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Kagi Is Bringing Orion Web Browser to Linux

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Re: Kagi Is Bringing Orion Web Browser to Linux

#51
post #48

I would've thought that Windows would be the next platform to port to given its larger user base. Maybe the decision speaks to the distribution of Kagi users across operating systems.

WebKit for Windows is not in a particularly well-maintained state, where WebKit-GTK (which is probably what Orion for Linux is built with) is in reasonable shape since it’s already used by GNOME Web (aka Epiphany). That might have something to do with it.

Re: Kagi Is Bringing Orion Web Browser to Linux

#53
post #7

I've been loving Kagi search and am really looking forward to Orion being available outside Apple land. You can join the email list here: https://kagi.com/changelog#6479 I'm a bit worried that Kagi might be over-extending here. Instead of focusing and capitalizing on search, they're expanding to the difficult business of browsers. I'm always hesitant when companies try to do everything everywhere all at once, since t…

Trying to use Kagi with other browsers lays bare the depth of collusion between browser makers and search providers. Getting out from under all that makes Kagi a whole lot more seamless and useful.

It’s ironic that it is its own tight collusion, with the difference that you can use Orion just as well with any other search providers as with Kagi.

So yeah, it seems like a departure from search, until you consider that for the features that make Kagi a worthwhile search product (privacy, neutrality, etc), “you can’t get there from here” with the other browsers.

Re: Kagi Is Bringing Orion Web Browser to Linux

#55

What exactly is the benefit over Waterfox or Ungoogled Chromium here? The FAQ https://kagi.com/orion/faq.html#firefox seems to be things that are specific to Mac or have privacy features already offered by open-source alternatives.

For the Mac version, one of the “features” is that it’s built with the native UI toolkit and tries to blend into the desktop instead of setting itself apart with “branded UI” like browsers tend to do these days. Presumably the Linux version (which I’m assuming is built with GTK) would similarly adhere to GTK desktop (mostly GNOME) conventions.

Re: Kagi Is Bringing Orion Web Browser to Linux

#56

Orion for macOS is still pretty buggy and, in my experience, a bit too frustrating to use as my default browser. I want to use it and pay the $5/month even though I don't use it all the time. It's close to being good, but not quite there yet.

Counteranecdata: I use Orion every day as my daily driver on my work machine, together with Bitwarden for passwords and a couple simple extensions. I can’t remember it crashing or failing to render a page, and at least on my apple silicon machine, it has been very polite with resources.

Re: Kagi Is Bringing Orion Web Browser to Linux

#57
post #46

Kagi is cool and all but... I'm in Europe. I'm busy disengaging from US based services. Any good EU alternatives?

I’m in the same boat but for Kagi it’s a little different : I don’t pay them because they are privacy friendly (or at least that’s another reason) but because the search quality is better than everything else, including Google. However fwiw, Startpage is nice.

Keep in mind that Startpage is owned by an American advertising company: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System1

Re: Kagi Is Bringing Orion Web Browser to Linux

#58
post #8

Kagi has been one of the biggest value adds to my online life in a long time. Paying for the Kagi ultimate plans gets me access to the latest LLM models, and an incredible customizable search engine with a large focus on privacy. The Orion browser has been my favorite to use on iOS, I’m not sure if I’d use the desktop version because of its web kit base. But I’m glad to see it’s moving forward.

Using a non-chromium browser is actually the only thing we can do nowadays to promote an open web. Also I have next to no issues using webkit on the web currently. It’s a good engine now.

Re: Kagi Is Bringing Orion Web Browser to Linux

#59
post #49

I use Orion a bit on Mac. The blocker for me is that it doesn't support Ublock Origin. They claim that their built in ad blocking does 90% of what you need, but I really just want to be able to remove page elements at will.

Orion has a native element remover, just click the paintbrush icon in the toolbar.

uBlock Origin support is at least partial because whenever I click an analytics-redirect link in my email and it opens in Orion, I get a uBlock “tracker blocked” page.

Re: Kagi Is Bringing Orion Web Browser to Linux

#60
post #7

I've been loving Kagi search and am really looking forward to Orion being available outside Apple land. You can join the email list here: https://kagi.com/changelog#6479 I'm a bit worried that Kagi might be over-extending here. Instead of focusing and capitalizing on search, they're expanding to the difficult business of browsers. I'm always hesitant when companies try to do everything everywhere all at once, since t…

My guess is that they realize the opportunity created by Mozilla’s sudden change in privacy terms.
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