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Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux

help.kagi.com

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Re: Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux

#211

Post by nevon »

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.

Re: Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux

#212

Post by slwvx »

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/

Re: Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux

#213

Post by diabllicseagull »

pbronez wrote: post #44
pbronez wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I don’t see it on https://orionbrowser.com anywhere. It’s probably a private alpha.

Found it https://cdn.kagi.com/flatpaks/oriongtk.alpha.external.flatpa...

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.

Re: Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux

#214

Post by fainpul »

gumby271 wrote: post #90
fainpul wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Voilà — 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.

I think thats how everyone but Apple does it.

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).

Re: Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux

#215

Post by dooglius »

t-writescode wrote: post #198
hamdingers wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

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 tr…

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.

Re: Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux

#216

Post by bikelang »

maronato wrote: post #204
bikelang wrote: post #43

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.…

Is the 1Password extension still not working on it? I really want to switch, but no 1P support makes it really hard, unfortunately.

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.

Re: Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux

#217

Post by bikelang »

pzmarzly wrote: post #201
bikelang wrote: post #43

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.…

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,…

It has cross device sync via iCloud. I don’t have it enabled tho - so can’t say how well it works

Re: Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux

#218

Post by Spivak »

freediver wrote: post #92
hellcow wrote: post #9

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?

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 bu…

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.

Re: Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux

#219

Post by pseudosavant »

jwcooper wrote: post #61
Fiveplus wrote: post #35

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…

> 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. Ho…

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.

Re: Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux

#220

Post by mikae1 »

freehorse wrote: post #199
lordhexd wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Orion does not collect telemetry data [0]. [0] https://orionbrowser.com/privacy

How do you know that? Source is closed. Is a network analyzer enough to determine?
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