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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

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The gap between the Windows and GTK ports is shrinking. Every JIT tier has been enabled for JSC on Windows[1], and libpas (the custom memory allocator) should get enabled soon. The Windows port is moving from Cairo to Skia soon as well, matching the GTK port (though I think the focus is enabling the CPU renderer to start). Webkit's CI (EWS) is running the layout tests on Windows, and running more tests on Windows is…

That’s great to hear. The more web engines are practical to use across all major platforms the better.

Re: Kagi Is Bringing Orion Web Browser to Linux

#152
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm busy disengaging from US based services. Can you explain why? From privacy and free speech perspectives aren’t US services now better? Kagi now probably has the best search privacy features in the world after recent upgrades with Privacy Pass and even a ToR endpoint.

America under Trump is the least free that America has ever been. Your freedom argument is outdated, The USA has a fascism problem right now and we are trying to fight it.

Are you from the US?

Re: Kagi Is Bringing Orion Web Browser to Linux

#153

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

> I'm busy disengaging from US based services. Can you explain why? From privacy and free speech perspectives aren’t US services now better? Kagi now probably has the best search privacy features in the world after recent upgrades with Privacy Pass and even a ToR endpoint.

I'm considering cutting out American services as well. The US is starting trade wars left, right, and center, and the current government has barely gotten started. With the white house siding with the Russians, threatening war against Canada and Denmark, and the whole NATO situation, I think it'll be foolish of me to depend on American services. For all I know, our countries may well be at war by the end of the year.

As for privacy: American privacy laws are even more of a joke than the GDPR. The lack of privacy rights for non-American citizens is the main reason the GDPR bans storing PII in the US.

As for free speech: the kind of free speech American tech companies are offering right now is not something I'm very interested in. America ranking lower than my country in every freedom index I can find also doesn't help.

Furthermore, paying a browser that actively does business with Yandex doesn't sit well with me, even if it won't affect me directly. The comments the CEO made about not caring about "geopolitics" doesn't reassure me much, either.

Re: Kagi Is Bringing Orion Web Browser to Linux

#154
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (privacy, neutrality, etc) It's proprietary. There's no way of knowing that it's private.

If only we had a field of computer science dedicated to analyzing the security properties of black boxes…

I'm curious how you think this can be analyzed effectively.

Yes, I'm aware of bytecode analysis, but that's a slow difficult process, and for browsers, the release cycle is short enough that by the time you're done analyzing the current version, a new version is out, and it's significantly harder and less useful to diff a binary, so you end up having to basically start the analysis over for the new version. Unless there's something going on here that I don't know of, that's simply not a viable means of keeping track of browser security.

Re: Kagi Is Bringing Orion Web Browser to Linux

#155
post #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.

Same, in a way. I've been using it for a couple months on my MacBook Pro M2 Max, zero issues. Recently I installed it on my work laptop, M4 Max, and I get frequent crashes. No idea why it would make a difference.

Re: Kagi Is Bringing Orion Web Browser to Linux

#156
post #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…

It’s Safari you’re talking about. All other browsers, even Chrome, support arbitrary default search engines, while Safari doesn’t even support them via extension, requiring ugly redirect hacks. Privacy Pass is similar, with all browsers letting you implement it as an extension, except Safari. The problem is entirely and only Safari.

Re: Kagi Is Bringing Orion Web Browser to Linux

#157

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

I'm seeing similar attitudes in my country and am disgusted by it. It mirrors and reinforces the isolationist attitudes that we are seeing in the US. We should be looking outwards in an effort to diversify our options and strengthen our ties to other countries, rather than looking inwards. (Yes, I realize the EU is a collection of countries. Yet there is more to the world than the EU.)

If Kagi is truly cool, by cool I am including opposition to current American policies, and you think they offer a good product, then you shouldn't fret about supporting them. If they aren't cool, then by all means look for alternatives.

Re: Kagi Is Bringing Orion Web Browser to Linux

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems more like an indictment of iOS than collusion between search and browser vendors. I'm using Kagi as my default search on Android, Linux, Mac, and Windows, both Chrome and Firefox. The kind of nonsense your describing us why iOS doesn't show up in my list of devices.

My point was more that you claimed to not understand and I was just providing an example where it does take longer than “15 seconds” to switch to Kagi. iOS/iPhone has the majority mobile market share in many countries including the United States. If you’re unaware, Google is currently being sued by the US government for establishing a monopoly over search engine placement including payments to Apple and Mozilla to ke…

> My point was more that you claimed to not understand and I was just providing an example where it does take longer than “15 seconds” to switch to Kagi.

It's an example, but it's not an example that proves the point.

> iOS/iPhone has the majority mobile market share in many countries including the United States. If you’re unaware, Google is currently being sued by the US government for establishing a monopoly over search engine placement including payments to Apple and Mozilla to keep Google as the default search engine. So, with that context, can you honestly say there’s no collusion between search providers and browser vendors?

Yes, easily.

The comment was talking about depth of collusion in making it significantly not seamless. But even with Google pushing a default, it's a trivial switch on Android.

On top of that, Google pushing their search engine onto Android phones has nothing to do with "browser vendors". It's a different topic.

So I say Android is not an example, and desktop is fine, leaving the only example of problems as Apple. Even if I think that's collusion, just Apple doing a thing is not collusion over the general market of browser makers. But I'm also skeptical that it's collusion. Apple always offers limited choices and bad customizability.

Re: Kagi Is Bringing Orion Web Browser to Linux

#159
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having been wondering what their cross platform plans for Orion were the other day and seeing this in the FAQ I don't think it's fair to frame it as small potatoes work just because it could have been even harder. It's still real work and a significant effort. https://help.kagi.com/orion/faq/faq.html#other_os_support : "Are there plans for a Windows/Linux/Android version of Orion? We currently do not have the resourc…

The CEO of Kagi has fairly strong views on user privacy as far as I can tell. I don’t know what his opinion of Windows is, but I’m willing to bet there’s a personal dislike of Windows and Android that is at least partially affecting the decision-making process here. They also don’t seem like they’re trying to go big, just stay profitable.

Android can be much more private than iOS if you pull the right levers - GrapheneOS is based on Android after all.

Re: Kagi Is Bringing Orion Web Browser to Linux

#160
post #95
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…

Doesn't Kagi Search just regurgitate Google's search results?

Considering that Kagis’s results are actually useful and google just brings up listicles and ads, I’d say no.
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