alt Hacker NewsI've never understood what niche Orion is supposed to fill. People who value privacy would be more likely to use an open-source browser. Firefox and Brave already serve that purpose. Maybe it's less important to Mac users, but on Linux, a proprietary browser is a major deal-breaker for most people. Plus, it's less convenient if the browser isn't simply included in the repository as a result. Orion should have been developed as open source from the start, with community involvement. Kagi can still benefit from this, though, by serving as the default search engine in exchange for funding the development, and by having the Kagi Assistant directly integrated into the platform.
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For me the answer is quite simple: it's the only browser on iOS that lets you run Chrome extensions and Firefox add-ons.
> I've never understood what niche Orion is supposed to fill
For me, as battery-efficient as Safari, but with better chrome and access to ffox extensions ecosystem.
Browser diversity is a good thing. We've seen what happens when one huge monopoly dominates the browser landscape. Twice now, first with IE and then Chrome.
I use Orion because it's not a product of Apple or Google. There's no reason the browser should be a product of the same company who made the OS.
Anecdotally, the niche it solved for me for a while was "Safari for optimal performance on mac, but with proper extensions like ublock".
I used it regularly for almost a year, eventually got off because of some UI bugs that came up and because the Safari dev tools feel so clunky/need relearning compared to Chrome & FF.
In addition to what other have said about extensions, ad blocking, no telemetry, and some nice features like tab management, it works in the Apple ecosystem. If you use a mac and an iphone, you get the native sync services for history, bookmarks, passwords, etc. Makes sense that they're focusing on that.
Developing internally initially, as opposed to making it open source, was probably the only practical way for a small team with a specific goal to get there. I don't see any problem turning it over to community development for secondary platforms. If it gets adoption, great. If it fizzles out on linux and windows, nothing is lost.
On Mac, a non Safari browser that moves faster, allows chrome extensions and more customizability. I stopped using it because they refused to implement DNS over HTTP, handwaving it as "use what the OS already gives you".
> Kagi can still benefit from this, though, by serving as the default search engine in exchange for funding the development
This is not gonna work because Kagi is not free to use
I used it on iOS for ad blocking until uBlock's release https://apps.apple.com/pl/app/ublock-origin-lite/id674534269...
It comes with adblocking out of the box, and is a reliable way to watch YouTube ad free on iOS.
The site made it difficult to even know what Orion was. Your comment answered that, thanks.
On iOS it integrates better with Kagi search. It is basically a skin for safari though.
I don't get the impression Mozilla puts much effort into Firefox on macOS - whether its performance, or fitting in UX wise. So it's nice to have another browser on macOS that can run uBo.
I've been paying for kagi since it came out, use linux on my laptop and lineaege on my phone, and I don't use Orion.
In other words, as you say, exactly.
I have no idea if it's a good or bad or I'd like it or not. I never even considered trying. I don't mind that it exists. I don't think kagi are doing anything bad with it. But I also just have no interest in even trying it. Presumably it's good for soneone but for me (a paying kagi customer linux user) it's almost like it's invisible. A probably benign, utterly uninteresting thing.
I don't use any of their AI features either. I hope they cost extra seperately so that I'm not paying for that stuff I'm not using but I suspect I probably am.
Afaict the niche they attempted to fill is the one Firefox already fills on desktop, a highly customizable browser with extension support. (Firefox does not support extensions on iOS, apparently has no plans to do so, and as I understand the support is somewhat limited on Android as well). I switched for about a year because they delivered what seemed like a serious effort at that with their initial release. After seeing basically zero effort at addressing very fundamental bugs in that support in that year, I switched back. As far as I’m concerned their battle is already lost.
The iOS codebase is the only one that potentially has any value to the OSS community; this kind of "enjoy our garbage!" source release really irks me.
> a proprietary browser is a major deal-breaker
If this was a real issue for most, people would look at Google closing up Android and shipping laptops that are locked to the Play Store and refuse to have anything to do with Chrome or Chromium.