251–260 of 283 posts
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I have definitely switched in iOS to orion for the support of firefox and chrome extensions. Have not the slightest idea how different browsers in mobile compare in speed. But if it was abysmally slow I would have had seconds thoughts about it probably.
Or seconds to think about it
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A large % of desktop Windows installations are on employer-owned/managed hardware. And the % of users who are interested in trying newer alternate browsers and/or care about privacy also skews heavily away from Windows. So it might be more rational than it first seems.
> A large % of desktop Windows installations are on employer-owned/managed hardware What's a "large %"? > And the % of users who are interested in trying newer alternate browsers and/or care about privacy also skews heavily away from Windows I mean, enterprise users wouldn't try anything new of course, but I don't see the relevance to Windows. Would enterprise Mac users be any more inclined to try new things?
Perplexity says the share of US desktops managed by employers is estimated in the range of approximately 50-60%...
... and Enterprise Macs in the US represent close to 10% of commercial desktops and laptops.
My point stands.
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I mean they say in the article that the have started on the windows version and are aiming for late 2026
I know, the prioritization just looks counter-intuitive to me, especially if you make money primarily from subscribers.
So that's why boutique software makers always focus on Mac first.
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If it gets abandoned—so what? Switching browsers is trivial.
It really isn’t, and especially not when one of the browser’s unique selling points is its multi-browser extension compatibility that no other browser offers. Also some of us simply don’t want to learn new UIs and/or risk dealing with an “AI” infused alternative if we have a tool that already Just Works. Switching away from Just Works sucks.
So, the blog post says: > Because something fundamental has been lost. > Zero telemetry, privacy‑first access to the internet: a basic human right. > We believe there needs to be a different path: a browser that answers only to its user. So basically they have just re-invented Firefox Focus and/or Mullvad Browser ? Disable Daily Ping and Crash Reports in Firefox Focus and you too have a telemetry-free browser on iOS.…
> they have just re-invented Firefox Focus exactly what's the problem with re-inventing? And they didn't reinvent anything, they pick an under-utilised engine. This is not yet another firefox (or chromium) fork.
Because their blog makes a big song and dance about the items I quoted above as the answer to their self-imposed question "why the heck do we need a new browser?".
They are saying "we need a new browser" because "Zero telemetry, privacy‑first access has been lost".
However the reality is that zero-telemetry has NOT been lost. It is there in Firefox Focus, Mullvad Browser and doubtless others too.
Therefore, I quite rightly am returning to their question "why the heck do we need a new browser?".
Because "there are no zero telemetry browsers" is factually incorrect as an answer to their headline question.
At the very least they should address their competitor products and why they consider themselves different. Don't just bury your head in the sand and pretend your product has no competitors.
But really they should have picked a better headline topic to base their blog on.
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Trust with regards to...? Orion doesn't have any telemetry, doesn't force any updates on you, doesn't require any account. You can audit the application's behavior with standard tools to verify that it isn't "phoning home", etc., it doesn't need to be open source to do that, nor would making it open source obviate auditig the final executable anyways. What do you perceive as the risk to "trusting" Orion in this case?…
By pushing back on someone over trust, you’ve eliminated the interest I briefly held in evaluating Orion. It would’ve been far better to acknowledge the concern than nitpick it.
So, the blog post says: > Because something fundamental has been lost. > Zero telemetry, privacy‑first access to the internet: a basic human right. > We believe there needs to be a different path: a browser that answers only to its user. So basically they have just re-invented Firefox Focus and/or Mullvad Browser ? Disable Daily Ping and Crash Reports in Firefox Focus and you too have a telemetry-free browser on iOS.…
I dropped firefox 9 months so after they updated their privacy policy and removed "we don't sell your data" from their FAQ. Besides, it doesn't seem like I'm able to install sponsorblock, ublockock origin etc on iOS firefox. I love using sponsorblock and several other add-ons from both Mazzella in chrome in Orion on my phone.
"Firefox" != "Firefox Focus"
Please do not conflate the two.
> it doesn't seem like I'm able to install sponsorblock, ublockock origin etc on iOS firefox
There are other options though. For example a DoH DNS profile pointing at DNS servers that do that for you (for example Mullvad's `adblock.dns.mullvad.net` DNS servers).
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Nowadays users switch browsers to escape from AI nonsense. But in all seriousness, just enabling an ad-blocker significantly increases the speed of the browser, because, as you correctly noticed, website bloat is the largest bottleneck. And usually "raw" website content is only small fraction of all other stuff that gets loaded from various remote sources to show you ads and track you better. And to take speed point…
I've been playing Dragon Age Origins recently, and I've been popping into the Steam overlay browser to look up some stuff, which frequently leads me to the wiki. And oh my god, I can't believe how bad the internet is without adblock these days. Every page visit, it pops up ginormous video ads that cover 90% of the web page, and it needs to chug along to get the initial render done before I can collapse it.
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Also trust that it won't be abandoned like Opera was.
If it gets abandoned—so what? Switching browsers is trivial.
I'm not sure what I'd seek in a browser I'd pay for - but it would be features not present or great in foss browsers.
Maybe email, podcast, rss client, a modal vi like browsing (like vimperator, but first class), a good reader mode/style override, proper editor for text input (like "it's all text"), automatic force support for select text, save as... for images)...
But whatever would be useful enough to pay for, would likely be a pain to lose.
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Also trust that it won't be abandoned like Opera was.
Would you pay for Orion not to be abandoned? There is Orion+ that can be paid for that keeps development going.
But, sure, I could imagine paying for a browser again - although I don't immediately see what features would be worth paying for.
For opera it was the custom, fast rendering engine and the email client.
Now with basically two equivalent rendering engines, I don't imagine performance in that area will be enough to pay for.
Maybe a smalltalk like developer mode with better debugger and repl support?