Orion is the only modern piece of software that has ever made my mac less stable as a system.
I don't know what they do, but it caused weird graphics glitches and kernel panics simply from running in the background.
Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux
241–250 of 325 posts
Re: Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find it strange because it seems to me that outside of their bread and butter products (Kagi Search, Assistant), there really isn't a business secret or proprietary technology to keep secret no? Perhaps integrated browser LLM tooling they don't want to give out for free.
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
That is in fact some pretty wild speculation.
Re: Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux
#243No source code? That's pretty disappointing, and makes it DOA for most Linux users.
Most Linux users couldn't care less whether or not their software is open source. They are drawn to Linux for practical benefits, not ideological ones.
Re: Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux
#244Been 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 ac…
> Then release it under a copyleft license. Or if you absolutely must, release your proprietary bit under a non-open source license
An old mentor once said to me that a contract is just the start of a conversation. If you sign a contract, the other party violates it, and your business goes under... you may be able to get some compensation through courts, but also your business is gone. And getting that compensation and proving that the contract was violated and how much you are entitled to costs time and money.
Releasing something at all, even under a restrictive license, means nothing if you have no intention (or capability) of enforcing that license. Look at how often companies take GPL code, modify it, and then never publish their modifications... and then people have to sue to get things resolved.
So "We aren't ready to commit the legal resources to fighting and defending the licenses" makes a LOT of sense. IP protection is not just a matter of signing a piece of paper saying people can't do a thing, you have to actually prevent them from doing the thing.
Re: Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux
#245Been 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 ac…
> 3. We need to protect our IP. Then release it under a copyleft license.
No affiliation with Kagi, but I think you're dreaming if this actually would make a difference.
How many times has GPL'd software successfully been argued in court? Maybe four or five? Considering how many millions of software packages exist and how hard it would be to prove enough to bring a lawsuit/discovery request, I would be extremely surprised if there aren't thousands of GPL violations out in the wild that never go to court. I remember the source code to Spongebob Squarepants Supersponge violated the GPL [1], and that wasn't discovered for decades.
I am mostly ok with FOSS, and I don't love the idea of using a fully proprietary browser either, and I am probably not going to use Orion on Linux, but I don't think it's inherently wrong for them to want to keep any secret sauce close to their chest.
Re: Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux
#246A poorly made page. I don't know what an Orion is. I didn't learn it after skinning through the page. Now I don't even care.
Re: Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're using a "common browser" on Linux (Firefox/Chrome) Netflix should work, just at 720p for most of the content. If you're using a minor Chromium based fork the customized Chromium package provided by your distro it probably doesn't have Widevine by default. The same is true for running a vanilla Chromium build on Windows, the big difference is the quality of content you can get on Windows can be higher than 7…
> If you're using a "common browser" on Linux (Firefox/Chrome) Right. The user I was replying to was asking about a browser that isn't either of those.
Yeah, and that leads to the DRM'd content in YouTube (like Movies & TV) not working for me in Kagi on Linux. Unless you're saying I've done something wrong and it really is working for you... in which case I may have some tinkering to do to find out what I did to break it :D.
One correction to my message above: apparently Chrome on Windows is still 720p for Netflix, it was Edge that had 4k support. Or you can install the Netflix App on Windows too.
Re: Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux
#248A poorly made page. I don't know what an Orion is. I didn't learn it after skinning through the page. Now I don't even care.
That's because it's a docs page. Product page here https://orionbrowser.com
Re: Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
We support Kagi across products. We believe alternate browser engines keep the web standard. We give more weight to that than to whether a particular browser's value add (on top of a double digit* but non-hegemonic engine) is open. We believe software and hardware creators have a right to choose their business model and let that model compete, as Kagi's is competing right here in this thread. * Having worked at mega…
I am generally ok with things being proprietary if they want, and I'm mostly ok with Orion being proprietary, but I do understand peoples' issues here.
For a lot of people (even relatively geeky people), their computers end up being "an interface to use a browser". People use their browser to file their taxes, to write their documents, to manage their websites, to create websites, to look at porn, to pirate movies, to chat with their friends, to send/receive money to their bank, and a whole bunch of other things.
It would be hard to imagine a piece of software that is capable of knowing me more intimately than my primary web browser, and as Google has proven, this intimate knowledge is valuable. Companies pay boatloads of money for large quantities of personal information to target ads (and probably a bunch of other more disturbing things).
I genuinely don't think freediver is lying; I believe him when he says there's no telemetry data being sent and that it's not tracking me, but there's the sticking word: "believe". I have to trust him, which wouldn't necessarily be the case if it were FOSS.
Now, granted, I could always run Wireshark or something to ensure that there's no telemetry data being sent regularly, but that only protects you so much; for all I know, they could be taking steps to actively make it look like they're not sending data, or they could be batching up N days of data and sending it in batches so it is not as obvious that telemetry is sent.
Again, I genuinely don't think they're doing that, I believe them, but I do see peoples' points.
Re: Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're using a "common browser" on Linux (Firefox/Chrome) Netflix should work, just at 720p for most of the content. If you're using a minor Chromium based fork the customized Chromium package provided by your distro it probably doesn't have Widevine by default. The same is true for running a vanilla Chromium build on Windows, the big difference is the quality of content you can get on Windows can be higher than 7…
If you are limited to 720p you might as well pirate it even if you do pay for it if you intend to watch it on your computer rather than on a TV.
One correction to my message above: apparently Chrome on Windows is still 720p for Netflix, it was Edge that had 4k support. Or you can install the Netflix App on Windows too.
I agree it's a bit silly, but I think a lot of people don't really care about quality so long as they can watch it. I guess that'd also explain how Netflix gets away with such low bitrates for even the "high quality" versions of content.