Orion is a new WebKit-based browser for Mac • Hacker News Board

Re: Orion is a new WebKit-based browser for Mac

#161

Post by dmitriid » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 10:21 AM UTC

freediver wrote: post #127

tablespoon wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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.…

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.

I like "more humane web". Humane part of the web has really disappeared in the past decade or so.

Re: Orion is a new WebKit-based browser for Mac

#162

Post by commoner » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 10:56 AM UTC

Shadonototra wrote: post #135

Closed source? What kind of data they'll suck in order to monetize the browser?

They do address this in their FAQ:

> Is Orion open-source?

> Not yet, but we plan for it to be when we are ready to receive the benefits of open-sourcing Orion. Creating something as big and ambitious as Orion (which includes forking WebKit, porting entire WebExtensions API and writing a browser app from scratch) is challenging enough for a small team like ours. We can not afford any other overhead - and properly maintaining an open source project takes time and resources. If you want to contribute, the best way to do that is to become a beta tester.

https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html#oss

Hopefully, they'll follow through with their plans to open source the browser.

Re: Orion is a new WebKit-based browser for Mac

#163

Post by simonh » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 10:57 AM UTC

hanniabu wrote: post #149

saagarjha wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Why's donations in quotes?

It's contentious. The new owner posted seemingly highly inflated estimates of costs for the project. Another issue is the new owner also removed any reference to the original developer, including in the project's Wikipedia page.

Re: Orion is a new WebKit-based browser for Mac

#164

Post by stefandesu » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 10:57 AM UTC

feep wrote: post #2

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.

I tried the Speedometer 2.0 on my M1 Air in both Safari and Orion yesterday and got ~200 in Safari and ~250 in Orion. I have to do more runs, but if it's accurate it's pretty insane I think.

Re: Orion is a new WebKit-based browser for Mac

#165

Post by sneak » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 12:01 PM UTC

dwaite wrote: post #148

sneak wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good idea to move to a cross-platform password manager, so that your passwords don't result in OS vendor lock-in. I still run macOS on desktop but use a patched bitwarden_rs to store my passwords. I can also use it from Android and Linux.

At least on Monterey, the macOS passwords system preference has import and export password set options built-in. The format is an unencrypted CSV file.

That's nice; the last time I had to export I had to write mouse movement macros to get my passwords out of the keychain. (10.14 maybe?)

Re: Orion is a new WebKit-based browser for Mac

#166

Post by webmobdev » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 12:51 PM UTC

freediver wrote: post #118

webmobdev wrote: post #70

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 ad…

> 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.

That's really good to hear! But how it works is what matters as even Chrome still technically supports uBlock Origin but Blink has been modified to ensure that ad blockers like it can't work efficiently on it anymore. According to Raymond Hill, Firefox is the browser that currently works best with uBlock Origin. Does Orion's implementation match the feature parity of how uBlock Origin works with Firefox, going even beyond content blocking? Does your modification of Webkit include all the API that uBlock Origin currently uses on Firefox?

Re: Orion is a new WebKit-based browser for Mac

#167

Post by webmobdev » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 1:08 PM UTC

duskwuff wrote: post #129

webmobdev wrote: post #70

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 ad…

> 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…

True, and a good point. I scoff at Webkit ITP because Apple has tried to "balance" the needs of the advertising industry vs Safari users. I prefer a more aggressive solution - prevent the tracking cookies in the first place. Take the example you cited - if uBlock Origin removes the Facebook widgets, and blocks Facebook tracking on all websites I visit, I won't have any tracking cookies in the first place. That automatically prevents cross-site tracking within a particular session. It must be obvious this solution is much more effective and hence why I consider ITP inferior.

Re: Orion is a new WebKit-based browser for Mac

#168

Post by webmobdev » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 1:42 PM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #134

webmobdev wrote: post #70

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 ad…

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.

Webkit ITP is Apple's way of trying to "balance" the interest of advertising platforms (which it also has) vs the interests of Safari users. Thus, it still allows for some tracking. As a user that is hostile to tracking and profiling, I prefer the more aggressive solution of blocking the tracking cookies altogether in the first place, and preventing any tracking. Thus, uBlock Origin offers the ideal solution to me, as unlike ITP, it blocks all tracking cookies and even goes further by preventing the tracking codes from even executing (thus even preventing the trackers from using other methods that advertisers have started using to bypass ITP - https://resources.observepoint.com/blog/webkit-itp-analytics... ). Thus, I feel ITP is a pretty limited and inferior solution from that perspective.

(I also believe this feature was introduced to introduce another vector for data collection of browsing data of its users that don't use Safari on iCloud - while ITP does run on the machine, it gave Apple a good excuse to initially collect cookie data from all users to analyse it for ITP modeling - Apple does collect data "to improve its services". Honestly, I am just very cynical about Apple and other BigTech when it comes to my privacy and data.)

Good to know that WebExtensions API has been ported to Webkit by the Orion team. It needs to be seen how they've implemented it though - even Chrome supports WebExtensions but we all know how Blink has been modified to cripple uBlock Origin and other adblockers on it.

Re: Orion is a new WebKit-based browser for Mac

#169

Post by shukantpal » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 2:47 PM UTC

zdragnar wrote: post #80

askonomm wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When the ask is to compare it with Brave, noting that it is an Apple-only product is indeed a con against Orion.

No it isn’t, if you’re not using macOS your not the target audience

Re: Orion is a new WebKit-based browser for Mac

#170

Post by steve_adams_86 » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 4:22 PM UTC

1--6zVa-E wrote: post #155

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an exciting project - I’ll definitely follow it closely. Do you have any plans in particular to make it especially useful to developers? It would be amazing to have a lightweight browser that’s easy on the battery like safari but with excellent dev tools. Noticing your name - are you a free diver? If so what are your favourite dive locations?

> "Orion features developer tools from Safari with a few extra ones... We just started with this, expect many useful additions in the future."

I noticed that part, and I suppose what I was wondering more specifically was if “many useful additions” might mean powerful tools for developers or something less ambitious.