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Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux

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Re: Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux

#291

Post by notrealyme123 »

drdaeman wrote: post #278
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What’s the threat scenario and “defense” here Someone steals their work. Violates the license. To defend their rights Kagi has to sue or lay down. Not giving away the keys to the kingdom until that ability to defend is established just underlines that they're doing valuable work.

Pardon my skepticism but I don’t believe that’s a realistic threat model. Yea, purely hypothetically that could happen. But realistically, why would someone do that - what’s the point? Especially so it’s severe enough to warrant a serious legal battle that takes more than a few sternly worded DMCA-like emails to hosting providers? Mind you, if we’re talking about hypotheticals, someone can ship a differently branded…

For example:

If it is open source, it will end for in LLMs and will be used in other browser variants (bigger and smaller). Any USP of the code itself will be gone.

Re: Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux

#292

Post by carlosjobim »

drdaeman wrote: post #225
freediver wrote: post #92

Earlier 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…

> managing an open source codebase of this size would add real strain to our small team Can you please elaborate what do you mean when you say this? This is something I do not understand. How licensing terms affect your codebase management beyond setting things up so the code is available to users? Publishing something under a FLOSS license doesn’t mean anything except that you grant end-users certain rights (the fou…

It's the strain of dealing with FLOSS freaks, who are by far the most annoying and persistent people to have ever walked the earth.

Re: Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux

#293

Post by rkagerer »

doublerabbit wrote: post #153
rixthefox wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the way. Widevine is a cancer that only serves to lock down the browser market to a small handful of web engines that have been approved by Google. If your browser isn't based on Chrome, Firefox, or Safari you're out of luck. Most people will not use a browser that can't open youtube videos and they know and exploit this with extreme precision.

If you are already paying for the streaming service that offers the content and they restrict you from watching because of your OS are you harming the industry by downloading it? Nothing is stopping you from buying a 4k webcam and recording your computer monitor. You're already paying the monthly fee to stream it, you're just streaming it in a more friendly way. Granted if you cancel the service, you should delete th…

I'd love to explore this comment further:

Nothing is stopping you from buying a 4k webcam and recording your computer monitor

Video DRM that doesn't protect the stream all the way through to a decryption key embedded in your eyeballs always seemed somewhat futile to me.

Re: Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux

#294

Post by WhyNotHugo »

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?

Being closed-source isn't just an ideological issue, it bring about a lot of practical issues. E..g.: distributions aren't going to package it, so users need to download the tarball and install it manually. They'll also need to manually update it (unless they're including some dedicated service?).

Then, integration with the OS will be weird. If you're distributing binaries, you can't dynamically link system dependencies (they are either bundled or statically linked). Any distribution-specific patches and fixes will be missing. AFAIK the default path for the CA bundle varies per distribution; I'm not even sure how you'd handle that kind of thing. I'm sure there's hundreds of subtle little details like that one.

The audience ends up being Linux users, who are fine with proprietary software, have time and patience for manually configuring and maintaining a browser installation, and are also fine with an absence of proper OS integration.

I think Steam is the only popular proprietary software on Linux, and they basically ship an entire userspace runtime, and almost don't integrate with the OS at all.

Re: Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux

#295

Post by digiown »

pixelpoet wrote: post #285
yencabulator wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They need a guarantee s/need/want/ but yes.

I really wish more people would appreciate this distinction.

I don't think there is a difference. They can need or want or demand and it doesn't matter. They don't have the right to weaponize my computer against me to fulfill their goals.

Re: Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux

#296

Post by digiown »

packetlost wrote: post #85
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We like Linux adoption around these parts. But don't we like it because linux doesn't let companies mistreat it's users? If users are unwilling to opt out of that abuse then I think its OK that their migration to Linux remains mildly inconvenient.

DRM sucks, but the time to thrash against it is has passed. It's here, it's not going away, and users expect to be able to use their browsers to watch protected content.

If anything I see mainstream complaints about DRM in games, media, and lesser extent anti-cheat now more than ever, along with all the thrashing of Windows anti-user behavior. It is only natural that they go together. If there is a time to get rid of these, it's the near future.

Re: Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux

#297

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

freehorse wrote: post #227
mikae1 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

People usually don't compile their browsers from source anyway. And of course, technically, a program can check whether monitoring tools are running and adapt its behaviour accordingly, but this is malware territory and it makes no sense for any reputable browser. Also, technically, one can do that on router level anyway and not have this issue. So yes, I would say that analyzing the network is enough.

"People usually don't compile their browsers from source anyway."

But this is a forum that includes people who do compile their browser from source

As such, if promoting a new browser here, it should be expected people may ask about the availability of source code

I use an HTML browser that is a 2M static binary

It compiles quickly and easily on all the computers I own, and these computers are underpowered

This allows me to customise the software

For example, any "features" I do not wish to have, such as telemetry or other "automatic" remote connections, can be removed

NB. I am not expressing an opinion on the "Orion" software, I am commenting exclusively on the statement, "People usually don't compile their browsers from source anyway" appearing in a forum read by people who _do_ compile their browsers from source

Re: Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux

#298

Post by laughing_snyder »

mikae1 wrote: post #89
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…

> Webkit on Linux has essentially been relegated to embedded devices or the GNOME epiphany browser Don't forget about https://falkon.org . It's a browser I enjoy using. WebExtension support will be big if it lands in Orion though. EDIT: apparently Orion is not open source. Not particularly interested in a closed source browser, TBH. In 2022 they said they plan to open source "when there is merit"[1], whatever that me…

The last Falkon update was 8 months ago (falkon.org/posts), seems like a very long time for a browser without any updates. Is it not a security problem to run a browser like this?

Re: Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux

#299

Post by rigelbm »

nevon wrote: post #211

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 ac…

As a Kagi long time user, and a Linux die-hard, I don't get the obsession with having everything being open source.

This will sound overly critic (sorry before hand), but what do you want the source code for?

Do you read the source code of every open source applications you use? Do you compile all of them to make sure there are no shenanigans? If you do, congratulations, you are a member of a very niche group of people, that I'm not sure companies will be targeting.

I pay Kagi because I don't want to be the product (via no-privacy ad businesses). Not because I hate ads per-se (although I really dislike them), but because ads-funding incentives are contrary to make their products better. I like to know that Kagi's only incentive is to make their products better, so that I will keep paying for them.

I more than welcome that now expanding to browsers. I would get absolutely 0 value from it being open source, and so would most users I would guess, including probably you, even if you are fundamentally against closed source software, which you have the right to be of course.

Re: Kagi releases alpha version of Orion for Linux

#300

Post by a2128 »

laughing_snyder wrote: post #298
mikae1 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Webkit on Linux has essentially been relegated to embedded devices or the GNOME epiphany browser Don't forget about https://falkon.org . It's a browser I enjoy using. WebExtension support will be big if it lands in Orion though. EDIT: apparently Orion is not open source. Not particularly interested in a closed source browser, TBH. In 2022 they said they plan to open source "when there is merit"[1], whatever that me…

The last Falkon update was 8 months ago (falkon.org/posts), seems like a very long time for a browser without any updates. Is it not a security problem to run a browser like this?

The last update was 2 days ago, see https://github.com/KDE/falkon/tags
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