AppleCare experience. Best option
| is phone insurance and just getting a new Pixel if that
| happens. Graphene can do full device backups via
| Seedvault and it's not that much more of a pain to
| restore compared to an iPhone backup. Granted, it's
| jankier but it's not impossible. The other issue is that
| Pixels are not a thing in a lot of countries, Apple
| really has the edge here but I'd take that risk over the
| UX shenanigans they pull nowadays with their latest
| updates (god is it awful)
| lostlogin wrote:
| Arm macs are very hard to walk away from.
|
| My dream is some of boot-to-Ubuntu setup, or even running
| it simultaneously.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| The problem is that I like how Safari works better than
| any other mobile browser I have used. Wish I didn't.
| presbyterian wrote:
| When was the last time you tried Orion on iOS? It's
| gotten noticeably better, and works as well as Safari for
| me these days.
| al_borland wrote:
| I tried it recently when the macOS version went to 1.0.
| Dealing with tabs felt more cumbersome than Safari and I
| ended up switching back. Safari is better at getting out
| of my why, which is probably why I always go back to it.
| This has been a pattern for a couple decades now.
| Eupolemos wrote:
| > This is honestly what's holding me back from buying a
| Kagi subscription at this point.
|
| I am pretty that is exactly the point for Apple.
| cornedor wrote:
| > This is honestly what's holding me back from buying a
| Kagi subscription at this point.
|
| The extension is working really well for me. You could
| always try it out with the free version to see if it works
| for you as well.
| comandillos wrote:
| Wild that my Huawei phone running Harmony OS allows to you
| customize the search engines in the default browser and iOS
| does not.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| My pixel phone running stock android lets me change the
| search engine in Chrome[0] as well. It's kind of crazy that
| Apple still locks this down.
|
| [0] Not on the home screen, but I'll take what I can get.
| skylurk wrote:
| IIRC all are product placement/ads. Listing requires paying
| Apple.
| duskdozer wrote:
| I was completely surprised as soon as I read your post that you
| couldn't add search engines on safari, and then I was
| completely unsurprised a moment later.
| fainpul wrote:
| Since search engines are queried with a URL with a parameter
| for the search term, browsers could simply allow "power users"
| to enter a custom URL. Voila -- support for every imaginable
| search engine and they can still make their billion dollar
| deals for providing default search engines. That's how Firefox
| does it.
| gumby271 wrote:
| I think thats how everyone but Apple does it.
| fainpul wrote:
| I just tested Brave. It's possible to set anything as the
| default search engine, but the UI hides it really well.
| They sure don't want you to find out. You have to add it as
| a _site search_ first (which is a different section), then
| you can make that "default", which moves it up to the
| search engines and makes it the default _search engine_.
|
| And sure enough, Safari on macOS seems to not allow it at
| all (needs extensions).
| hellcow wrote:
| It seems weird to run a closed-source browser on an open-source
| operating system when so many open alternatives exist--I
| certainly wouldn't do it, and I'm a Kagi customer.
|
| Does Kagi plan to open-source Orion on Linux?
| phoronixrly wrote:
| Even if it was open-source, I already have more than enough
| webkits on my Linux, I don't need another one.
| microtonal wrote:
| Aren't most browsers Blinks? (Yes, I know that Blink was
| forked from WebKit and WebKit was forked from KHTML.)
| mghackerlady wrote:
| Yeah. The only webkit browser on linux aside from orion is
| GNOMEs browser (which frankly kinda sucks, which is why I
| want orion open-sourced so that GNOME can take its work on
| webextentions when they become supported)
| BoredPositron wrote:
| Feels weird in what way?
| skylurk wrote:
| I also would like to try it, but won't touch it until it is
| open source.
| freedomben wrote:
| I hope freediver will shed some light on the open source plans,
| because that's a deal breaker for me too. I'm a long time
| paying customer and huge proponent (even evangelist) of Kagi,
| but a closed source browser is just too many steps backwards
| for me no matter who makes it.
|
| I get (though wouldn't necessarily agree with) keeping it
| closed while it's still in the works, but would like to know if
| the plan is to open source in the future or not.
| freediver wrote:
| Wish granted!
| freedomben wrote:
| Thank you! I'm obviously just one person, but I deeply
| appreciate your willingness to engage on HN, and your
| transparency and honesty about things (not just today, but
| also in the past). Makes me feel even better about being a
| paid Kagi subscriber.
| EbNar wrote:
| Just curious, but is this really a big deal? As a customer, you
| already trust Kagi enough to feed them your entire search
| history, so I guess you don't think they're bad actors. Thus,
| why you find problematic the (momentary?) "unopeness" of the
| browser? I'd gladly try it (I'm on Arch), even just out of
| curiosity (unlikely to make it my main, though).
|
| Jeez, downvoted for asking about context? People, calm down.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Requiring it to be open source is not just about trusting the
| publisher. There are a bunch of other possible reasons,
| including wanting to support open source as a counterbalance
| to proprietary software.
|
| For me, it's a big deal (although not a dealbreaker) for that
| reason. If I have the option of two different pieces of
| software, one being open source and the other proprietary,
| I'll choose the open source one every time unless there's
| something really exceptional about the proprietary one. But
| that's very rare.
|
| I was just trying to think of any proprietary software I use
| outside of work (where I don't have a choice) or games. There
| must be at least one, but I can't think of what it is.
| EbNar wrote:
| Understood. Obviously, all things being equal, I prefer
| (F)OSS too. Anyway, I'll probably play a bit with Orion, if
| possible.
| freediver wrote:
| Side thought: nobody's ever asked us to open source Kagi
| Search. Curious why the expectation differs.
| fwip wrote:
| Kagi Search runs on your computers, Orion runs on ours.
| EbNar wrote:
| Yup, I was about to comment on that as well, but didn't
| want my question to be interpreted as polemic.
| mistercheph wrote:
| Code you run on your machine outside of a browser sandbox
| vs content served by an HTTP endpoint to your machine.
| MobiusHorizons wrote:
| I am pretty sure the expectation would be different if
| Kagi search could be self hosted. Linux people have come
| to expect open source for code they run on their own
| machines. Historically closed source Linux software has
| run into a lot of problems with dependency version
| mismatches as libraries get updated through the
| distributions package manager.
| mossTechnician wrote:
| About half a year ago, I ran into an instance of a user
| who requested more openness[0] regarding the sources Kagi
| used - initially there was a list that was available, and
| then it was removed. I know it's not exactly the same,
| and it's been a long time since that request was made,
| but if you happen to read this, I second their request.
|
| Personally, I think it would be incredible if you open
| sourced your search engine. But like someone else said
| more eloquently, software runs on our computers. And to
| me, open-source software is table stakes when there are
| viable alternatives.
|
| https://kagifeedback.org/d/252-show-source-of-results/49
| mghackerlady wrote:
| I'm not the one running Kagi on my computer, and the
| expectations of software ran over a network are and
| should be different from software I run on my computer
| JohnFen wrote:
| Because Kagi Search is a service I subscribe to. A
| browser is a program I install. That difference means
| everything.
|
| But since I have your attention, I just want to add that
| I'm a huge fan of Kagi Search and it's well worth the
| money I spend for it. I love the work you guys are doing,
| and that love is the reason why I'm even thinking about
| using Orion. But they are two entirely different use
| cases.
| hellcow wrote:
| Please do that too!
|
| There aren't great open-source search engines, so I'm
| moving from one proprietary option to the next. But there
| are great, open-source browsers already, and I refuse to
| go backwards.
|
| If a good, open-source search engine _were_ available, I
| would leave Kagi for it.
| hobofan wrote:
| > As a customer, you already trust Kagi enough to feed them
| your entire search history, so I guess you don't think
| they're bad actors.
|
| Do I? I'm not going to post sensitive information into a
| search engine no matter who runs it.
|
| My search history ain't worth much. What the contents of e.g.
| my bank website are is.
| EbNar wrote:
| Fine. Thank you for the clarification.
| barbazoo wrote:
| There's still trusting Kagi that what's in the binary was
| built from the open source code right?
| pdpi wrote:
| I can build it myself and skip that step. Or, if the
| build process is reproducible, you can make trust less of
| an issue by having a small handful of independent people
| run their own builds and post their signatures. That way
| you need those people to all collude with Kagi to forge a
| bad build. This is how e.g. bitcoind binaries are
| handled.
| mistercheph wrote:
| With reproducible builds, and the way most people get
| packages, from their package manager: No.
| leephillips wrote:
| Google started as a company that seemed worthy of trust. The
| founders had ideals and followed them. Look what happened.
| Companies can turn evil surprisingly quickly. I'm also a Kagi
| customer, but I wouldn't use a closed-source browser either.
| globular-toast wrote:
| > Just curious, but is this really a big deal?
|
| Yes, it's a big deal. I've lived in the non-free software
| world before and struggled to get out. I'm not going back.
| hamdingers wrote:
| > you already trust Kagi enough to feed them your entire
| search history
|
| Not necessarily, Kagi provides a feature[1] that anonymizes
| all your searches. I set it up and haven't thought about it
| since.
|
| 1. https://help.kagi.com/kagi/privacy/privacy-pass.html
| t-writescode wrote:
| They give you a key and only if you have a higher tier
| account. The act of doing that requires that there is a
| step in the process where they know you're requesting a key
| and who you are. They could bind them in the backend if
| they wanted, before giving it to you.
|
| You're still trusting them. Not to mention they could round
| them all up by IP or browser fingerprinting.
|
| There is still some level of trust.
|
| _I_ happen to trust them enough for that; but it _is_
| still trust.
| dooglius wrote:
| I am not an expert in the underlying cryptography, but
| the claim is indeed that the cryptographic approach makes
| it impossible for them to link the key to the queries in
| the backend.
| t-writescode wrote:
| Sure! But there is a stage where they generate those keys
| for you and give them to you. You need to be logged in to
| get that page. That is trust there.
| mghackerlady wrote:
| Because free (as in the FSF definition) software should be a
| human right. We deserve to know how our tools work and be
| able to improve them and use them as we please. Free (as in
| freedom) software doesn't need to be monetarily free either.
| Make it so the purchase of orion comes with the binaries and
| a copy of the source code, or provide it on request. This has
| proved to be sustainable before, arguably the defacto
| standard for pixel art is (or was before a license change
| made it so you can't redistribute the source code) free
| software, despite costing money
| WD-42 wrote:
| Especially because WebKit's lineage goes all the way back to
| KHTML. It's nice to see KHTML come home to Linux but it does
| need to be open source.
| forgotpwd16 wrote:
| Come home? It never left it. Konqueror, the software where it
| all started, still is a core KDE app. WebKitGTK, arguably the
| most portable WebKit distribution and what Orion itself uses,
| has always been Linux-first.
| WD-42 wrote:
| I can't speak to whatever konqueror uses these days but
| webkitgtk is notoriously behind and difficult to work with.
| You can read posts from the Tauri devs questioning their
| entire approach on Linux due to it.
|
| I really hope Kagi contributes back upstream to improve the
| situation, it's needed.
|
| Edit: looks like konqueror uses qt web engine which is
| chromium. The irony of the KDE browser abandoning WebKit
| while the GNOME browser still tries to use it is too much.
| freediver wrote:
| Kagi founder here. Orion isn't open source yet primarily
| because we're a 5-person team that spent 6+ years building this
| and created significant IP doing so, and we're not in a
| position to defend our work against a well-funded company using
| it as a base (we care very much about the business model of the
| browser surviving). Restrictive licenses help in theory but
| enforcing them against a company with a larger legal budget
| doesn't.
|
| We also see limited upside from community contributions - the
| number of people who can meaningfully work on a WebKit browser
| is small (from our experience hiring), and most of them already
| work at Apple or Kagi. Meanwhile, managing an open source
| codebase of this size would add real strain to our small team.
|
| The plan is however to open source when Orion is self-
| sufficient (business model of Orion is you are the customer and
| can pay for it - like we used to pay for browsers 20 years ago
| before advertisers started paying for our browsing), meaning it
| can sustain its own development independent of Kagi Search. I
| want to take the opportunity to thank all people who supported
| the Orion browser vision [1]. We're not there yet but recent
| 1.0 launch and expanding to Linux are steps in that direction.
| And on Jan 1st this year we began development of Orion for
| Windows (HN exclusive yay!).
|
| I understand this is unsatisfying to people who want source
| access now. It's a tradeoff we've made deliberately, not
| something we're hiding behind.
|
| [1] https://kagi.com/stats?sub_stats=orion
| roody15 wrote:
| Thanks for responding. Orion on iOS with extensions has been
| outstanding.. looking forward to linux version.
| p_j_w wrote:
| Which extensions do you use? I was never able to get them
| to work. d reddit redirect, for example, never once
| redirected a reddit link to old reddit.
| roody15 wrote:
| The big one being ublock origin
| OGWhales wrote:
| My experience is that one doesn't actually work, though
| the built-in ad-blocking does work quite well.
| p_j_w wrote:
| Doesn't actually work:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46555554
| OGWhales wrote:
| I've found a few that work but many can be buggy or non-
| functional, just depends on the extension. The only one I
| use currently is called "Control Panel for Twitter",
| which seems to work pretty well.
| sharpshadow wrote:
| Enjoying Orion with uBlock on the iPhone, thanks for making
| it work!
| freediver wrote:
| uBO is not technically working on Orion for iOS. We do not
| have permissions to run certain web extension APIs on iOS
| needed for uBO feature set. The adblocking you witness is
| thanks to built in native adblocker in Orion.
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| Thanks for being so transparent about this. As a Kagi search
| user since the beta, I appreciate what you are doing. Good
| luck!
| SoKamil wrote:
| What is the UI SDK used for Windows version?
| grayhatter wrote:
| earlier in the thread I read nhe plan was to release the
| source "when it has merit" But that instantly left me with
| the feeling that the authors of the browser, and I have
| _very_ different opinions on what the word merit means. Such
| that they would be incompatible, and I 'd never want to use
| it. This is a decision that has lowered my opinion about
| exactly how much I can trust Kagi.
|
| > Kagi founder here. Orion isn't open source yet primarily
| because we're a 5-person team that spent 6+ years building
| this and created significant IP doing so,
|
| But it's possible I haven't considered some detail where I
| might agree it's reasonable. Can you describe or offer any
| insight into the "significant IP" that you need to protect
| and defend? What threats from a larger company are you
| primarily concerned about?
| mghackerlady wrote:
| The GPL has pretty good legal precedent, and so does the MPL
| in the browser space (though, Firefox has mozilla behind it
| so it gets the enforcement benefit). If the SFC wins its
| vizio case, would you look into freeing orion?
| Terretta wrote:
| We support Kagi across products. We believe alternate browser
| engines keep the web standard. We give more weight to that
| than to whether a particular browser's value add (on top of a
| double digit* but non-hegemonic engine) is open.
|
| We believe software and hardware creators have a right to
| choose their business model and let that model compete, as
| Kagi's is competing right here in this thread.
|
| * Having worked at mega banks etc., they do look at these
| numbers to decide whether to invest in standards support or
| slap on a "Requires IE" button.
| kuon wrote:
| I'm a kagi user, and as many have said, I will not use Orion
| until it is open sourced.
|
| I understand your position, but a web browser is so important
| a software that it must be open.
|
| I also think that you can still sell it even if it is open
| source.
|
| Also, you might be able to secure funding from governments
| that want to move away from closed source solutions.
|
| Anyway, still congratulation for v 1.0, and I hope it will go
| well.
| WD-42 wrote:
| Having access to the source is just one part of open source.
|
| The state of webkitgtk is a bit rough, as I'm sure you and
| your engineers have noticed. The other part of what open
| source means to people is that you contribute back to the
| open source code you used to build your business, lifting all
| boats in the process.
|
| What people certainly do not want to see is Kagi pull an
| Apple: utilize FOSS to the extent it helps you but return
| nothing but "thanks everyone but we got ours".
| Spivak wrote:
| I would ignore the haters, keeping Orion proprietary makes
| the most sense for being able to successfully charge for it
| as a commercial product. You can't sell an OSS product, only
| supporting services, as many many startups have realized and
| been forced to relicense to much anger within their
| respective communities.
|
| And when the market is going to be primarily technical people
| I don't think you can trust them/us with source-available
| either as hackers with a strong aversion to paying for
| software thinking themselves clever will make and distribute
| bootleg builds with the license checks removed. Then you'll
| have to spend your time finding and DMCAing them which will
| only make people mad. Best to avoid it entirely.
|
| I appreciate you/Kagi actually thinking about building a
| sustainable business in contrast to companies that open
| source their core competency and then fail to make money
| later.
|
| Source: happy paying customer and user of Orion.
| drdaeman wrote:
| > managing an open source codebase of this size would add
| real strain to our small team
|
| Can you please elaborate what do you mean when you say this?
| This is something I do not understand. How licensing terms
| affect your codebase management beyond setting things up so
| the code is available to users?
|
| Publishing something under a FLOSS license doesn't mean
| _anything_ except that you grant end-users certain rights
| (the four essential freedoms). The rest (like accepting
| patches or supporting external developers) is customary but
| by no means obligatory. You don't have a capacity for it -
| don't do it, easy. There are thousands of developers who do
| that - they just dump whatever they have under a nice license
| and that's it.
|
| Unless you're saying your legal department doesn't have
| capacity to handle licensing concerns, especially if you're
| using or potentially using non-FLOSS third party components.
| That I can totally understand, it could be pretty gnarly.
|
| Please don't be mistaken: Free Software is a purely legal
| matter of what you allow users to do with your work - _not_
| some operating principles or way of organizing processes.
|
| Note: All this said, I can understand that you may not want
| to grant some freedoms to the end users, particularly the
| freedom to redistribute copies, because this could affect
| your plans of selling the licenses. But that'd be a whole
| different story than codebase management concerns.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _you're saying your legal department doesn't have
| capacity to handle licensing concerns_
|
| My read is their legal department isn't fleshed out enough
| to defend the work when _e.g._ a tech giant steals it.
| jasonvorhe wrote:
| I can live with that compromise for now. Thanks for the
| lengthy response!
| dfabulich wrote:
| > _The plan is however to open source when Orion is self-
| sufficient (business model of Orion is you are the customer
| and can pay for it - like we used to pay for browsers 20
| years ago before advertisers started paying for our
| browsing), meaning it can sustain its own development
| independent of Kagi Search._
|
| Orion will never reach "self-sufficiency" as long as you
| don't actually charge for Orion. Orion is completely free to
| use. I can _donate_ to Orion+, but Orion+ offers no paid
| features; it 's basically a Patreon.
| https://help.kagi.com/orion/orion-plus/orion-plus.html
|
| (No major browser has ever sustained its own development
| independent of a search engine's funding, not even Netscape,
| which charged $40/seat in the 1990s, with a free "shareware"
| tier so generous that hardly anyone paid. Netscape was funded
| by advertising, especially from Yahoo search. Funding browser
| development entirely on _donations_ to a _commercial
| business_ would be completely unprecedented.)
|
| What if, instead, you made Orion "source available" to paying
| customers, but not open source? You could merge PRs only from
| users who sign a CLA. (Users would file PRs out of charity,
| for the same reason they sign up for Orion+ today.)
| xyse53 wrote:
| When you do release it, do you know yet if you plan on
| releasing the full change history? Or would you start with a
| snapshot at the ~release date?
| Terretta wrote:
| It seems weird to worry more about that than about the Chromium
| hegemony to where Chromium is becoming the only way to move
| money online.
| skybrian wrote:
| What do you mean by "move money?" Do banks not support
| Firefox or Safari?
| AlienRobot wrote:
| In my opinion open sourcing something is a privilege, not a
| duty.
| jacek wrote:
| I've been a Kagi user for months now and was really looking
| forward to testing this. However, I cannot find the download
| link. The page does not really contain any information on an
| actual release.
|
| EDIT: I found this in the docs:
|
| > The alpha version of Orion for Linux is currently only
| available to [Orion+ supporters](../orion-plus/orion-plus.md) and
| can be downloaded from the [Billing
| Dashboard](https://kagi.com/settings/billing) under the Orion
| browser section.
|
| So I still can't test this. Only for Orion+ supporters.
| pbronez wrote:
| Yeah I don't see it on https://orionbrowser.com anywhere. It's
| probably a private alpha.
| pbronez wrote:
| Found it
|
| https://cdn.kagi.com/flatpaks/oriongtk.alpha.external.flatpa.
| ..
| diabllicseagull wrote:
| I gave it a try. it's super rough around the edges. I
| noticed a much higher cpu usage compared to firefox.
| nevertheless, it's super promising.
| jamesbelchamber wrote:
| It's a shame this isn't open source, since Linux users are
| disproportionately likely to scratch their own itches.
|
| Regardless, great to see this come to Linux.
| undeveloper wrote:
| I love what the kagi team is doing, and being some of the first
| innovators maybe since the ladybird(?) browser, even if it's
| using the same base of webkit, not being a fork of chrome or
| firefox. I wish they'd bring it to android, but it doesn't look
| like they're interested.
| Zambyte wrote:
| It seems like their stance is more a matter of development
| resources rather than a deliberate decision.
|
| https://orionfeedback.org/d/2321-orion-for-windows-android-l...
|
| It is interesting that they don't mention future Android
| support anywhere on the website, but it does seem like they are
| (or at least were) open to the idea someday.
| bikelang wrote:
| Kagi is a pretty small team and they've got a LOT on their
| plate. Orion started on macOS and was in development for 6
| years before finally hitting their 1.0 release in November.
| Give it time - I'm sure they'd love to support just about every
| major OS and platform.
| bdbdbdb wrote:
| In case anyone is like me and has never heard of Orion,
| apparently it's a browser
| macinjosh wrote:
| kudos for not doing yet another chrome clone.
| Fiveplus wrote:
| This is a healthy thing to happen to the Linux browser ecosystem
| imho.
|
| We talk a lot about browser diversity, but on Linux and Windows,
| it is a lie. You have firefox (gecko) and fifty flavors of
| chromium. Webkit on Linux has essentially been relegated to
| embedded devices or the GNOME epiphany browser, which I'll admit
| while is a noble effort, lags a bit in the stability and power-
| user features department. Big reason for that is that it lacks
| the commercial backing to keep up with the modern web standards
| rat race.
|
| Kagi bringing orion to Linux changes the calculus. It introduces
| a third _commercially incentivized_ , consumer-grade engine to
| the platform. Even if you never use orion, you want this to
| succeed because it forces WebKitGTK upstream to get better, which
| benefits the entire open source ecosystem.
|
| The sticking point like always will be media playback (read:
| DRM/widevine). That is the graveyard where Linux browsers go to
| die. If Kagi can legally and technically solve the widevine
| integration on a non-standard Linux webkit build, they win. If
| not, it will be a secondary browser.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > The sticking point like always will be media playback (read:
| DRM/widevine).
|
| Probably true in general. But for me, that's not a sticking
| point at all. I don't care if a browser supports media playback
| or not.
|
| What I do care about is the ability to enable/disable embedded
| code execution (JS, at the very least) at a fairly granular
| level. Does Orion allow for that?
| packetlost wrote:
| It's a major sticking point for most people though and a very
| large blocker for wider Linux desktop adoption.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| We like Linux adoption around these parts. But don't we
| like it _because_ linux doesn 't let companies mistreat
| it's users?
|
| If users are unwilling to opt out of that abuse then I
| think its OK that their migration to Linux remains mildly
| inconvenient.
| packetlost wrote:
| DRM sucks, but the time to thrash against it is has
| passed. It's here, it's not going away, and users expect
| to be able to use their browsers to watch protected
| content.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Aren't we talking about the fact that it's not here (on
| Linux), and some people would like it to be?
|
| The time to thrash against DRM will be when you can't get
| hardware that boots kernels which were not approved by
| your government. What we're doing now is trying to
| prevent that time from coming at all.
|
| Having to watch protected media on a different device is
| a small price to pay.
| MarsIronPI wrote:
| > DRM sucks, but the time to thrash against it is has
| passed.
|
| Speak for yourself. I avoid any DRMed content. If I pay
| for it, I'm getting unrestricted access to the files. Or
| I don't pay for it.
| pluralmonad wrote:
| I've never let Firefox play content requiring DRM. I
| don't thrash against it, just ignore it.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I like what Firefox does: it allows me to just disallow
| Widevine entirely, which is what I do. That still allows
| others who want to use those things to do so. It's the
| best of both worlds.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Odd thing is, plenty of stuff that you think would break
| without widevine, works without it. Like... if you didn't
| need it, why did you ask?
| II2II wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| My take is: you're welcome to the party, but don't be
| surprised if someone shows you the door when you pull out
| the drugs. It ain't our type of fun.
|
| I understand various reasons why people are pushing for
| the adoption of open source software, but it will be
| counterproductive if it brings the problems of the
| commercial software world with them.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| You are, you recognize, a tiny minority?
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Among users generally, or among kernel developers? Because
| that's the audience you'd have to convince.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Did I not make that clear with "Probably true in general."?
| jwcooper wrote:
| > The sticking point like always will be media playback (read:
| DRM/widevine). That is the graveyard where Linux browsers go to
| die. If Kagi can legally and technically solve the widevine
| integration on a non-standard Linux webkit build, they win. If
| not, it will be a secondary browser for documentation reading
| only.
|
| I'm hopeful that some day Linux will have enough users where
| the media companies can't ignore them. Hopefully, that day is
| sooner than later.
|
| It's pretty frustrating that peacock (and all xfinity
| streaming) doesn't work and you can't get 1080p or 4k on most
| other streaming platforms.
| Fiveplus wrote:
| Hmm good point. The issue is also the distinction between
| widevine L1, i.e hardware-backed DRM and L3 (the software
| backed one).
|
| Correct me if I'm wrong but to stream 4K, studios require a
| hardware root of trust and a verified media path. They need a
| guarantee that the video frames are decrypted inside a
| trusted execution environment and sent directly to the
| display without the OS kernel or user space being able to
| read the raw buffer.
|
| AFAIK Windows and macOS provide this pipeline at the OS
| level. OTOH, ChromeOS gets 1080p/4K not because it has
| massive market share but cause the hardware and boot chain
| are locked down by the almighty Google.
|
| On desktop Linux, where you have root access and can modify
| the kernel or compositor to inspect memory, there is
| technically no way to guarantee that secure path to the
| studios' satisfaction. Am I right in this assumption?
|
| Unless the DRM providers change their threat model, which
| sounds unlikely to me. Or distros start shipping signed and
| locked-down kernel modules that prevent the user from being
| root, which is again unacceptable to most (me included), we
| will likely be capped at 720p for some time now.
| h4x0rr wrote:
| As far as I understand, on the mobile implementation not
| even the OS can access the buffers. So even with root you
| can stream L1 content but not screen record it
| rixthefox wrote:
| > Am I right in this assumption?
|
| Yes. I tried using Chrome on Linux just to watch movies
| that I purchased on Youtube at HD/4K and watched as the
| stream was limited to 240P. IMHO regardless of what Google
| says in their ToS they have already broken the trust
| agreement by not providing what I paid for. Regardless of
| what the studios want, all this does is push me back
| towards piracy because once again the industry fails to
| understand that piracy is a accessibility problem, not a
| financial problem. If I pay for 4K then regardless of where
| I want to watch that movie it better be in 4K, that's what
| I paid for. Google hides behind their ToS to get around the
| fact that they sold me a product then failed to deliver.
|
| > ChromeOS gets 1080p/4K not because it has massive market
| share but cause the hardware and boot chain are locked down
| by the almighty Google.
|
| ChromeOS is based on Gentoo Linux underneath just very
| stripped down and Googlefied. It's the same BS that Bungee
| pulled with Destiny 2 and Linux. If you so much as dared to
| run Destiny 2 on Linux you would be banned. Stadia used
| Linux but because Google controlled the platform they
| allowed it to be played there.
|
| These are the games they play to make other platforms that
| aren't MacOS/Windows appear like they are incapable but in
| reality it's just corporate greed and grift.
| imbnwa wrote:
| I'd imagine only SteamOS on the GabeCube could make this
| guarantee on Linux
| hulitu wrote:
| > Correct me if I'm wrong but to stream 4K, studios require
| a hardware root of trust and a verified media path.
|
| Oscilloscopes and signal analysers exist.
| yencabulator wrote:
| > They need a guarantee
|
| s/need/want/ but yes.
| rapind wrote:
| > I'm hopeful that some day Linux will have enough users
| where the media companies can't ignore them. Hopefully, that
| day is sooner than later.
|
| Does YouTube and Netflix work? That's the lion's share right
| there. A lot of users probably don't even care about the
| other streaming platforms. I'm probably being too optimistic,
| but I think the upcoming Steam machines will have a
| significant adoption of the linux desktop. Microsoft is
| certainly working 'round the clock to alienate their users.
| presbyterian wrote:
| YouTube does, Netflix doesn't
| zamadatix wrote:
| If you're using a "common browser" on Linux
| (Firefox/Chrome) Netflix should work, just at 720p for
| most of the content. If you're using a minor Chromium
| based fork the customized Chromium package provided by
| your distro it probably doesn't have Widevine by default.
|
| The same is true for running a vanilla Chromium build on
| Windows, the big difference is the quality of content you
| can get on Windows can be higher than 720p in the
| mainstream browsers (as long as the rest of the system is
| compliant as well).
| michaelmrose wrote:
| If you are limited to 720p you might as well pirate it
| even if you do pay for it if you intend to watch it on
| your computer rather than on a TV.
| presbyterian wrote:
| > If you're using a "common browser" on Linux
| (Firefox/Chrome)
|
| Right. The user I was replying to was asking about a
| browser that isn't either of those.
| k4rli wrote:
| Perhaps a blessing in disguise. You're not missing out on
| anything of value.
| mistercheph wrote:
| You can work around the Widevine issues by pirating the
| content you're interested in.
| rixthefox wrote:
| This is the way. Widevine is a cancer that only serves to
| lock down the browser market to a small handful of web
| engines that have been approved by Google. If your browser
| isn't based on Chrome, Firefox, or Safari you're out of
| luck.
|
| Most people will not use a browser that can't open youtube
| videos and they know and exploit this with extreme
| precision.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| If you are already paying for the streaming service that
| offers the content and they restrict you from watching
| because of your OS are you harming the industry by
| downloading it? Nothing is stopping you from buying a 4k
| webcam and recording your computer monitor.
|
| You're already paying the monthly fee to stream it,
| you're just streaming it in a more friendly way. Granted
| if you cancel the service, you should delete the content.
|
| Many won't though and that's the problem but that problem
| is caused by the fact that you're being restricted in the
| first place.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| a 4K webcam recording of a screen will produce a trash
| copy that isn't notably better than ripping off the 720p
| you can already screen record.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| Figure of speech.
| freehorse wrote:
| There are still other, non-trashy ways to record your
| screen. Motivated actors have no problem with such
| restrictions, as happens with everything. It is for
| exerting control over the normal users' behaviours and
| habits.
| dartharva wrote:
| But the browser still won't get mainstream and will
| eventually die.
| pseudosavant wrote:
| This isn't even a strictly Linux problem. On Windows, Edge
| has by far the best encrypted streaming playback using their
| PlayReady DRM. Many services like Netflix will only do 4K for
| Edge. Chrome is often 1080p, and Firefox was 720p last time I
| tried it.
|
| Same situation on Mac where Apple's Fairplay DRM enables 4K
| playback in Safari, but Chrome and Firefox have the same
| limitations as on Windows.
|
| Last time I tried to use Firefox on Windows as my daily
| driver, video playback was one of the biggest gaps that made
| me go back to Edge.
| knowitnone3 wrote:
| I have to disagree with some of your points. No shade at Orin
| but WebKitGTK is a volunteer project. Having competition won't
| push WebKitGTK any faster because I am sure they are going as
| fast as they can. WebKitGTK already have a good list of
| features to add because they have other commercial browsers to
| compare themselves to, it's the speed that they can add them
| due to resource limitations. BTW, Firefox also runs on Linux.
| Also, nobody is installing a secondary browser for
| documentation reading only - what's the point of doing this?
| pmontra wrote:
| > "DRM/widevine [...] is the graveyard where Linux browsers go
| to die"
|
| Maybe it's not widevine L1 but Firefox has the widevine plugin
| enabled on my Debian 13. I don't remember I had to do anything
| except downloading Firefox from Mozilla and installing it.
|
| https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enable-drm
|
| Apparently it's part of Brave too but it's disabled by default
|
| https://support.brave.app/hc/en-us/articles/360023851591-How...
|
| I expect it to be available on Chrome and I don't expect much
| from Epiphany.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| I don't disagree with you about a new browser being a good
| thing but ...
|
| > If not, it will be a secondary browser for documentation
| reading only.
|
| I don't even have _sound_ on my main desktop PC: the one I use
| the most. The one I do all my "life admin" stuff from
| (banking, real estate, etc.), all my work emails, all my
| coding. I _think_ sound works but I haven 't bothered to plug
| in speakers to check (since three years, when I assembled the
| PC).
|
| That's a bit more than documentation reading.
|
| There are work environments where even just a sound emitted by
| a PC is frowned upon.
|
| People who aren't into media consumption are not just "reading
| documentation".
| Fiveplus wrote:
| Yeah, that was a bit harsh on my part. I removed that bit,
| apologies. Had no intention of coming across as crude.
| mikae1 wrote:
| _> Webkit on Linux has essentially been relegated to embedded
| devices or the GNOME epiphany browser_
|
| Don't forget about https://falkon.org. It's a browser I enjoy
| using. WebExtension support will be big if it lands in Orion
| though.
|
| EDIT: apparently Orion is not open source. Not particularly
| interested in a closed source browser, TBH. In 2022 they said
| they plan to open source "when there is merit"[1], whatever
| that means. No merit yet, it seems.
|
| [1] https://orionfeedback.org/d/3882-open-source-the-browser/2
| johnmaguire wrote:
| As a Kagi user for years now, I am very interested in a
| Firefox/Chrome competitor but I will absolutely not use Orion
| until it is open source.
| sxg wrote:
| Just curious: what browser do you currently use? Firefox,
| Zen?
| johnmaguire wrote:
| I'm currently using LibreWolf on desktop and Firefox on
| Android.
| pluralmonad wrote:
| Same for me. Using a proprietary browser is not quite as bad
| as using a proprietary OS, but it is a distant second.
| Hopefully they figure out whatever merit they are waiting
| for...
| forgotpwd16 wrote:
| Falkon uses QtWebEngine, essentially a Chromium (Blink&V8)
| wrapper. QupZilla, its predecessor, was using QtWebKit. Otter
| & kbd-driven qutebrowser (two other Qt browsers) for time,
| and maybe still do, simultaneously supported both.
| 0x1ch wrote:
| I find it strange because it seems to me that outside of
| their bread and butter products (Kagi Search, Assistant),
| there really isn't a business secret or proprietary
| technology to keep secret no? Perhaps integrated browser LLM
| tooling they don't want to give out for free.
| lordhexd wrote:
| Not too much speculation needed as to why: data collection
| which is then used to enhance both their Search and
| Assistant products + they can easily start pushing their
| search and assistant through the platform once adoption is
| high enough and people who are used to Orion will more
| easily be convinced to just fork up a little money for
| continued or slightly improved features/access
| least wrote:
| It's more likely it has to do with all the work they're
| doing to getting the WebExtension API to work with WebKit
| which is a main selling feature for the MacOS version -
| using firefox and chrome extensions in a webkit-powered
| browser.
| freehorse wrote:
| And esp for the iOS version, where there are not many
| options for using extensions in other browsers. The only
| browser there that can use UBO, afaik. In MacOS it is a
| bit too buggy for me for daily use, ymmv.
| freehorse wrote:
| Orion does not collect telemetry data [0].
|
| [0] https://orionbrowser.com/privacy
| mikae1 wrote:
| How do you know that? Source is closed. Is a network
| analyzer enough to determine?
| freehorse wrote:
| People usually don't compile their browsers from source
| anyway. And of course, technically, a program can check
| whether monitoring tools are running and adapt its
| behaviour accordingly, but this is malware territory and
| it makes no sense for any reputable browser. Also,
| technically, one can do that on router level anyway and
| not have this issue. So yes, I would say that analyzing
| the network is enough.
| thisislife2 wrote:
| What about their online installers, without which you
| can't install it?
| forgotpwd16 wrote:
| The actual important part is _consumer-grade_. Because
| WebKitGTK itself is already commercially incentivized,
| developed primarily by Igalia (a quite underrated firm
| regarding their contributions in open source) who are offering
| consulting services mainly in embedded-related industries.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| And Ladybird.
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| > The sticking point like always will be media playback (read:
| DRM/widevine). That is the graveyard where Linux browsers go to
| die.
|
| On Firefox, you can disable DRM in about:config. Forks such as
| Librewolf and Tor Browser disable DRM by default.
| andrewmutz wrote:
| If I'm a linux user who uses firefox currently, what's the value
| prop for this browser? I already get privacy and extensions, is
| it just for testing my app on webkit?
| thisislife2 wrote:
| You can already test a site on a webkit engine in Linux using
| Gnome Web (previously Epihany) or LuaKit (
| https://luakit.github.io/ ). But it is always good to have
| options, even if commercial ones. From that aspect Orion on
| Linux is good news.
| tigroferoce wrote:
| The main benefit is that Orion (contrary to Firefox) has a
| business model. The downside is that it's not open source. They
| have some explanation on why, but it might be a deal breaker
| for someone.
| fenwick67 wrote:
| Firefox has a business model, it is mostly "google search
| referrals"
| metabagel wrote:
| As I understand it, Orion was originally developed because
| Apple doesn't allow you to select Kagi as a search provider for
| Safari.
| Phelinofist wrote:
| Whats special about Orion? Why would I use it instead of FF or
| even Chromium?
| hagbard_c wrote:
| Nothing, really, other than it being closed-source, based
| around Webkit and to be sold/distributed under the Kagi
| moniker. If that combination scratches your itch this is for
| you, otherwise there are many alternatives.
| Macha wrote:
| I think Kagi at this stage have a better reputation than
| Mozilla, and Chromium is not seen as sufficiently independent
| from Chrome, and hence from Google's anti-user decisions.
|
| That said, closed source is still a deal breaker for a browser
| for me, or I'd probably already be using Vivaldi.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Don't worry about it, you're not even invited to use Orion.
| freediver wrote:
| lol
| bikelang wrote:
| The built in ad blocker is phenomenal. Only Brave is as good on
| this front. It supports extensions from both FF and Chromium.
| It has a really neat integration with Kagi private search in
| private tabs. Kagi as a company has generally pretty good
| ethics and respects their users. That's enough to make it
| compelling for me.
| edsq wrote:
| > It has a really neat integration with Kagi private search
| in private tabs
|
| What's the integration you're referring to here? This was
| something I was interested in, but as far as I can tell if I
| enable Kagi Privacy Pass it's enabled browser-wide, not just
| in private tabs.
| bikelang wrote:
| Ah - I just did not realize that privacy pass was available
| as extension to other browsers but of course that makes
| sense. It's built in to Orion. You still have to enable it
| when you switch to private tabs. It'd be nice if it was
| automatic!
| jlarocco wrote:
| FF and Chromium are controlled by the biggest advertising
| company on the internet, while Orion is developed by a privacy
| focused search engine.
| Phelinofist wrote:
| But isn't it basically also just a rebranded Chromium clone,
| thus still heavily depended on G?
| mitchell209 wrote:
| It's a webkit browser.
| jlarocco wrote:
| Orion is using WebKit. Chromium itself was a fork of
| WebKit. I don't know how much Chromium code gets upstreamed
| to WebKit any more, but Google certainly doesn't control it
| the way they do Chromium.
|
| WebKit development is mainly driven by Apple, which isn't
| great from the perspective of having a browser free of
| corporate influence, but I trust them more than Google.
| tempest_ wrote:
| No, it is not.
|
| It uses webkit, which is what Blink was forked from but
| likely has more in common with Safari at this point.
| shevy-java wrote:
| Hmm. So from Mac to Linux?
|
| Homebrew also initially had mac only support, later Linux. But it
| always felt as if Linux was a second-class citizen. Is that also
| the case for Orion?
| bikelang wrote:
| Orion has come an extremely long ways on iOS and macOS. I daily
| drove it for a couple months maybe a year and a half ago and it
| had a lot of little rough edges and was slightly broken on a
| number of websites.
|
| I've picked it up again as my daily driver as of the new year and
| haven't had a single issue yet. It even blocks ads in YouTube now
| - only Brave did that previously.
|
| For me - Brave was the best browser product. It's ad blocking is
| truly phenomenal and nearly every site "just works". But I don't
| love the ethics of Brave and certainly not its founder. So I am
| extremely excited to have Orion take over that niche of the
| browser space that I most care about.
| sylens wrote:
| I just switched to Orion on iOS to kick off the new year and it
| is MUCH better than where it was just a few months ago.
| jvican wrote:
| I used it for close to a year and abandoned it because I kept
| running into issues with tabs getting randomly reloaded and
| extensions causing trouble.
|
| What would you say has changed over the past few months? I
| just felt like Kagi wasn't prioritizing Orion development
| enough, being busy with their main Kagi subscription and all.
| pzmarzly wrote:
| That's why I hope Brave will eventually launch Brave Origin, a
| buy-once premium build of Brave, despite the previous large
| backlash against it from Internet users (especially on Reddit).
| I like the idea of a paid but well-made, no-nonsense, no-bloat,
| no-ads, etc. browser, and I feel like Brave developers wanted
| their browser to be like that, but the pursuit of revenue
| stream led them to sidetracking into crypto, AI, VPNs, ads
| business, et al, and all the controversies over the years that
| came from that.
|
| In the meantime I'll give Orion a try as soon as they introduce
| cross-device sync.
| bikelang wrote:
| It has cross device sync via iCloud. I don't have it enabled
| tho - so can't say how well it works
| bikelang wrote:
| Also I had never heard of Brave Origin before. This is
| interesting. I suppose it depends on price but I may consider
| switching to this on Windows and Linux when it's available.
| maronato wrote:
| Is the 1Password extension still not working on it?
|
| I really want to switch, but no 1P support makes it really
| hard, unfortunately.
| bikelang wrote:
| Are you talking about on macOS or iOS? On macOS I think the
| 1Password extension has always worked for me? At least it
| definitely does now. What issues did you have with it? On iOS
| I don't use the extension - I've got 1Password set up as my
| default password store there.
| pbronez wrote:
| Download link
| https://cdn.kagi.com/flatpaks/oriongtk.alpha.external.flatpa...
| Bad_Initialism wrote:
| The link gets you into a morass of of confusing crap that fails
| to explain what "Kagi", or "Orion" or "Orion for linux is.
|
| More than 80% of the time these days, I wander around links like
| this going "But what is it? What is it? WHAT IS IT?"
|
| All of you need to have a paragraph at the beginning of the page
| entitled "WTF IS THIS!!!!????"
|
| The top of the linked pages says "Orion for Linux Status The
| alpha stage is an early, unstable version meant primarily for
| testing."
|
| OF WHAT????? OF. FUNCKING. WHAT?
|
| That's great that the alpha stage of Orion is ready for teating
| on Linux, BUT WTF IS IT???????
| ancarda wrote:
| I think you're confused because this link is somewhat deep
| down: https://help.kagi.com/orion/misc/linux-status.html
|
| If you go up to https://help.kagi.com/orion/ it has this
| description:
|
| > Orion is a free, lightning-fast, privacy-focused, WebKit-
| based browser for Mac, iOS, and soon Linux that blocks ads and
| trackers by default.
| margalabargala wrote:
| The link submitted is a sub-page of a sub-page on the Kagi docs
| site. Every single page should not need the information you
| require just in case someone links someone to that particular
| page. You should blame OP for linking to the Linux status page.
|
| The actual top level page has everything you asked for.
| https://help.kagi.com/orion/
| jlarocco wrote:
| It's crazy that people on a tech forum get confused by a basic
| website. All of those questions can be easily answered with
| fewer clicks and far less typing than it took to whine about
| it.
| metabagel wrote:
| I get the frustration, since so many submissions link to a page
| which assumes prior knowledge, and without adding any
| explanatory comment. In this case, you could find out by
| clicking on "Why Orion?" to the left or the "Orion" link in the
| upper right.
| thisislife2 wrote:
| Nice. But I stopped using Orion on macOS when they stopped
| offering complete offline installers. They taut they are a zero-
| telemetry browser, as proof that they are privacy conscious about
| user data, and that was a good feature and overture. But then
| when they create technical avenues to (possibly) bypass that
| (like using online installers that can do all kind of data
| collection) it becomes harder to trust them as it follows the
| tried-and-tested path of other companies that have claimed to
| care about user privacy, to increase their user-base, and then
| betrayed their customer base by harvesting their personal data.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| > online installers that can do all kind of data collection
|
| "Can" is doing a lot of work here. A browser's whole purpose is
| to be online, after all. If they were trying to collect
| information about you, they really don't need the installer to
| be the thing that does it. It would be an impressive reversal
| of their whole premise as a business if _their browser 's
| installer_ was the piece that was violating your privacy and
| not, you know, their whole service (that you have to be signed
| in to).
| JohnFen wrote:
| > A browser's whole purpose is to be online, after all.
|
| Not its _whole_ purpose. I use browsers offline fairly often.
|
| Offline installers (for any piece of software) are important
| to me because they allow me to keep a backup of the installer
| and won't restrict me when I don't have internet access.
| Keeping a backup is important because it lets me install
| older versions of the software when needed.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| I respect your choice, but browsers are the one piece of
| software that you never, ever want to run an outdated
| version of. Websites really just don't stop working for new
| versions of browsers; browser/standards compatibility
| essentially only improves with time. The only thing you're
| getting with an old version is all of the security issues.
| JohnFen wrote:
| It depends on your use case. As I said, I often use
| browsers offline. Offline use makes security issues much
| less problematic.
| thisislife2 wrote:
| > _If they were trying to collect information about you, they
| really don 't need the installer to be the thing that does
| it._
|
| They do, if they are being duplicitous about their intent to
| not harvest user data.
|
| If their browser was a data harvester from the get go, no one
| who is aware, and worried, about _surveillance capitalism_
| would have bothered to use it. And note that they had no
| problem in offering offline installers in the beginning. Now,
| once their base has grown, if they have a malicious intent
| (now or in the future), they can use the online installers to
| gather our personal data _surreptitiously_ - for example, by
| profiling our hardware and (if you already had Orion
| installed) our settings, our bookmarks, our browser history
| etc. and use that commercially. It also allows them to
| install unwanted software on our computer in the future (I
| don 't know if you are old enough to know - look up the
| browser toolbars era).
|
| If their intent to respect a user's privacy is honest,
| offering an offline installer shouldn't be a big deal. (As
| far as I am aware, apart from Apple Safari, they are now the
| only browser that don't offer an offline installer).
| jorvi wrote:
| I really like Kagi because of all the features and just
| generally letting me be a user instead of a product, but they
| have some weird kludges sometimes.
|
| The weirdest choice at the moment is by default Kagi sends a
| referrer when you visit a search result. There's currently
| ~65.000 Kagi subscribers worldwide, so just that lone data
| point completely destroys any anti-fingerprinting you're doing.
| And probably these subscribers are divided among time regions,
| so not all are active at the same time.
|
| Even if you are on a VPN and visit site #1, then site #2, you
| are already cross-site trackable because it is very unlikely
| you are on the same VPN vendor (and endpoint) as the other
| subscribers. If you add in more data points like browser, OS,
| screen size and the like it becomes even more grim.
|
| They have the referrer enabled because it helps make admins
| aware I guess.
|
| You can turn it off (Settings > Privacy > Hide Kagi referrer),
| but defaults matter.
| mistercheph wrote:
| Woah didn't realize this was the default, turning this off,
| thanks!
| port3000 wrote:
| Thanks - I also turned it off. I guess it's a marketing thing
| for them, but it feels like it goes against the ethos of the
| company. Particularly given the fact they are clearly aware
| of this as they put it in the 'Privacy' section.
| pooper wrote:
| Congratulations on your release! Looks great. Runs great so far.
| I was able to log into HN just fine on Fedora.
|
| What are your thoughts on upgrading gnome 48 to 49 as a
| dependency?
| solarkraft wrote:
| I first used Orion a couple years back and it was already pretty
| good back then. Super cool to see it coming to Linux!
|
| I must +1 that no matter the platform (this criticism is not
| limited to Linux), the open source option is almost always my
| choice, especially for something as important as a browser. This
| is a big reason I don't use Orion today, even though I have big
| issues with the other available browsers.
| eduction wrote:
| Has Orion gotten significantly more stable in the last year? The
| last time I tried it, on iOS, it crashed a lot.
| tigroferoce wrote:
| I use it as my main browser on Mac and iOS since some time.
| It's stable enough, but there are _some_ sites that will not
| work. They are very few, but it happens. When it happens at the
| end of a long process (maybe registering) it's particularly
| painful, but in general it works just fine.
| bikelang wrote:
| That was my experience like a year and a half ago too. I
| switched back with the new year (and also realizing it finally
| went 1.0 around Thanksgiving). It's only been a few days but
| it's been totally stable so far!
| otter-in-a-suit wrote:
| I love Kagi. I understand the niche this fills. I even understand
| not open sourcing it yet.
|
| But what I really miss is a self-hosted sync server. I don't want
| to use a browser without sync, but I also don't want to trust
| this data with any 3rd party other than myself.
|
| It's one of the main reasons I'm using Firefox, since that is the
| the only browser that even vaguely supports this - albeit not
| well.
| gr4vityWall wrote:
| I hope they upstream their implementation of Web Extensions to
| WebKit.
|
| I'm not interested in using a proprietary browser, and hope for a
| release under a free license at some point. But a free WebKit-
| based browser with Web Extensions could have interesting
| properties regarding battery life on mobile GNU workstations.
| mghackerlady wrote:
| If there's one thing they should release as free software it's
| this. I'd be disappointed if Orion never becomes free software,
| but it would hurt a little less if GNOMEs epiphany could
| benefit from the extension support
| mistercheph wrote:
| No source code? That's pretty disappointing, and makes it DOA for
| most Linux users.
| wpm wrote:
| Shame it's GTK but oh well, still a welcome sight.
| turblety wrote:
| A closed source wrapper around a web view? I have to advise that
| no one install, never mind use, this closed source, proprietary
| blob. Especially not for anything confidential like banking,
| health, etc.
| bicepjai wrote:
| Previously, my comments on Kagi were about one thing: counting
| queries felt like a chore, so I stayed away. I did give it a try
| mainly for the privacy angle. After that, I switched to
| Perplexity and was happy for a year, until the familiar VC backed
| pattern showed up: ads, even for paying users. This year I
| upgraded to Kagi Ultimate, and honestly, it feels like they've
| found the sweet spot. I hesitated at $25 at first, but the search
| experience plus the assistant (and the ability to pick the models
| I want) along with privacy won me over. I'm also familiar with
| Orion since I use it as the app for kagi experience for AI chat
| and search. It could use an update for better assistant
| experience. Keep up the good work, Kagi.
| brockers wrote:
| There is some strange irony in this. Apple initially used the
| khtml code-base to build Safari but it quickly became impossible
| to back-port the changes from the Safari branch of khtml back
| into Konqueror. Now, 20 years later, someone has made an open
| source version of Safari.
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| Just use Yandex browser and skip the middleman
| richardanaya wrote:
| It's rough, but I like it. Definitely an alpha, but wonderful to
| see them thrive.
| anttiharju wrote:
| Oh just in time. Trying to switch from macOS to Linux soon.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| I think this is great. True native Linux-first power user
| browsers are nearly an entirely unserved niche. We've had them on
| macOS in various forms over the years (with OmniWeb being the
| original), but for a long time the only browsers built to
| integrate well with Linux desktops were minimal and light on
| features (like the WebKit version of GNOME Web/Epiphany).
|
| It probably matters less to Linux users who do the minimal tiling
| WM thing, but as someone more drawn to traditional floating DEs
| it's always bothered me how alien the browsers one might actually
| want to use feel running in a GTK or Qt DE. Themes can help
| reduce the gap, but it never disappears -- that last 10-20%
| always remains as an unavoidable side effect of how the big
| browsers are built, with it being particularly pronounced with
| Firefox and derivatives.
|
| Of course a GTK based browser like Orion isn't going to feel the
| best under a Qt desktop like KDE, but GTK themed to match Plasma
| is a good deal closer than the bespoke UI found in e.g. Firefox
| or Chrome.
| bigyabai wrote:
| Firefox fills this niche fine, and it's actually Open Source to
| boot. The community doesn't really have a need for a "Linux-
| first" browser that treats Linux like a second-class, alpha-
| quality citizen.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| I can't agree. Firefox is great, but I think its UI drags it
| down in various ways. It being built the way it is was a boon
| back when extensions were capable of radically changing the
| browser's UI, but now it simply puts a (unfortunately low)
| hard cap on how excellent its UI can be.
|
| Funny enough, Epiphany used to be a more power user oriented
| browser, and it used to be powered by none other than Gecko.
| Unfortunately, Mozilla killed embedding in Gecko and that
| (along with related projects like Camino and K-Meleon) came
| to a screeching halt and Gecko became hard coupled with
| Mozilla's UI decisions.
| mr_machine wrote:
| I like Kagi and pay for it. I've been impatiently waiting for
| Orion to come to Linux. But I won't run closed source.
|
| This is a huge disappointment.
| nevon wrote:
| Been a Kagi subscriber for a while, and am supportive of a more
| diverse browser ecosystem. However, I won't be using this browser
| as long as it is closed source. Honestly, the arguments made by
| the founder (I believe he's the founder anyway. I may be wrong)
| in the related feedback thread kind of soured me a little bit on
| Kagi. The arguments were essentially:
|
| 1. It's a lot of work to maintain an open source project
| accepting community contributions. Absolutely true, but that's
| not what's being asked for. Providing a tarball under an open
| source license doesn't add any significant work. 2. No one has
| asked for the Kagi backends to be open sourced, so why is the
| browser different? Obviously because I run the browser on my
| machine. Your backend runs on your machine. 3. We need to protect
| our IP. Then release it under a copyleft license. Or if you
| absolutely must, release your proprietary bit under a non-open
| source license. 4. You don't need the source because we send 0
| telemetry, which you can verify using a network proxy. That's
| hardly the only thing to be worried about with a binary blob.
| Even if you kept the code completely closed source, by just
| releasing a tarball with the source under a proprietary license,
| I can build my own binary from source and eliminate this threat.
| slwvx wrote:
| I'd like Psylo [1] to be available on other platforms like Linux
| and MacOS. Psylo puts each tab behind a VPN and give them their
| own cookie storage space. It feels like a dramatically more
| private tool than Orion.
|
| I tried Orion in Dec 2025 and it crashed more frequently than I
| could handle. It and/or VPNs I was using worked poorly with
| websites that I want to keep a page open on for days at a time.
|
| [1] https://mysk.blog/2025/06/17/introducing-psylo/
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2026-01-09 23:01 UTC)