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Orion is a new WebKit-based browser for Mac

282 points by mpweiher 5y ago

Febra33 5y ago
I still can't get over the fact that Orion is the name of a sex store chain where I am from.
scgf 5y ago
I have been using Orion and my interest arose because it purportedly supports Firefox and Chrome extensions. It supports some, but not most. When I post about the extension I need most, xbrowsersync, in the Orion Discord forum I am ignored. It doesn't work - nor does any other extension which syncs bookmarks. Given this lack of support I can see little advantage over Safari TBH.
feep 5y ago
Sign me up. The performance charts & graphs look nice. And (from Safari) I am excited to see what WebKit can do with extensions and other power features. And, iPhone version. Also: 1. The search engine (https://kagi.com/ https://kagi.com/) is super cute (don’t have a login to try it). 2. Apparently this is what happened to the kagi.com (shareware payment) domain. Nice.
- icodestuff 5y ago
  I was wondering if it was the same Kagi. Guess not.
- stefandesu 5y ago
  I tried the Speedometer 2.0 on my M1 Air in both Safari and Orion yesterday and got ~200 in Safari and ~250 in Orion. I have to do more runs, but if it's accurate it's pretty insane I think.
janandonly 5y ago
Being able to use both chrome and firefox extensions and having an iOS and macOS app is wonderful :-)
- scgf 5y ago
  Don't get too excited. Many extensions do not work. It's as if Kagi needs to work on the code to make particular extensions work. I'm sure neither Firefox nor Chromium need to do that.
- franga2000 5y ago
  Will those features transfer to iOS though? Last time I checked truly custom browsers are not allowed there and extensions could be easily interpreted as running downloaded third party code, which is also a common excuse for Apple to throw apps off the store.
  - jaflo 5y ago
    The FAQ says their iOS version does support extensions
    - solarkraft 5y ago
      Definitely not perfectly yet, but initial support is there for Chrome and Firefox extensions, though I also wonder how this will work with the app store policies.
connor-brooks 5y ago
The one thing that is lacking from Safari is extensions. If this does what I believe then it will be my main browser. Safari adblocking sucks atm.
- qsort 5y ago
  I have been happy so far with Adguard. It's not ublock origin but it will do the job.
- drcongo 5y ago
  Safari has extensions. Apple has just made them incredibly difficult to find by burying them in the Mac App Store.
  - Macha 5y ago
    And by requiring an Apple Developer Account and associated tooling, they've made them just hard enough to develop that the long tail won't bother porting.
  - spurgu 5y ago
    "Has" yes. Last time I checked the selection was horrible and most of the seemingly good ones were paid. Have things changed in the past 6-12 months?
- Brajeshwar 5y ago
  I'm on Safari, with the occasional testing and account segregations with Chrome. The combination of AdGuard[1] (found via SetApp[2]) and NextDNS[3] works for me well on Safari. 1. https://adguard.com https://adguard.com 2. https://setapp.com https://setapp.com 3. https://nextdns.io https://nextdns.io
  - drcongo 5y ago
    I use the AdGuard extension too, with a Raspberry Pi running AdGuard Home which in turn uses NextDNS. I highly recommend every part of this setup, it's maintenance free, extremely reliable and I can't remember the last time an ad or tracker got through it.
wil421 5y ago
What benefits does this give me over Safari or Firefox? Not really an Adblock or extension user. The websites I frequent don’t have invasive ads and the one’s that do get put into reader view, even if it means losing part of the content or weird picture placement. If you have invasive ads I’m not coming back.
- rising-sky 5y ago
  I guess you're not the target consumer, so none. The main selling points are privacy ("like no other") and cross-platform extensions, which don't matter to you
  - wil421 5y ago
    How does Safari not have privacy features? Or Firefox? Apple has very publicly been trying to block tracking on its platforms and has the resources that are comparable to nation states. The also publicly fought the FBI and, if the blogs are true, severely hindered FaceBooks tracking. Kagi is bootstrapped by a somewhat unknown founder presumably in Serbia or from Serbia. Serbia has not always been a friend of the West/US and the government can compel people to do things that are not privacy friendly. I mean no offense by this statement and I have spent time in Serbia. My ears do perk up when I hear Serbia/Balkans or Eastern Europe related to privacy.
    - Applejinx 5y ago
      So is that actually Kagi again, or did some founder buy out the name and .com as one of the assets in the bankruptcy?
      - wil421 5y ago
        I went to the about page on Kagi.com and read. Did a quick google search but the name is common.
    - breakfastduck 5y ago
      He lives in the US and isn't exactly 'unknown' considering his company was aquired by godaddy and he worked as their VP of product during acquisition. I do not understand what being serbian has to do with anything.
threatofrain 5y ago
Will this support Apple's new Private Relay, which is akin to TOR-lite for grandma?
- Brajeshwar 5y ago
  I stumble on this few days back and I felt good about it. I'm now a grandma-in-training.
znpy 5y ago
«Orion is a new WebKit-based browser for Mac» -- FTFY
- remram 5y ago
  From the title I thought this was an official Apple project. This is just a product from a random developer.
- airstrike 5y ago
  +1... Title is misleading / clickbaity
herodotus 5y ago
The sales pitch for this browser is really well done. What is lacking is information about who made this, and why we should trust their claims. Seems important too me if privacy is the main selling feature.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jcoder 5y ago
  To be fair, the about page says who made it https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html#about https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html#about
- tnorthcutt 5y ago
  The about section says: > Orion is created by [Vladimir Prelovac][0], a tech entrepreneur with a track record of executing ambitious ideas that go beyond conventional wisdom. Orion was created in 2019, is bootstrapped by the founder and is being built by a world-wide passionate team. > We are also building a privacy-respecting alternative to Google search, currently in private beta. > If you'd like to know more or get involved, please feel welcome to reach out to vprelovac@kagi.com. [0]: https://vladimir.prelovac.com/ https://vladimir.prelovac.com/
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > Orion is created by [Vladimir Prelovac][0], a tech entrepreneur with a track record of executing ambitious ideas that go beyond conventional wisdom. Orion was created in 2019, is bootstrapped by the founder and is being built by a world-wide passionate team. I have nothing against that guy, but it'd be nice to have more than a promotional self-description. Does he have a good individual reputation (e.g like Raymond Hill)?
    - dymk 5y ago
      I’ve never heard of Raymond Hill, so I think it wouldn’t make much of a difference
hirako2000 5y ago
A comparison with Brave would be most welcome.
- StevePerkins 5y ago
  Pros: * Supports both Chrome and Firefox extensions, vs. Brave supporting Chrome only. * Not so much with the skeezy crypto emphasis. Cons: * Brave has a multi-year head start, and has worked all the kinks out. Sync works, etc. * This is Apple-only. Brave works on every major device. I won’t be leaving Brave anytime soon. But competition is a good thing, and this beta is worth keeping an eye on.
  - hunterb123 5y ago
    I count Brave's emphasis on crypto as a pro and necessary for our hopefully one day ad-less future. If you block ads without allowing the ability to donate a token you are effectively stealing from site owners and causing the rise of paywalls and other restrictions on the internet.
    - StevePerkins 5y ago
      Putting aside legitimate qualms about Brave’s ad blocking business model, “skeezy” refers to Brave themselves showing me by default multiple home screen ads for various crypto wallet and NFT brokers. Opinions vary wildly on HN, but for me that entire scene is kissing cousins with MLM.
      - hunterb123 5y ago
        Yeah affiliates is how they make money. You can hide all that stuff, but it's a good way to support them if you buy crypto often. Beats being the product using Google, or having a product fall behind like Mozilla because you had to fire all of your engineers.
      - celsoazevedo 5y ago
        > Putting aside legitimate qualms about Brave’s ad blocking business model The other alternatives to Chrome (Edge, Opera, Vivaldi, and Firefox[0]) also come with a built in ad blocker. Is it only a problem because on top of the blocking - which others also do - they also have the ads/crypto business? --- [0] On Firefox it's more of a "tracking blocker", but things like Adsense are blocked by it.
pavlov 5y ago
Anybody else remember the original Kagi.com? It was an early payment processor for independent software developers. I sold my first shareware license on Kagi. Probably less than ten people in total bought my screensaver, but it inspired me to switch careers to software. RIP OG Kagi!
- eddieh 5y ago
  Yes! I remember a bunch of shareware developers I respected used it. I chose to use eSellerate, because the fees were lower.
  - tecleandor 5y ago
    Oh my, I probably have both Kagi and eSellerate emails in my old archive.
- Applejinx 5y ago
  Huh, I lost a few hundred bucks out of the collapse, bankruptcy and dissolution of OG Kagi. Before then, that was what Airwindows used for a payment processor, for years. Them going bust was the impetus for me moving to Patreon and fully open source. I've been talking about Kagi in the past tense for years. Now that's a name I've not heard in a long time…
- rgovostes 5y ago
  I was wondering if it was related. Wonder if reusing established domains like this is beneficial for search result rankings. https://www.macrumors.com/2016/08/01/kagi-shuts-down/ https://www.macrumors.com/2016/08/01/kagi-shuts-down/
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
tnorthcutt 5y ago
I don't see any mention of developer tools, but in case anyone working on this is here, that's something that would probably be interesting to the HN crowd. Since the home page has a screenshot of HN, I'm guessing devs are the target market.
- traveler01 5y ago
  In my experience most browsers based on these major engines, like Vivaldi, Edge or whatever have broken dev tools. You'd be better using Safari for that imo.
  - jefftk 5y ago
    Edge's devtools seem to work very well to me -- what have you run into?
    - traveler01 5y ago
      Some weird stuff, most issues are placed in the responsive mode. They fixed some already, like the resolution selector not being working properly and etc. One that still annoys the heck out of me is the fact that when you right mouse click to re-open the inspect tool the window just selects whatever option it's above your mouse pointer (usually the print option...). One workaround is just keep the mouse pressed and select the option you want. Brave is literally the only chromium brased browser (besides Chrome itself), on which dev tools work flawlessy.
  - spurgu 5y ago
    Brave working perfectly fine here. Do you work for Apple? :D I've never heard anyone defend Safari's dev tools over Chrom(e/ium)'s before.
    - traveler01 5y ago
      Brave works pretty fine to be fair. No I'm not saying they're better than Chrome's, I just run into a lot of issues with chromium-based browsers.
smoldesu 5y ago
I wonder what exactly has changed since the last time this was on Hacker News. There's a plethora of Webkit-derivatives to choose from, I don't see why I should choose the one that won't let me also install it on my other devices.
- kitsunesoba 5y ago
  It wouldn't have changed from last time, but for some native browser chrome and platform integrations are highly appealing, particularly now that most browsers have gone all-in on brand-driven UI and try to pull you into your ecosystems.
shmoe 5y ago
I know if I was developing a browser, the solarwinds product that Russia hacked is where I'd turn for the name too :)
solarkraft 5y ago
I’ve been using it for a few months and i’d day it’s almost ready for public consumption. It’s essentially a better Safari, but (and this is what makes it the ONLY alternative to Firefox) with tree style tabs. Progress has been rapid and the interaction with the dev(s) has been great. I see a bright future ahead for this browser.
- KitDuncan 5y ago
  Have you tried the iOS app as well? Interested to hear your experience with it.
  - solarkraft 5y ago
    I have (semi-daily) and would say it’s somewhat close to being day to day usable. They recently added Safari-style back and forth gestures and you can choose to arrange your tabs vertically (though not in a tree). The main thing preventing daily driving is that it’s not in the App Store yet, leading to it not being selectable as a default browser. I also experience occasional crashes with hundreds of tabs open.
gls2ro 5y ago
If possible (a.k.a if Apple allows this) please integrate Keychain with this browser. I am not sure if there are many people like me, but I am using Keychain and it is the reason why I default to Safari and using any other browser it takes effort that I am doing, but I really wish Keychain could be integrated in other browsers too. LE: It seems they already support this as stated in their FAQ/"How does Orion store my passwords?"
- VOBOSHI 5y ago
  The FAQ mentions that this is possible / done with the latest Safari.
  - gls2ro 5y ago
    Yes, thank you for that. Found it here: https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html > Orion uses native macOS Keychain integration, same as Safari. GG, I applied to be a beta-user. Let's see!
- specialist 5y ago
  Ditto Firefox. I'd use it a lot more. Right now, only for YouTube. Also, I hope Orion has hooks needed for uBlock. (Preparse hook?) For whatever reason, Safari + 1Blocker doesn't filter YouTube's ads. I'll use fulltime which ever browser that has both keychain and blocks youtube ads.
  - latexr 5y ago
    > I hope Orion has hooks needed for uBlock. It does[1]. > For whatever reason, Safari + 1Blocker doesn't filter YouTube's ads. It does, as part of a recent addition[2]. It’s a bespoke solution because it can’t be done with the content blocking tools Safari provides. [1]: https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html#ublock https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html#ublock [2]: https://backstage.1blocker.com/how-to-block-youtube-ads-in-safari-with-1blocker-a9091cff160d https://backstage.1blocker.com/how-to-block-youtube-ads-in-s...
  - NmAmDa 5y ago
perardi 5y ago
A bit of a tangent, but not that much: I loathe the new Safari “tabs”, with as much scare as you can get in those scare quotes. But, I still can’t leave Safari be, as I appreciate the history and Keychain sync with my iOS devices. It’s that tight macOS/iOS integration that makes me stay on Safari, along with the relatively lighter energy usage versus Chrome. This looks nice in terms of using native UIKit elements (probably, it’s just screenshots) and probably the system WebKit, but I would really miss password syncing. (Yes, I know, there are innumerable password sync options, but Keychain sync really does “just work” between iOS and Mac.)
- wodenokoto 5y ago
  What do you use for Adblock? I prefer FF due to ublock and better floating videos / Picture in Picture
  - phrz 5y ago
    I use 1Blocker, a very mature ad blocking tool that just added JS-based blocking rules, and StopTheMadness is a popular tool for tweaking websites e.g. forcing videos up front, stopping auto play, and showing their controls. This allows macOS native PiP on most websites that don't usually support it.
- jonplackett 5y ago
  Here you go, someone 'fixed' the tab highlighting for you, and for only $2! https://apps.apple.com/app/activetab/id1588852241?mt=12 https://apps.apple.com/app/activetab/id1588852241?mt=12 (via John Gruber: "I don't know whether to laugh or cry")
- zoul 5y ago
  The new Safari tabs are so bad that I’m sure they can’t stay that way for long. I was hoping I would get used to the broken active tab highlighting, but after a few days I’m still clicking the wrong tabs in the tab bar. I can’t believe it.
  - krrrh 5y ago
Apocryphon 5y ago
How well does its autofill integrate with Keychain Services? I think that might be the only compelling reason to use Safari, that and maybe iCloud tabs.
- solarkraft 5y ago
  I use a separate password manager (the plug-in is perfectly compatible, by the way), but it seems on par with Safari to me.
- imbnwa 5y ago
  It has writes its own items in Keychain. You can't just pop it open and re-use your Safari Keychain items but you can import them into Orion.
freediver 5y ago
Hey everyone, I am the founder behind Orion, bootstrapping the project. Started working on it three years ago with a small team just to see if it would be possible to build something like this from scratch and we just kept going. Orion is today a daily browser for a few dozen beta-testers and it warms my heart to see that we got that far considering the competition. Few questions about Orion answered that I see pop put in the comments: - Orion uses native Keychain integration for passwords and will use iCloud Sync to sync between devices. We have full import from Safari, including passwords [1] - Orion uses a slightly modified WebKit which allows us to run Chrome/Firefox extension support layer on top of it (about 70% of all extensions currently work in Orion - including uBlock Origin). We are planning to complete the support in the upcoming months. - Orion is currently trying to get to the feature parity of the reference browser (Safari). - Orion features developer tools from Safari with a few extra ones like the Error indicator in the address bar [2] We just started with this, expect many useful additions in the future. - Orion is designed as a zero-telemetry browser. - Orion iOS also features a number of useful innovations like the Data saver mode [3] and multiline URL edit [4] - The business model for Orion is to have a Pro version for those who want to support its development. I was the founder of ManageWP [5] which got acquired by GoDaddy in 2016. Moved from Belgrade, Serbia to SF Bay Area as part of the acquisition. Spent a couple of years there as VP of Product and then decided I want to build Orion and Kagi (privacy-respecting alternative to Google search), because one ambitious project was not enough :) Main reason for this is the concern for the future of the internet and the web my children will grow into using. [1] https://twitter.com/vladquant/status/1431290547877007363 https://twitter.com/vladquant/status/1431290547877007363 [2] https://twitter.com/vladquant/status/1445301620187693056 https://twitter.com/vladquant/status/1445301620187693056 [3] https://twitter.com/vladquant/status/1429588837391507458 https://twitter.com/vladquant/status/1429588837391507458 [4] https://twitter.com/vladquant/status/1441511763631960074 https://twitter.com/vladquant/status/1441511763631960074 [5] https://managewp.com https://managewp.com
- sylvinus 5y ago
  Congrats for the project! Love the simple UI and extensions support. Don't you fear being held back by WebKit, which is notoriously slow to implement new web platform features? Can you give some insights on how you chose the engine? Thanks!
webmobdev 5y ago
I'd use this if you can remove all the Apple crap features: - All the crap of AI / machine learning to prevent cross-site tracking that's useless to me in "Private Browsing" mode - just give me back control over cookies (manually and through third-party extensions), and keep Apple away from my data. - Remove the crap "Web Advertising: Allow privacy-preserving measurement of ad effectiveness" code from webkit. Keep advertisers, and Apple's online advertising networks, away from my data. So just as there are many Chrome clones that advertise they've removed all Google spying code from it, please offer a Webskit browser without Apple's crap baked into it. If possible also reverse the changes Apple made to Webkit that actually slightly cripples adblockers, like uBlock, from working effectively on it.
- ezfe 5y ago
  Do you understand what "Web Advertising" checkbox does? Like, I'm curious if you've actually read how it works. And I assume you're aware that "all the crap of AI / ML" is disable-able with a checkbox right?
  - webmobdev 5y ago
    > And I assume you're aware that "all the crap of AI / ML" is disable-able with a checkbox right? Yeah, just like how "opting out" of Telemetry in Firefox & Windows truly means Firefox ( https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/mozilla-does-not-respect-user-requests-to-stop-tracking-telemetry-data/ https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/mozilla-does-not-... ) & Windows ( https://old.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/o9zswt/disabling_telemetry_no_longer_actually_disables/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/o9zswt/disabling... ) honour them. Or like iPhones never send location data to Apple when you turn it off ( https://www.gsmarena.com/iphone_11_pro_devices_collect_location_data_even_when_turned_off-news-40401.php https://www.gsmarena.com/iphone_11_pro_devices_collect_locat... ). /s If I am searching for a privacy first alternative to Apple Safari, it should be obvious that it is because I don't trust Apple.
- breakfastduck 5y ago
  For someone so enthusiastic in their dislike you sure as hell haven't looked very hard at how to turn those off :)
Dingus25 5y ago
I just got added to the Orion beta last night, and have been using Kagi for a while now. Both seem remarkably polished for beta products, but still have their own quirks and rough spots. In my experience I’ve mentioned a couple things that I’d like to have, and the team was super quick to get them acknowledged and implemented. It’s going to come down to how the team chooses to monetize these for me, but I’d be more than happy to subscribe if it means I’m giving less to Google.
pier25 5y ago
Is there any crossplatform WebKit browser?
- freediver 5y ago
  Not any more to my knowledge. But if Orion becomes a success there might be one! (founder here) Current situation is - WebKit works great on Linux so that is not a problem. We've built WebKit on Windows too and while it works, it's not great. We are talking few developer-years of effort there (performance is main issue).
  - pier25 5y ago
    Why does WebKit perform poorly on Windows?
    - freediver 5y ago
      I do not know, but in Windows tests it performed about 30% worse than Blink (Chromium).
    - saagarjha 5y ago
      AFAIK the only major contributor to it is Sony.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Shadonototra 5y ago
Closed source? What kind of data they'll suck in order to monetize the browser?
- freediver 5y ago
  None (it is a zero telemetry browser, which is easily verifiable). Instead there will be a paid Pro version. https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html#business https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html#business
- commoner 5y ago
  They do address this in their FAQ: > Is Orion open-source? > Not yet, but we plan for it to be when we are ready to receive the benefits of open-sourcing Orion. Creating something as big and ambitious as Orion (which includes forking WebKit, porting entire WebExtensions API and writing a browser app from scratch) is challenging enough for a small team like ours. We can not afford any other overhead - and properly maintaining an open source project takes time and resources. If you want to contribute, the best way to do that is to become a beta tester. https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html#oss https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html#oss Hopefully, they'll follow through with their plans to open source the browser.
1--6zVa-E 5y ago
If you don't want to bother waiting to be approved for the beta, you can just download it from here: https://browser.kagi.com/downloads/Orion.dmg https://browser.kagi.com/downloads/Orion.dmg.
enderm 5y ago
What is the appeal of WebKit?

282 points by mpweiher 5y ago

I still can't get over the fact that Orion is the name of a sex store chain where I am from.

scgf 5y ago

I have been using Orion and my interest arose because it purportedly supports Firefox and Chrome extensions. It supports some, but not most. When I post about the extension I need most, xbrowsersync, in the Orion Discord forum I am ignored. It doesn't work - nor does any other extension which syncs bookmarks. Given this lack of support I can see little advantage over Safari TBH.

feep 5y ago

Sign me up. The performance charts & graphs look nice. And (from Safari) I am excited to see what WebKit can do with extensions and other power features. And, iPhone version. Also: 1. The search engine (https://kagi.com/ https://kagi.com/) is super cute (don’t have a login to try it). 2. Apparently this is what happened to the kagi.com (shareware payment) domain. Nice.

icodestuff 5y ago
I was wondering if it was the same Kagi. Guess not.
stefandesu 5y ago
I tried the Speedometer 2.0 on my M1 Air in both Safari and Orion yesterday and got ~200 in Safari and ~250 in Orion. I have to do more runs, but if it's accurate it's pretty insane I think.

janandonly 5y ago

Being able to use both chrome and firefox extensions and having an iOS and macOS app is wonderful :-)

scgf 5y ago
Don't get too excited. Many extensions do not work. It's as if Kagi needs to work on the code to make particular extensions work. I'm sure neither Firefox nor Chromium need to do that.
franga2000 5y ago
Will those features transfer to iOS though? Last time I checked truly custom browsers are not allowed there and extensions could be easily interpreted as running downloaded third party code, which is also a common excuse for Apple to throw apps off the store.
- jaflo 5y ago
  The FAQ says their iOS version does support extensions
  - solarkraft 5y ago
    Definitely not perfectly yet, but initial support is there for Chrome and Firefox extensions, though I also wonder how this will work with the app store policies.

connor-brooks 5y ago

The one thing that is lacking from Safari is extensions. If this does what I believe then it will be my main browser. Safari adblocking sucks atm.

qsort 5y ago
I have been happy so far with Adguard. It's not ublock origin but it will do the job.
drcongo 5y ago
Safari has extensions. Apple has just made them incredibly difficult to find by burying them in the Mac App Store.
- Macha 5y ago
  And by requiring an Apple Developer Account and associated tooling, they've made them just hard enough to develop that the long tail won't bother porting.
- spurgu 5y ago
  "Has" yes. Last time I checked the selection was horrible and most of the seemingly good ones were paid. Have things changed in the past 6-12 months?
Brajeshwar 5y ago
I'm on Safari, with the occasional testing and account segregations with Chrome. The combination of AdGuard[1] (found via SetApp[2]) and NextDNS[3] works for me well on Safari. 1. https://adguard.com https://adguard.com 2. https://setapp.com https://setapp.com 3. https://nextdns.io https://nextdns.io
- drcongo 5y ago
  I use the AdGuard extension too, with a Raspberry Pi running AdGuard Home which in turn uses NextDNS. I highly recommend every part of this setup, it's maintenance free, extremely reliable and I can't remember the last time an ad or tracker got through it.

wil421 5y ago

What benefits does this give me over Safari or Firefox? Not really an Adblock or extension user. The websites I frequent don’t have invasive ads and the one’s that do get put into reader view, even if it means losing part of the content or weird picture placement. If you have invasive ads I’m not coming back.

rising-sky 5y ago
I guess you're not the target consumer, so none. The main selling points are privacy ("like no other") and cross-platform extensions, which don't matter to you
- wil421 5y ago
  How does Safari not have privacy features? Or Firefox? Apple has very publicly been trying to block tracking on its platforms and has the resources that are comparable to nation states. The also publicly fought the FBI and, if the blogs are true, severely hindered FaceBooks tracking. Kagi is bootstrapped by a somewhat unknown founder presumably in Serbia or from Serbia. Serbia has not always been a friend of the West/US and the government can compel people to do things that are not privacy friendly. I mean no offense by this statement and I have spent time in Serbia. My ears do perk up when I hear Serbia/Balkans or Eastern Europe related to privacy.
  - Applejinx 5y ago
    So is that actually Kagi again, or did some founder buy out the name and .com as one of the assets in the bankruptcy?
    - wil421 5y ago
      I went to the about page on Kagi.com and read. Did a quick google search but the name is common.
  - breakfastduck 5y ago
    He lives in the US and isn't exactly 'unknown' considering his company was aquired by godaddy and he worked as their VP of product during acquisition. I do not understand what being serbian has to do with anything.

threatofrain 5y ago

Will this support Apple's new Private Relay, which is akin to TOR-lite for grandma?

Brajeshwar 5y ago
I stumble on this few days back and I felt good about it. I'm now a grandma-in-training.

znpy 5y ago

«Orion is a new WebKit-based browser for Mac» -- FTFY

remram 5y ago
From the title I thought this was an official Apple project. This is just a product from a random developer.
airstrike 5y ago
+1... Title is misleading / clickbaity

herodotus 5y ago

The sales pitch for this browser is really well done. What is lacking is information about who made this, and why we should trust their claims. Seems important too me if privacy is the main selling feature.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jcoder 5y ago
To be fair, the about page says who made it https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html#about https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html#about
tnorthcutt 5y ago
The about section says: > Orion is created by [Vladimir Prelovac][0], a tech entrepreneur with a track record of executing ambitious ideas that go beyond conventional wisdom. Orion was created in 2019, is bootstrapped by the founder and is being built by a world-wide passionate team. > We are also building a privacy-respecting alternative to Google search, currently in private beta. > If you'd like to know more or get involved, please feel welcome to reach out to vprelovac@kagi.com. [0]: https://vladimir.prelovac.com/ https://vladimir.prelovac.com/
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > Orion is created by [Vladimir Prelovac][0], a tech entrepreneur with a track record of executing ambitious ideas that go beyond conventional wisdom. Orion was created in 2019, is bootstrapped by the founder and is being built by a world-wide passionate team. I have nothing against that guy, but it'd be nice to have more than a promotional self-description. Does he have a good individual reputation (e.g like Raymond Hill)?
  - dymk 5y ago
    I’ve never heard of Raymond Hill, so I think it wouldn’t make much of a difference

hirako2000 5y ago

A comparison with Brave would be most welcome.

StevePerkins 5y ago
Pros: * Supports both Chrome and Firefox extensions, vs. Brave supporting Chrome only. * Not so much with the skeezy crypto emphasis. Cons: * Brave has a multi-year head start, and has worked all the kinks out. Sync works, etc. * This is Apple-only. Brave works on every major device. I won’t be leaving Brave anytime soon. But competition is a good thing, and this beta is worth keeping an eye on.
- hunterb123 5y ago
  I count Brave's emphasis on crypto as a pro and necessary for our hopefully one day ad-less future. If you block ads without allowing the ability to donate a token you are effectively stealing from site owners and causing the rise of paywalls and other restrictions on the internet.
  - StevePerkins 5y ago
    Putting aside legitimate qualms about Brave’s ad blocking business model, “skeezy” refers to Brave themselves showing me by default multiple home screen ads for various crypto wallet and NFT brokers. Opinions vary wildly on HN, but for me that entire scene is kissing cousins with MLM.
    - hunterb123 5y ago
      Yeah affiliates is how they make money. You can hide all that stuff, but it's a good way to support them if you buy crypto often. Beats being the product using Google, or having a product fall behind like Mozilla because you had to fire all of your engineers.
    - celsoazevedo 5y ago
      > Putting aside legitimate qualms about Brave’s ad blocking business model The other alternatives to Chrome (Edge, Opera, Vivaldi, and Firefox[0]) also come with a built in ad blocker. Is it only a problem because on top of the blocking - which others also do - they also have the ads/crypto business? --- [0] On Firefox it's more of a "tracking blocker", but things like Adsense are blocked by it.

pavlov 5y ago

Anybody else remember the original Kagi.com? It was an early payment processor for independent software developers. I sold my first shareware license on Kagi. Probably less than ten people in total bought my screensaver, but it inspired me to switch careers to software. RIP OG Kagi!

eddieh 5y ago
Yes! I remember a bunch of shareware developers I respected used it. I chose to use eSellerate, because the fees were lower.
- tecleandor 5y ago
  Oh my, I probably have both Kagi and eSellerate emails in my old archive.
Applejinx 5y ago
Huh, I lost a few hundred bucks out of the collapse, bankruptcy and dissolution of OG Kagi. Before then, that was what Airwindows used for a payment processor, for years. Them going bust was the impetus for me moving to Patreon and fully open source. I've been talking about Kagi in the past tense for years. Now that's a name I've not heard in a long time…
rgovostes 5y ago
I was wondering if it was related. Wonder if reusing established domains like this is beneficial for search result rankings. https://www.macrumors.com/2016/08/01/kagi-shuts-down/ https://www.macrumors.com/2016/08/01/kagi-shuts-down/
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

tnorthcutt 5y ago

I don't see any mention of developer tools, but in case anyone working on this is here, that's something that would probably be interesting to the HN crowd. Since the home page has a screenshot of HN, I'm guessing devs are the target market.

traveler01 5y ago
In my experience most browsers based on these major engines, like Vivaldi, Edge or whatever have broken dev tools. You'd be better using Safari for that imo.
- jefftk 5y ago
  Edge's devtools seem to work very well to me -- what have you run into?
  - traveler01 5y ago
    Some weird stuff, most issues are placed in the responsive mode. They fixed some already, like the resolution selector not being working properly and etc. One that still annoys the heck out of me is the fact that when you right mouse click to re-open the inspect tool the window just selects whatever option it's above your mouse pointer (usually the print option...). One workaround is just keep the mouse pressed and select the option you want. Brave is literally the only chromium brased browser (besides Chrome itself), on which dev tools work flawlessy.
- spurgu 5y ago
  Brave working perfectly fine here. Do you work for Apple? :D I've never heard anyone defend Safari's dev tools over Chrom(e/ium)'s before.
  - traveler01 5y ago
    Brave works pretty fine to be fair. No I'm not saying they're better than Chrome's, I just run into a lot of issues with chromium-based browsers.

smoldesu 5y ago

I wonder what exactly has changed since the last time this was on Hacker News. There's a plethora of Webkit-derivatives to choose from, I don't see why I should choose the one that won't let me also install it on my other devices.

kitsunesoba 5y ago
It wouldn't have changed from last time, but for some native browser chrome and platform integrations are highly appealing, particularly now that most browsers have gone all-in on brand-driven UI and try to pull you into your ecosystems.

shmoe 5y ago

I know if I was developing a browser, the solarwinds product that Russia hacked is where I'd turn for the name too :)

solarkraft 5y ago

I’ve been using it for a few months and i’d day it’s almost ready for public consumption. It’s essentially a better Safari, but (and this is what makes it the ONLY alternative to Firefox) with tree style tabs. Progress has been rapid and the interaction with the dev(s) has been great. I see a bright future ahead for this browser.

KitDuncan 5y ago
Have you tried the iOS app as well? Interested to hear your experience with it.
- solarkraft 5y ago
  I have (semi-daily) and would say it’s somewhat close to being day to day usable. They recently added Safari-style back and forth gestures and you can choose to arrange your tabs vertically (though not in a tree). The main thing preventing daily driving is that it’s not in the App Store yet, leading to it not being selectable as a default browser. I also experience occasional crashes with hundreds of tabs open.

gls2ro 5y ago

If possible (a.k.a if Apple allows this) please integrate Keychain with this browser. I am not sure if there are many people like me, but I am using Keychain and it is the reason why I default to Safari and using any other browser it takes effort that I am doing, but I really wish Keychain could be integrated in other browsers too. LE: It seems they already support this as stated in their FAQ/"How does Orion store my passwords?"

VOBOSHI 5y ago
The FAQ mentions that this is possible / done with the latest Safari.
- gls2ro 5y ago
  Yes, thank you for that. Found it here: https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html > Orion uses native macOS Keychain integration, same as Safari. GG, I applied to be a beta-user. Let's see!
specialist 5y ago
Ditto Firefox. I'd use it a lot more. Right now, only for YouTube. Also, I hope Orion has hooks needed for uBlock. (Preparse hook?) For whatever reason, Safari + 1Blocker doesn't filter YouTube's ads. I'll use fulltime which ever browser that has both keychain and blocks youtube ads.
- latexr 5y ago
  > I hope Orion has hooks needed for uBlock. It does[1]. > For whatever reason, Safari + 1Blocker doesn't filter YouTube's ads. It does, as part of a recent addition[2]. It’s a bespoke solution because it can’t be done with the content blocking tools Safari provides. [1]: https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html#ublock https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html#ublock [2]: https://backstage.1blocker.com/how-to-block-youtube-ads-in-safari-with-1blocker-a9091cff160d https://backstage.1blocker.com/how-to-block-youtube-ads-in-s...
- NmAmDa 5y ago

perardi 5y ago

A bit of a tangent, but not that much: I loathe the new Safari “tabs”, with as much scare as you can get in those scare quotes. But, I still can’t leave Safari be, as I appreciate the history and Keychain sync with my iOS devices. It’s that tight macOS/iOS integration that makes me stay on Safari, along with the relatively lighter energy usage versus Chrome. This looks nice in terms of using native UIKit elements (probably, it’s just screenshots) and probably the system WebKit, but I would really miss password syncing. (Yes, I know, there are innumerable password sync options, but Keychain sync really does “just work” between iOS and Mac.)

wodenokoto 5y ago
What do you use for Adblock? I prefer FF due to ublock and better floating videos / Picture in Picture
- phrz 5y ago
  I use 1Blocker, a very mature ad blocking tool that just added JS-based blocking rules, and StopTheMadness is a popular tool for tweaking websites e.g. forcing videos up front, stopping auto play, and showing their controls. This allows macOS native PiP on most websites that don't usually support it.
jonplackett 5y ago
Here you go, someone 'fixed' the tab highlighting for you, and for only $2! https://apps.apple.com/app/activetab/id1588852241?mt=12 https://apps.apple.com/app/activetab/id1588852241?mt=12 (via John Gruber: "I don't know whether to laugh or cry")
zoul 5y ago
The new Safari tabs are so bad that I’m sure they can’t stay that way for long. I was hoping I would get used to the broken active tab highlighting, but after a few days I’m still clicking the wrong tabs in the tab bar. I can’t believe it.
- krrrh 5y ago

Apocryphon 5y ago

How well does its autofill integrate with Keychain Services? I think that might be the only compelling reason to use Safari, that and maybe iCloud tabs.

solarkraft 5y ago
I use a separate password manager (the plug-in is perfectly compatible, by the way), but it seems on par with Safari to me.
imbnwa 5y ago
It has writes its own items in Keychain. You can't just pop it open and re-use your Safari Keychain items but you can import them into Orion.

freediver 5y ago

Hey everyone, I am the founder behind Orion, bootstrapping the project. Started working on it three years ago with a small team just to see if it would be possible to build something like this from scratch and we just kept going. Orion is today a daily browser for a few dozen beta-testers and it warms my heart to see that we got that far considering the competition. Few questions about Orion answered that I see pop put in the comments: - Orion uses native Keychain integration for passwords and will use iCloud Sync to sync between devices. We have full import from Safari, including passwords [1] - Orion uses a slightly modified WebKit which allows us to run Chrome/Firefox extension support layer on top of it (about 70% of all extensions currently work in Orion - including uBlock Origin). We are planning to complete the support in the upcoming months. - Orion is currently trying to get to the feature parity of the reference browser (Safari). - Orion features developer tools from Safari with a few extra ones like the Error indicator in the address bar [2] We just started with this, expect many useful additions in the future. - Orion is designed as a zero-telemetry browser. - Orion iOS also features a number of useful innovations like the Data saver mode [3] and multiline URL edit [4] - The business model for Orion is to have a Pro version for those who want to support its development. I was the founder of ManageWP [5] which got acquired by GoDaddy in 2016. Moved from Belgrade, Serbia to SF Bay Area as part of the acquisition. Spent a couple of years there as VP of Product and then decided I want to build Orion and Kagi (privacy-respecting alternative to Google search), because one ambitious project was not enough :) Main reason for this is the concern for the future of the internet and the web my children will grow into using. [1] https://twitter.com/vladquant/status/1431290547877007363 https://twitter.com/vladquant/status/1431290547877007363 [2] https://twitter.com/vladquant/status/1445301620187693056 https://twitter.com/vladquant/status/1445301620187693056 [3] https://twitter.com/vladquant/status/1429588837391507458 https://twitter.com/vladquant/status/1429588837391507458 [4] https://twitter.com/vladquant/status/1441511763631960074 https://twitter.com/vladquant/status/1441511763631960074 [5] https://managewp.com https://managewp.com

sylvinus 5y ago
Congrats for the project! Love the simple UI and extensions support. Don't you fear being held back by WebKit, which is notoriously slow to implement new web platform features? Can you give some insights on how you chose the engine? Thanks!

webmobdev 5y ago

I'd use this if you can remove all the Apple crap features: - All the crap of AI / machine learning to prevent cross-site tracking that's useless to me in "Private Browsing" mode - just give me back control over cookies (manually and through third-party extensions), and keep Apple away from my data. - Remove the crap "Web Advertising: Allow privacy-preserving measurement of ad effectiveness" code from webkit. Keep advertisers, and Apple's online advertising networks, away from my data. So just as there are many Chrome clones that advertise they've removed all Google spying code from it, please offer a Webskit browser without Apple's crap baked into it. If possible also reverse the changes Apple made to Webkit that actually slightly cripples adblockers, like uBlock, from working effectively on it.

ezfe 5y ago
Do you understand what "Web Advertising" checkbox does? Like, I'm curious if you've actually read how it works. And I assume you're aware that "all the crap of AI / ML" is disable-able with a checkbox right?
- webmobdev 5y ago
  > And I assume you're aware that "all the crap of AI / ML" is disable-able with a checkbox right? Yeah, just like how "opting out" of Telemetry in Firefox & Windows truly means Firefox ( https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/mozilla-does-not-respect-user-requests-to-stop-tracking-telemetry-data/ https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/mozilla-does-not-... ) & Windows ( https://old.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/o9zswt/disabling_telemetry_no_longer_actually_disables/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/o9zswt/disabling... ) honour them. Or like iPhones never send location data to Apple when you turn it off ( https://www.gsmarena.com/iphone_11_pro_devices_collect_location_data_even_when_turned_off-news-40401.php https://www.gsmarena.com/iphone_11_pro_devices_collect_locat... ). /s If I am searching for a privacy first alternative to Apple Safari, it should be obvious that it is because I don't trust Apple.
breakfastduck 5y ago
For someone so enthusiastic in their dislike you sure as hell haven't looked very hard at how to turn those off :)

Dingus25 5y ago

I just got added to the Orion beta last night, and have been using Kagi for a while now. Both seem remarkably polished for beta products, but still have their own quirks and rough spots. In my experience I’ve mentioned a couple things that I’d like to have, and the team was super quick to get them acknowledged and implemented. It’s going to come down to how the team chooses to monetize these for me, but I’d be more than happy to subscribe if it means I’m giving less to Google.

pier25 5y ago

Is there any crossplatform WebKit browser?

freediver 5y ago
Not any more to my knowledge. But if Orion becomes a success there might be one! (founder here) Current situation is - WebKit works great on Linux so that is not a problem. We've built WebKit on Windows too and while it works, it's not great. We are talking few developer-years of effort there (performance is main issue).
- pier25 5y ago
  Why does WebKit perform poorly on Windows?
  - freediver 5y ago
    I do not know, but in Windows tests it performed about 30% worse than Blink (Chromium).
  - saagarjha 5y ago
    AFAIK the only major contributor to it is Sony.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Shadonototra 5y ago

Closed source? What kind of data they'll suck in order to monetize the browser?

freediver 5y ago
None (it is a zero telemetry browser, which is easily verifiable). Instead there will be a paid Pro version. https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html#business https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html#business
commoner 5y ago
They do address this in their FAQ: > Is Orion open-source? > Not yet, but we plan for it to be when we are ready to receive the benefits of open-sourcing Orion. Creating something as big and ambitious as Orion (which includes forking WebKit, porting entire WebExtensions API and writing a browser app from scratch) is challenging enough for a small team like ours. We can not afford any other overhead - and properly maintaining an open source project takes time and resources. If you want to contribute, the best way to do that is to become a beta tester. https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html#oss https://browser.kagi.com/faq.html#oss Hopefully, they'll follow through with their plans to open source the browser.

1--6zVa-E 5y ago

If you don't want to bother waiting to be approved for the beta, you can just download it from here: https://browser.kagi.com/downloads/Orion.dmg https://browser.kagi.com/downloads/Orion.dmg.

enderm 5y ago

What is the appeal of WebKit?