24 ms·

Orion 1.0

440 points by STRiDEX 10mo ago

andsoitis 10mo ago
Rooting for them. I, myself, continue to use Safari.
kwanbix 10mo ago
For macOS.
- jadbox 10mo ago
  I know speed to market is important, but it's always a huge turn off to see new desktop apps be non multi-platform. It makes me question if other OS platforms are really a priority, even if they get added later.
  - freehorse 10mo ago
    They use webkit, so macos/ios was the natural place to start, but they have started working on a linux version. If they had gone to make another chromium fork they could have probably have it multiplatform by now, but I am glad they did not.
  - jtokoph 10mo ago
    The article says they are currently working on Linux and Windows builds
  - SoftTalker 10mo ago
    Why do you want to use the same browser on all platforms. Diversity is a strength.
drcongo 10mo ago
I still use Safari as my primary browser as the integration with passwords is so seamless, but I pay for Orion because I want it to succeed.
darkwater 10mo ago
Downloaded the dmg/installer (not from the App Store), launched it and I get Update Error! An error occurred while parsing the update feed. [ Cancel Update ] and clicking the button it exists, and that's it. Disappointing for a 1.0 release. Maybe it's related to PiHole? I'm on MacOS 26.1
- jhickok 10mo ago
  Nah I have the same error.
- dinodev90 10mo ago
  We are on it, and this will be fixed in a few minutes.
- nguyenkien 10mo ago
  > Maybe it's related to PiHole No. Update server return empty response. That why there are error.
  - dinodev90 10mo ago
    Orion Tech Lead here: Thank you for your patience — the issue has now been fixed. Please try updating now :)
- yannickburky 10mo ago
  Orion Product Manager here – That's what happens when you think of (almost) everything and blow it all at the last minute. Sorry about that; it's all fixed now, and we really hope everyone will love this browser we've been working on with pure passion for 6 years! EDIT: not fixed yet EDIT2: fixed! Thanks for your patience
  - darkwater 10mo ago
    Don't worry, I will hold on :) Thanks for the answer!
  - jhickok 10mo ago
ChrisbyMe 10mo ago
Mm maybe hugged to death getting an error on startup Update Error! An error occurred while parsing the update feed.
- darkwater 10mo ago
  I get the same (see other post) but well, that's not an excuse. If you fail to update for $REASON you just continue without updating, and that's it.
  - yannickburky 10mo ago
    $REASON = "website redirection";
- dinodev90 10mo ago
  Orion Tech Lead here - Thank you for your patience — the issue has now been fixed. Please try updating now :)
culopatin 10mo ago
I used it on and off many times. I think the main reason has always been able to run extensions in “safari”. Can’t remember what made me switch back, probably integration, or not having Linux versions? I’ll give it another try!
barnabee 10mo ago
I like the direction and keep checking in on it, but while Orion remains closed source there's no chance of it ever being more than a curiosity for me.
- z64 10mo ago
  (I work at Kagi, but do not work on Orion) There's a lot of different reasons that people ask for open sourcing of Orion / software in general; could I ask you to expand a bit more as to which issues being open source would address for you? I can assume of course, but I'd rather listen to you articulate it, even if it's usual reasons.
  - warkdarrior 10mo ago
    Can't speak for OP, but open source allows the community to check for spyware inserted to exfil data to the company and its partners.
    - redserk 10mo ago
      As much as I'd appreciate more open source for the sake of transparency, binaries provided on websites aren't guaranteed to match the source code provided and I'd assume most users are pulling binaries versus building themselves.
      - stonogo 10mo ago
        The ability to do so provides some protection. If someone pulls and builds and cannot reproduce the binaries, they can at least try to get the word out. Closed-source prevents even the opportunity. Even source-available is better than closed.
      - goku12 10mo ago
        Practically every platform has multiple software stores these days and many FOSS stores make their build logs available. Some take it a step further and provide reproducible builds, which is more or less there as far as source to binary traceability and binary trustworthiness is concerned. These are good enough reasons to open up the source, ignoring the other advantages just this once.
have_faith 10mo ago
> Most people switch browsers for one reason: speed. Is that true? Maybe it is and I'm out of the loop but I can't remember the last time someone complained about browser speed. The bottleneck seems to be website bloat more than anything else. Would love to see this argument quantified.
- freehorse 10mo ago
  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.
  - TingPing 10mo ago
    On iOS its all WebKit anyway (for most regions).
  - hombre_fatal 10mo ago
    Or seconds to think about it
    - freehorse 10mo ago
      True. I could probably catch more typos if I had to wait looking at a comment for 2 minutes before finally getting posted.
      - hombre_fatal 10mo ago
        I wasn't correcting you, it's just how I read it and I realized it worked just as well.
- esafak 10mo ago
  It is. That's why I dropped Firefox.
  - 10mo ago
segphault 10mo ago
I've attempted to switch to Orion on iOS a few times in the past and could never quite stick with it due to reliability issues. I'm giving it another try now to see if this 1.0 release gets it over that hurdle. Vivaldi is still a lot more polished than Orion on mobile, but Orion's support for Chrome extensions is a pretty compelling feature. I'm a very happy Kagi search user, so I'm rooting for them to succeed here.
- yannickburky 10mo ago
  We rewrote a large part of the code to make it more reliable and faster. I suggest downloading version 1.4, which just came out, to see for yourself (even if a few fixes related to Liquid Glass still need to be fixed ... by Apple). https://apps.apple.com/us/app/orion-browser-by-kagi/id1484498200 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/orion-browser-by-kagi/id148449...
- SoftTalker 10mo ago
  I see this sentiment expressed often here, but I have never experienced a single issue using Orion on iOS. I've been using it for 3-4 months now. With uBlock Origin it actually makes it possible to use the web on iOS.
  - thoroughburro 10mo ago
    It doesn’t lose the tabs at the end of the tab list, for you? Tabs just disappearing after being opened is a daily issue, for me.
    - SoftTalker 10mo ago
      I never have more than a few tabs open, so I don't see that.
    - NNHBdcfm6VKQ 10mo ago
      I often see the inverse of this - tabs I've closed spontaneously reappear in later sessions. Wish they would put a little more polish into the iOS version, but for lack of better alternatives, I still use it.
MrAlex94 10mo ago
I hope I don't come across too harsh in my criticism here, but this is in my wheelhouse and I like to keep tabs on the privacy browser market in comparison to Waterfox. > A bold technical choice: WebKit, not another Chromium clone I don't find this a bold technical choice at all for a macOS only browser? I think this would be more impressive if it was Windows as well, as back (maybe ~5 or so years ago) when I was investigating WebKit on Windows, builds were not on an equal playing field[1]. So the engineering to get that up and running would be impressive. > Speed by nature Unfortunately, as of 16:40 UTC, I am unable to run the browser (installer?) to benchmark it due to "An error occurred while parsing the update feed.", but I recall 2 years ago when I tested Orion it was the slowest of all the browsers on macOS and Safari had quite a lead. I'd also be curious, being based on WebKit, how much faster it will actually be on macOS vs Safari? I dropped speed as a focus point on Waterfox after compilation flags started making less of a difference compared to the actual architectural changes Mozilla were making for Firefox. > Privacy etc I think comparing to other major browsers such as Chrome the points are valid, but against Safari I'm not convinced it holds up as much. I know there is some telemetry related to Safari, but privacy is a big selling point for Safari as well and I'd be curious to see actual comparisons to that? Safari includes iCloud Privacy Relay (MPR based on MASQUE[2]) and Oblivious DNS[3] - arguably two very valuable features that a company at a scale like Apple can subsidise. The entire AI section also feels like trying to have it both ways as well. They criticise other browsers for rushing AI features, position themselves as the "secure" alternative, then immediately say they'll integrate AI "as it matures." This reads more like "we're behind on AI features" than a principled stance. If security is the concern, explain your threat model and what specific architectural decisions you're making differently? Currently Firefox has kept AI out of the "browser core" as it's been put, and I don't see them ever changing that. Kudos that they have >2000 people paying for the browser directly, but I will say it doesn't excite me to see another closed source browser entering the market (I don't see any mention here of open-source apart from mention of WebKit being open source). I do realise this is more a marketing post than an actual technical deep dive, but so much is just a rehash of every feature almost every modern web browser has? I'll keep updating this comment as and when I can explore the browser itself a bit more. [1] https://fujii.github.io/2019/07/05/webkit-on-windows/ https://fujii.github.io/2019/07/05/webkit-on-windows/ [2] https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/masque/about/ https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/masque/about/ [3] https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3340301.3341128 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3340301.3341128
bobbylarrybobby 10mo ago
I'd love to use Orion but it's just too buggy for me. I downloaded the iOS app to try it out and immediately noticed that when typing in the URL bar, three quarters of it is covered by the toolbar above the keyboard.
- dani_kagi 10mo ago
  I've seen similar issues with Japanese keyboards. If you can please share some details on your setup here or on orionfeedback.org so we can investigate further. Thank you.
  - bobbylarrybobby 10mo ago
    I'm using the standard US English keyboard on iOS 26.1. Not sure what other details would be relevant.
Shelby-Thomas 10mo ago
[dead]
the_gipsy 10mo ago
Isn't every browser on iOS restricted to being a safari/webview shell?
- The_Rob 10mo ago
  Yes, at least outside of the EU. However, companies don't seem to be developing for it yet, probably due to the investment not being worth it until similar laws are more widespread. However, Orion in also on macOS, which does allow other engines. And Kagi is developing Orion for Linux and Windows.
- thoroughburro 10mo ago
  Yes, but that leaves almost everything anyone cares about. Everything except rendering.
  - the_gipsy 10mo ago
    Extensions
    - thoroughburro 10mo ago
      Orion
      - the_gipsy 10mo ago
        So they're just Safari extensions? I.e. no uBlock origin, just some filters with the restricted API?
- cpmsmith 10mo ago
  Yes, but Orion uses WebKit intentionally on desktop as well, unlike Chrome or Firefox which use their own engines on desktop but WebKit on iOS, so it's a bit different in this case.
- weikju 10mo ago
  This news seems to be about the macOS version of Orion reaching 1.0...
rwbt 10mo ago
I switched to Orion from Safari a few months ago and so far loving it. I tried Orion a couple of years ago but it wasn't as reliable. Now it seems very stable and the kagi search integration is really nice. On a side note - I don't know why Apple still doesn't let you set a custom search engine in Safari even today, so random.
- thisislife2 10mo ago
  Google pays Apple billions of dollars to be the default search engine on iDevices. So they have no incentive to allow you to change search engines.
- darkteflon 10mo ago
  I have Safari on iOS set to use Kagi by default - works fine?
  - TingPing 10mo ago
    It’s very much a hack, but it’s largely functional.
throwawa14223 10mo ago
I love everything about Orion except it steals focus when I click a link in e-mail or another application. Does anyone know if there's a way to change the behavior to be like Safari's background link behavior?
kotaKat 10mo ago
The iOS/iPad builds have been getting a bit… rough on their adblocking lately. For some reason, Orion is now getting slammed by Ad-Shield on my iPad on so many blogs and sites it’s not even funny. Endless “an error occured loading this page” blaming my ad blocker. Anyone else?
esafak 10mo ago
What's the bug situation? It sucked last I checked, over a year ago. Is there a way to get a useful visualization like a burndown chart out of their bug tracker? The people who have created it seem unaware that one important task of such a tracker is to reveal the big picture and help answer questions like "Is the project getting better or worse?" They should study the Github Insights tab. https://orionfeedback.org/ https://orionfeedback.org/
- jeffhuys 10mo ago
  Yeah, imo, it’s nowhere near ready for 1.0. I was a big advocate for this browser but recently changed because of exactly this. That, and it’s very slow after having it running constantly, I found myself routinely quitting and re-opening it every hour or two to get normal speed back, or my RAM for that matter. So I’m back on Safari.
  - lowbloodsugar 10mo ago
    It was using 46G of ram the other day. But I prefer it over any other browser so I just kill it every now and again.
    - pluralmonad 10mo ago
      How many hundreds or thousands of tabs took 40+ gigs?
      - lowbloodsugar 10mo ago
        Like maybe 100?
- jorl17 10mo ago
  I've tried Orion a couple of times. I even used it as my default browser for ~3 months about two years ago. Most recently, I tried to use it again about 2 months ago, but it still had loads of bugs and, most of all, was painfully slow. The truth is, Orion being based off of WebKit comes with the obvious limitation that....it's based off of WebKit! So much slower than chrome or firefox, and plagued with decisions that are just not to my taste. For example, just the way it behaves when I hit the back button (or, rather, when I swipe back) feels incredibly sluggish. Loading is often terrible, with constant repaints of the screen as well. A bunch of websites don't work properly either. The only true reason why I wanted Orion to work was because I wanted a browser that would be good for my battery life and "optimized for the mac". But, since then, I've realized I don't really use the battery that much (or that I don't notice it being a problem), and that, whatever "optimized for the mac" means, it definitely isn't speed. After Arc went around and poo-pooed on its users, I migrated to Zen (I did try Orion again, like I mentioned). Zen is also filled with bugs, but at least I don't want to throw my computer out the window because of it being slow.
timenotwasted 10mo ago
I was curious but unfortunately can't get it to launch
filoleg 10mo ago
Is there any info with a bit more details on extensions on the desktop version? More specifically, is Orion going to have its own extension ecosystem? Is it compatible with chrome or FF extensions? If it is gonna be its own thing, are there dev docs available anywhere? Asking because I’ve read the article, and I noticed extensions being mentioned a few times (including in one of the subchapter titles). However, I couldn’t find any actual info about extensions there.
- yannickburky 10mo ago
  Orion is compatible with a large number of extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. Not all of them work, and yes, we plan to offer documentation for creating extensions that are immediately compatible with Orion.
  - filoleg 10mo ago
    Thank you for the response! To be clear, I didn't mean for my original comment to be a dig at Orion at all. I am just genuinely excited for it, but an extension ecosystem is something I value a lot in a browser. So I was a little bit miffled, when the original post namedropped extensions, but didn't provide any details beyond that. However, thanks for clarifying the current state of affairs in terms of extensions, and I am eagerly looking forward to checking out the docs.
- thisislife2 10mo ago
  Orion has been trying to integrate / extend the WebExtensions API to its fork of webkit, with a goal to make uBlock Origin 100% compatible in Orion. It's still a work in progress ...
oa335 10mo ago
I’m using it now, feels so much snappier on my 10 year old iPhone than the previous version on Orion.
NetOpWibby 10mo ago
I switched my mobile browser to Orion a few weeks ago and it's so great to have built-in support for Kagi. Before, I'd have to manually go to the Kagi page when I wanted to search for something since Safari doesn't support custom search engines. Currently looking to switch from Arc to Orion. The one thing I'm gonna miss is Arc's Portrait Mode.
- mulderc 10mo ago
  There is a Kagi extension that makes Kagi the default search engine.
tdub311 10mo ago
Really liked orion when trying it out but extensions that changed the theme (namely using dark mode with RES) flashed the original theme first, so I was getting flash banged any time I changed the page. There was a bug[0] for this that was marked as done but I tried after the fact and it was still happening. And looking at the comments on that report suggest I am not the only one still experiencing it. If it weren’t for that I would probably be using it as my daily browser. [0] https://orionfeedback.org/d/324-dark-reader-has-a-slightly-delay-kicking-in-resulting-in-white-flashes/29 https://orionfeedback.org/d/324-dark-reader-has-a-slightly-d...
ofrzeta 10mo ago
Money quote: "In a world dominated by Chromium, choosing a rendering engine is an act of resistance"
- burnte 10mo ago
  Yeah, except it's pure bullshit. I'm actually a tiny bit irritated they worded it like this because it's insultingly misleading. "From day one, we made the deliberate choice to build Orion on WebKit, the open‑source engine at the heart of Safari and the broader Apple ecosystem." Chromium's Blink is based on Webkit and was for YEARS. While Blink and Webkit had some major differences now, it's not Webkit that's the better core now. They picked Webkit because it's fast and easy, what ships on both MacOS and iOS. They couldn't put an alternative engine in the iOS and distribute it outside of Europe, so they stuck with webkit. For an Apple-only application, it's a smart choice for fast development, but it's NOT an act of resistance AT ALL. It's completely caving to Apple. This is not a bold new choice in the browser space, it's just another privacy focused Webkit browser. That's great, but pretending this is sticking it to the man is delusional.
  - CharlesW 10mo ago
    > …it's not Webkit that's the better core now. I'm curious about your definition of "better". It's nice that Google is catching up to Safari on Speedometer benchmarks (Blink was 20% slower a year ago), so at minimum one can appreciate Safari for being the mechanical hare that triggers Google's prey instinct. Bun chose WebKit's JavaScriptCore for performance reasons. Safari's supposedly-poor support for web standards is mostly Google propaganda.
    - deleted 10mo ago
      [deleted]
    - bigyabai 10mo ago
      > Safari's supposedly-poor support for web standards is mostly Google propaganda. I don't think that users "mostly" agree. Safari's market share on macOS craters compared to Chrome: https://radar.cloudflare.com/reports/browser-market-share-2025-q1#id-7-market-share-by-os https://radar.cloudflare.com/reports/browser-market-share-20... Google propaganda or not, Mac owners aren't sticking with this "superior" preeinstalled browser tech. And I get it, as a Linux user I find WebKit intolerable compared with Blink and even Gecko.
rdg1991 10mo ago
I love Orion, but it's pretty unusable with 1Password set up - delay on keyboard input is unbearable with the extension enabled and it slows everything down significantly. I just ran a few benchmarks with BrowserBench Speedometer: 1Password extension disabled: 17 1Password extension enabled: 10 (and the test takes much longer) Vivaldi with extension enabled: 25 I really, really want to move back to Orion as my daily driver but as a pretty heavy 1Password user this is absolutely a dealbreaker.
- colinmarc 10mo ago
  I opened this link intending to post exactly this. 1Password is just extremely broken on Orion. It's a testament to how much I like the browser that I'm still using it despite that (and despite the fact that Github was completely broken on Webkit this summer, but that's not Orion's fault).
  - rdg1991 10mo ago
    I was in that camp, but then switched to Vivaldi and the experience is much better. Would love to move back to Orion since I do like just about everything else that it does better.
- saint_yossarian 10mo ago
  Bitwarden just had a similar bug with keyboard lag in their browser extension: https://github.com/bitwarden/clients/issues/17090 https://github.com/bitwarden/clients/issues/17090 I wish browsers offered some kind of autofill extension API so password managers don't have to inject their own bullshit into every page.
  - bobbylarrybobby 10mo ago
    On macOS, they do! It's not clear why 1Password and Bitwarden don't utilize it. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/authenticationservices/ascredentialproviderviewcontroller https://developer.apple.com/documentation/authenticationserv...
forgotpwd16 10mo ago
>While doing so, it expands Kagi ecosystem of privacy-respecting, user-centric products (that we have begun fondly naming “Kagiverse”) to now include: Search, Assistant, Browser, Translate, News with more to come. Are people really interested in those other than Search? >A bold technical choice: WebKit, not another Chromium clone Only real choice for iOS so not sure what the bold choice is for an Apple-centric browser.
- temp0826 10mo ago
  I don't speak for everyone obviously but if they only provided search and it led to a lower price I'd be happy. I say this as a user of Orion (iOS); I really only use it because it's half-decent and supports uBO (though it feels pretty buggy and I'm not totally sure it's working most of the time...I really do wish more people were squashing bugs, it seems like a very small team).
- baggachipz 10mo ago
  Webkit works on any OS.
Alifatisk 10mo ago
”We have officially started development on Orion for Windows, with a target release scheduled for late 2026” Fantastic news!
danielhep 10mo ago
I want to be able to sync Orion with Firefox. I use non Apple operating systems on some computers, and I would love to have Orion sync with Firefox on them.
philipwhiuk 10mo ago
Begun again the browser wars have.
fudged71 10mo ago
I’m now using it on iOS, switching from Arc. It’s working surprisingly well, good feel and customization. Might keep it.
rckt 10mo ago
I’m going to use it on iOS and macOS. Feels like the previous Safari. On Linux I’ll keep to Firefox.
TiredOfLife 10mo ago
Just skip the middleman and use Yandex browser.
HHalvi 10mo ago
I really love to hate Safari (extensions, ad blocking, dev tools amongst many other reasons) but love using a non chromium browser. I discovered Orion a few years back and it has been my go-to standalone browser but never strong enough to be my primary browser. So many daily drivers of mine refuse(d) to work from time to time (1P, Netflix, Youtube, Slack, Gmaps, Hey & the list goes on). I eventually started relying on Orion RC instead of Orion to band-aid fix these problems. I truly hope they succeed but a few hours of driving the 1.0, it doesn't feel like a 1.0 yet.
ndom91 10mo ago
I love Kagi, but is this necessary? Another browser, really? I wish they'd spend their eng resources as a small startup on their legitimately great primary product - ad-free search.
- jjice 10mo ago
  Well they've been working on Orion for six years now, so I feel like their effort split between the browser and their other services has been fine.
- Apocryphon 10mo ago
  I think there's just an instinctual draw to building a new browser, partly because so much of our modern software is dependent on web apps. Not sure if SerenityOS has been progressing as much as it originally did now that Andreas is all enamored with Ladybird.
- freediver 10mo ago
  We started working on Orion browser before Kagi search. Source: Kagi founder.
- ndom91 10mo ago
  Oh well TIL they did the browser first!
awill 10mo ago
Is this Webkit 2?
- TingPing 10mo ago
  Yes, WebKit 1 is extremely dead, many web features don’t function in it.
lolftw 10mo ago
I love Orion on iOS especially because the ability to use desktop extensions in it (some may not work)
- __s 10mo ago
  Same. Sadly haven't been able to find a working twitch ad mute extension after they made latest anti adblock changes. At least Youtube Live is still in growth phase so I don't get ads there yet
ssaakaash 10mo ago
As of Tuesday 6:33 PM UTC, it shows the error: Update Error! An error occurred in retrieving update information. Please try again later.
geraltofrivia 10mo ago
Love most of the work you folks are doing, and I am a paying Kagi customer for over a year now. That said, it leaves a salty taste in the mouth to see > Orion is part of the broader Kagi ecosystem and > Supporters (via subscription or lifetime purchase) unlock a set of Orion+ perks I would imagine that paying for Kagi is also a vector for having the paywalled features of your browser.
- weikju 10mo ago
  I think the only perk I ever got from paying for Orion+ in the past was a special badge on my profile on their support forum...
konart 10mo ago
The floating sidebar totally breaks UI\UX on any web site with a header. And I still can't select multiple tabs with shift\cmd\whatever button pressed down to do something with a group of tabs instead of a single one. And a feel no difference in speed on my M1 Pro. For now this 1.0 feels just as beta as it was.
dvno42 10mo ago
This looks neat but the biggest question I have and care about... UBO? Not the limited manifest v3 version or whatever it's referred to as, but the full bore block lists like in FF. Excited to see where this goes!!
- TingPing 10mo ago
  It doesn’t support the APIs ublock requires.
  - aranelsurion 10mo ago
    Huh? But I see it says "uBlock Origin" when I install it and the UI looks like what I remember from the full version. It says "Firefox" when I check the extensions page, so maybe that's where it manages to bring the full version from.
    - TingPing 10mo ago
      Yes it lets you do it. It doesn’t work. https://browser.kagi.com/WebExtensions-API-Support.html https://browser.kagi.com/WebExtensions-API-Support.html The webRequest API is key, dns is used, maybe a few more. Looks like the macOS support has improved but iOS may never happen.
      - freediver 10mo ago
        uBO is supported on Orion MacOS. On iOS it still depends on Apple.
        TingPing 10mo ago
        Apple open sourced their WebExtension implementation, they seem open to contributions. I worry Orion doesn’t want to contribute upstream though.
gainda 10mo ago
I will give this another chance but the last time I used this on my 14 Pro Max it would get hot to the edge of discomfort
thisislife2 10mo ago
Thank you offering Orion outside the App Store. I am excited to try it. But where is the offline installer? If you don't collect data, why does the "installer", that has already been downloaded from the internet, need to again connect to the internet to download the browser, which is what the "installer" should already be having within it??
- ed_mercer 10mo ago
  This doesn’t have to be malicious, it might check for patch updates.
  - thisislife2 10mo ago
    Good point. The world however has made me cynical, and I prefer full offline installers. One of the (many) reasons is that I also tend to save the full installers, of softwares I like, in case they suddenly disappear from the web.
isodev 10mo ago
Remember around the early 2000s, every company had a toolbar you could install in your browser? They’d do search, news, IM, plugins, all kinds of things… on many occasions they’d try to squeeze entire websites into these things. You could install more than one toolbar. Some were malware, but there were toolbars that promised security and privacy too (though probably still malware by today’s standards). Well, if you’ve seen one of those screenshots where 80% of the screen was toolbars and only a fraction left for the viewport … that’s a bit how I feel now when I look at the landscape of browsers today. Browsers… everywhere, each one trying to grab your attention long enough so you give them clicks, cookies, “anonymised” search queries and who knows what else… There are no more browsers that fight for the user.
traceroute66 10mo ago
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. Meanwhile on macOS you have Mullvad Browser.
- ajdude 10mo ago
  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.
  - traceroute66 10mo ago
    > I dropped firefox 9 months so after they updated their privacy policy and removed "we don't sell your data" from their FAQ. "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).
    - ajdude 10mo ago
      > Please do not conflate the two I'm not talking about Firefox focus? I'm talking about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43213612 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43213612 Mozilla has hired a lot of execs from Meta and bought an ad company, looking through a lot of their privacy policy at the time, a lot of it involves rewriting it to say that they can serve you sponsored suggestions when you're searching for things in their search bar and stuff and sharing out some of that data with third parties etc. Firefox was bringing in half a billion a year for the last decade, if they would've just invested that money in low risk money market accounts (instead of paying their csuite executives millions of dollars in salary and putting the rest on non-Firefox related related social causes), the company would be able to easily survive off the interest alone. I've been using Firefox since like 2006 and have defended it for decades even when they've made questionable decisions that have gotten everybody upset with them. But this time it wasn't just making stupid decisions to try and fund the company, this time they actuality sold out their own customers. In public announcement in the above link explaining why they removed "we don't sell your data" from the FAQ, the rationality was that some jurisdictions define selling data weirdly, they cited California's definition as an example but California's definition is exactly what I would consider the definition of selling my personal data. They're justifying this by saying that they need it to stay alive since they're not going to be getting money from Google anymore, but I argue that you shouldn't sell out your customer base on the very specific reason anyone would choose you. I would rather pay a monthly fee to use Firefox to support them, but even if you gave them $500 million today they would just squander it away like they've done since forever so I really don't have any solution I can think of which frustrates me. It's absolutely Firefox that I'm trying to avoid completely at this point. > 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 DNS adblock doesn't automatically skip sponsored segments of videos like sponsorblock does.
dickiedyce 10mo ago
I'm a keen Orion user, and general Kagi user - early adopter since June 2022 (So kool-aid? ;-) ) That said, I have Chrome installed for mandated office work (profile managed by IT ;-( ), Brave for LinkedIn & YouTube... but for everything else I use Orion. Recent versions have been rock solid, and it does exactly what it says on the tin. My only gripe is that the favourites bar isn't right-click editable like Chrome or Brave - assume this is down to Webkit. Apart from that, joy to use and develop against.
semiinfinitely 10mo ago
> After six years of relentless development if it took 6 years of bug fixing to release version 1.0 I'm sure there are still innumerable bugs in orion
Glemkloksdjf 10mo ago
Its not a new browser, its a new webengine wrapper?
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
MrDrMcCoy 10mo ago
Wake me when it's available for Linux.
wpm 10mo ago
I've been mainlining Orion on my iOS devices for a while now, over a year. Certainly have some issues here and there but overall it's been a solid experience for me, glad to see this hit 1.0. Congrats to the Orion team! My favorite feature by far is the ability to disable the stupid "hide the address bar if you're not scrolled all the way to the top of a page" behavior every mobile browser does.
sedatk 10mo ago
Reportedly, current desktop OS marketshare[1] is: - 66% Windows - 18% MacOS - 3% Linux Right now, I can't try out Orion as one of the 66%. [1] https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide/ https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide...
- microtonal 10mo ago
  So? Companies are free to choose their markets. For a long time there were a lot of shops that only focused on the Mac.
  - sedatk 10mo ago
    Sure, but Kagi isn't a Mac shop; their only source of revenue is subscriptions. Majority of their desktop customers must be Windows users too. So, their prioritization just looks strange to me.
- zero0529 10mo ago
  I mean they say in the article that the have started on the windows version and are aiming for late 2026
  - sedatk 10mo ago
    I know, the prioritization just looks counter-intuitive to me, especially if you make money primarily from subscribers.
    - 0_gravitas 10mo ago
      Well, paying money for consumer apps/services (besides games) has always seemed a bit more normalized in the iOS ecosystem, and I imagine it must be a _somewhat_ simpler interface than the lovecruftian monolith of windows-N saying this as a Linux user, I've never owned an apple device in my life (nor do I want to)
      - 10mo ago
aranelsurion 10mo ago
my initial, 15min impression is.. wow so much to like here! It feels very snappy, really nice UI, supports "real" version of uBlock Origin, has built-in Vertical Tabs with nesting and Tab Groups, and also the iOS-like grid of tabs if you prefer. What I don't like: Seems like no way to disable two-finger back/forward gesture? I hate that one and managed to disable a similar feature in Chrome. Also either it doesn't have any kind of Developer Tools, or I couldn't find it yet in my 15min speedrun. (edit: found it) I'm hopeful.
aucisson_masque 10mo ago
Orion for Linux and windows is actually a huge thing. I'm sick of having to choose between chromium clone and gecko clone, I find WebKit to be very efficient and Orion on my Mac was very good. The only reason I didn't use it is because safari, I already paid for all the extension i need and I found safari to be better on iphone. But compared to Firefox or chrome, this is so much better.
HacklesRaised 10mo ago
This is the way...
TrevorFSmith 10mo ago
I'm a happy Kagi subscriber and look forward to Orion on Linux. Every well supported browser other than Chrome is a win. I'd love Kagi to fund people working full time on web standards in the W3C and WHATNG, too.
whamlastxmas 10mo ago
I wish it touched on its approach to very common finger printing data. Does it send browser window size? Your time zone? Your OS? The languages you've previously chosen to translate? Unless it meaningfully closes the loop on not sending data to fingerprint with, I'm not sure "zero telemetry" is really a selling point at all
ksherlock 10mo ago
I appreciate that it supports Mojave.
duxup 10mo ago
It's worth installing on MacOS just to enjoy the video that plays the first time you start it. It's kinda retro awesome.
jug 10mo ago
I would understand this project much better on Windows, which: 1. Doesn't have an established WebKit browser, which 110% sucks due to issues with testing for Mac and iOS. This is a long standing issue. 2. Relies on a Chromium-based browser with its own integrity issues, as well as a Microsoft approach to telemetry. I don't associate Safari nearly as much to neither invasive telemetry, tracking, or ads beyond those on the web, nor poor performance on Mac. In fact, I often find it excellent especially in terms of battery life, and Safari has integrated content blocking and tracking protections. Maybe not as powerful as here (?) but telling of Apple's approach to caring for this. Edit: I saw there's work on Windows support. That's good news. IMHO, this browser should be Windows-first. It makes far more sense there to me. But maybe you like Mac more as a platform?
lylo 10mo ago
I love the profiles feature of Safari. I find it a bit odd that profiles are entire browser instances in Orion, unlike Safari which I find a lot easier to use. Maybe I just need to get use to it…
sunaookami 10mo ago
Extensions still default to the English language, this is a bug I reported two years ago and it's still there... kinda disappointed. Not everyone uses or wants to use English.
Fire-Dragon-DoL 10mo ago
Looking forward linux android and windows versions!
GaryBluto 10mo ago
> Zero telemetry, privacy‑first access to the internet: a basic human right. Just because something is good does not make it a "basic human right"; why do so many people now suggest it does?

Orion 1.0

440 points by STRiDEX 10mo ago

andsoitis 10mo ago

Rooting for them. I, myself, continue to use Safari.

kwanbix 10mo ago

For macOS.

jadbox 10mo ago
I know speed to market is important, but it's always a huge turn off to see new desktop apps be non multi-platform. It makes me question if other OS platforms are really a priority, even if they get added later.
- freehorse 10mo ago
  They use webkit, so macos/ios was the natural place to start, but they have started working on a linux version. If they had gone to make another chromium fork they could have probably have it multiplatform by now, but I am glad they did not.
- jtokoph 10mo ago
  The article says they are currently working on Linux and Windows builds
- SoftTalker 10mo ago
  Why do you want to use the same browser on all platforms. Diversity is a strength.

drcongo 10mo ago

I still use Safari as my primary browser as the integration with passwords is so seamless, but I pay for Orion because I want it to succeed.

darkwater 10mo ago

Downloaded the dmg/installer (not from the App Store), launched it and I get Update Error! An error occurred while parsing the update feed. [ Cancel Update ] and clicking the button it exists, and that's it. Disappointing for a 1.0 release. Maybe it's related to PiHole? I'm on MacOS 26.1

jhickok 10mo ago
Nah I have the same error.
dinodev90 10mo ago
We are on it, and this will be fixed in a few minutes.
nguyenkien 10mo ago
> Maybe it's related to PiHole No. Update server return empty response. That why there are error.
- dinodev90 10mo ago
  Orion Tech Lead here: Thank you for your patience — the issue has now been fixed. Please try updating now :)
yannickburky 10mo ago
Orion Product Manager here – That's what happens when you think of (almost) everything and blow it all at the last minute. Sorry about that; it's all fixed now, and we really hope everyone will love this browser we've been working on with pure passion for 6 years! EDIT: not fixed yet EDIT2: fixed! Thanks for your patience
- darkwater 10mo ago
  Don't worry, I will hold on :) Thanks for the answer!
- jhickok 10mo ago

ChrisbyMe 10mo ago

Mm maybe hugged to death getting an error on startup Update Error! An error occurred while parsing the update feed.

darkwater 10mo ago
I get the same (see other post) but well, that's not an excuse. If you fail to update for $REASON you just continue without updating, and that's it.
- yannickburky 10mo ago
  $REASON = "website redirection";
dinodev90 10mo ago
Orion Tech Lead here - Thank you for your patience — the issue has now been fixed. Please try updating now :)

culopatin 10mo ago

I used it on and off many times. I think the main reason has always been able to run extensions in “safari”. Can’t remember what made me switch back, probably integration, or not having Linux versions? I’ll give it another try!

barnabee 10mo ago

I like the direction and keep checking in on it, but while Orion remains closed source there's no chance of it ever being more than a curiosity for me.

z64 10mo ago
(I work at Kagi, but do not work on Orion) There's a lot of different reasons that people ask for open sourcing of Orion / software in general; could I ask you to expand a bit more as to which issues being open source would address for you? I can assume of course, but I'd rather listen to you articulate it, even if it's usual reasons.
- warkdarrior 10mo ago
  Can't speak for OP, but open source allows the community to check for spyware inserted to exfil data to the company and its partners.
  - redserk 10mo ago
    As much as I'd appreciate more open source for the sake of transparency, binaries provided on websites aren't guaranteed to match the source code provided and I'd assume most users are pulling binaries versus building themselves.
    - stonogo 10mo ago
      The ability to do so provides some protection. If someone pulls and builds and cannot reproduce the binaries, they can at least try to get the word out. Closed-source prevents even the opportunity. Even source-available is better than closed.
    - goku12 10mo ago
      Practically every platform has multiple software stores these days and many FOSS stores make their build logs available. Some take it a step further and provide reproducible builds, which is more or less there as far as source to binary traceability and binary trustworthiness is concerned. These are good enough reasons to open up the source, ignoring the other advantages just this once.

have_faith 10mo ago

> Most people switch browsers for one reason: speed. Is that true? Maybe it is and I'm out of the loop but I can't remember the last time someone complained about browser speed. The bottleneck seems to be website bloat more than anything else. Would love to see this argument quantified.

freehorse 10mo ago
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.
- TingPing 10mo ago
  On iOS its all WebKit anyway (for most regions).
- hombre_fatal 10mo ago
  Or seconds to think about it
  - freehorse 10mo ago
    True. I could probably catch more typos if I had to wait looking at a comment for 2 minutes before finally getting posted.
    - hombre_fatal 10mo ago
      I wasn't correcting you, it's just how I read it and I realized it worked just as well.
esafak 10mo ago
It is. That's why I dropped Firefox.
- 10mo ago

segphault 10mo ago

I've attempted to switch to Orion on iOS a few times in the past and could never quite stick with it due to reliability issues. I'm giving it another try now to see if this 1.0 release gets it over that hurdle. Vivaldi is still a lot more polished than Orion on mobile, but Orion's support for Chrome extensions is a pretty compelling feature. I'm a very happy Kagi search user, so I'm rooting for them to succeed here.

yannickburky 10mo ago
We rewrote a large part of the code to make it more reliable and faster. I suggest downloading version 1.4, which just came out, to see for yourself (even if a few fixes related to Liquid Glass still need to be fixed ... by Apple). https://apps.apple.com/us/app/orion-browser-by-kagi/id1484498200 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/orion-browser-by-kagi/id148449...
SoftTalker 10mo ago
I see this sentiment expressed often here, but I have never experienced a single issue using Orion on iOS. I've been using it for 3-4 months now. With uBlock Origin it actually makes it possible to use the web on iOS.
- thoroughburro 10mo ago
  It doesn’t lose the tabs at the end of the tab list, for you? Tabs just disappearing after being opened is a daily issue, for me.
  - SoftTalker 10mo ago
    I never have more than a few tabs open, so I don't see that.
  - NNHBdcfm6VKQ 10mo ago
    I often see the inverse of this - tabs I've closed spontaneously reappear in later sessions. Wish they would put a little more polish into the iOS version, but for lack of better alternatives, I still use it.

MrAlex94 10mo ago

I hope I don't come across too harsh in my criticism here, but this is in my wheelhouse and I like to keep tabs on the privacy browser market in comparison to Waterfox. > A bold technical choice: WebKit, not another Chromium clone I don't find this a bold technical choice at all for a macOS only browser? I think this would be more impressive if it was Windows as well, as back (maybe ~5 or so years ago) when I was investigating WebKit on Windows, builds were not on an equal playing field[1]. So the engineering to get that up and running would be impressive. > Speed by nature Unfortunately, as of 16:40 UTC, I am unable to run the browser (installer?) to benchmark it due to "An error occurred while parsing the update feed.", but I recall 2 years ago when I tested Orion it was the slowest of all the browsers on macOS and Safari had quite a lead. I'd also be curious, being based on WebKit, how much faster it will actually be on macOS vs Safari? I dropped speed as a focus point on Waterfox after compilation flags started making less of a difference compared to the actual architectural changes Mozilla were making for Firefox. > Privacy etc I think comparing to other major browsers such as Chrome the points are valid, but against Safari I'm not convinced it holds up as much. I know there is some telemetry related to Safari, but privacy is a big selling point for Safari as well and I'd be curious to see actual comparisons to that? Safari includes iCloud Privacy Relay (MPR based on MASQUE[2]) and Oblivious DNS[3] - arguably two very valuable features that a company at a scale like Apple can subsidise. The entire AI section also feels like trying to have it both ways as well. They criticise other browsers for rushing AI features, position themselves as the "secure" alternative, then immediately say they'll integrate AI "as it matures." This reads more like "we're behind on AI features" than a principled stance. If security is the concern, explain your threat model and what specific architectural decisions you're making differently? Currently Firefox has kept AI out of the "browser core" as it's been put, and I don't see them ever changing that. Kudos that they have >2000 people paying for the browser directly, but I will say it doesn't excite me to see another closed source browser entering the market (I don't see any mention here of open-source apart from mention of WebKit being open source). I do realise this is more a marketing post than an actual technical deep dive, but so much is just a rehash of every feature almost every modern web browser has? I'll keep updating this comment as and when I can explore the browser itself a bit more. [1] https://fujii.github.io/2019/07/05/webkit-on-windows/ https://fujii.github.io/2019/07/05/webkit-on-windows/ [2] https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/masque/about/ https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/masque/about/ [3] https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3340301.3341128 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3340301.3341128

bobbylarrybobby 10mo ago

I'd love to use Orion but it's just too buggy for me. I downloaded the iOS app to try it out and immediately noticed that when typing in the URL bar, three quarters of it is covered by the toolbar above the keyboard.

dani_kagi 10mo ago
I've seen similar issues with Japanese keyboards. If you can please share some details on your setup here or on orionfeedback.org so we can investigate further. Thank you.
- bobbylarrybobby 10mo ago
  I'm using the standard US English keyboard on iOS 26.1. Not sure what other details would be relevant.

Shelby-Thomas 10mo ago

[dead]

the_gipsy 10mo ago

Isn't every browser on iOS restricted to being a safari/webview shell?

The_Rob 10mo ago
Yes, at least outside of the EU. However, companies don't seem to be developing for it yet, probably due to the investment not being worth it until similar laws are more widespread. However, Orion in also on macOS, which does allow other engines. And Kagi is developing Orion for Linux and Windows.
thoroughburro 10mo ago
Yes, but that leaves almost everything anyone cares about. Everything except rendering.
- the_gipsy 10mo ago
  Extensions
  - thoroughburro 10mo ago
    Orion
    - the_gipsy 10mo ago
      So they're just Safari extensions? I.e. no uBlock origin, just some filters with the restricted API?
cpmsmith 10mo ago
Yes, but Orion uses WebKit intentionally on desktop as well, unlike Chrome or Firefox which use their own engines on desktop but WebKit on iOS, so it's a bit different in this case.
weikju 10mo ago
This news seems to be about the macOS version of Orion reaching 1.0...

rwbt 10mo ago

I switched to Orion from Safari a few months ago and so far loving it. I tried Orion a couple of years ago but it wasn't as reliable. Now it seems very stable and the kagi search integration is really nice. On a side note - I don't know why Apple still doesn't let you set a custom search engine in Safari even today, so random.

thisislife2 10mo ago
Google pays Apple billions of dollars to be the default search engine on iDevices. So they have no incentive to allow you to change search engines.
darkteflon 10mo ago
I have Safari on iOS set to use Kagi by default - works fine?
- TingPing 10mo ago
  It’s very much a hack, but it’s largely functional.

throwawa14223 10mo ago

I love everything about Orion except it steals focus when I click a link in e-mail or another application. Does anyone know if there's a way to change the behavior to be like Safari's background link behavior?

kotaKat 10mo ago

The iOS/iPad builds have been getting a bit… rough on their adblocking lately. For some reason, Orion is now getting slammed by Ad-Shield on my iPad on so many blogs and sites it’s not even funny. Endless “an error occured loading this page” blaming my ad blocker. Anyone else?

esafak 10mo ago

What's the bug situation? It sucked last I checked, over a year ago. Is there a way to get a useful visualization like a burndown chart out of their bug tracker? The people who have created it seem unaware that one important task of such a tracker is to reveal the big picture and help answer questions like "Is the project getting better or worse?" They should study the Github Insights tab. https://orionfeedback.org/ https://orionfeedback.org/

jeffhuys 10mo ago
Yeah, imo, it’s nowhere near ready for 1.0. I was a big advocate for this browser but recently changed because of exactly this. That, and it’s very slow after having it running constantly, I found myself routinely quitting and re-opening it every hour or two to get normal speed back, or my RAM for that matter. So I’m back on Safari.
- lowbloodsugar 10mo ago
  It was using 46G of ram the other day. But I prefer it over any other browser so I just kill it every now and again.
  - pluralmonad 10mo ago
    How many hundreds or thousands of tabs took 40+ gigs?
    - lowbloodsugar 10mo ago
      Like maybe 100?
jorl17 10mo ago
I've tried Orion a couple of times. I even used it as my default browser for ~3 months about two years ago. Most recently, I tried to use it again about 2 months ago, but it still had loads of bugs and, most of all, was painfully slow. The truth is, Orion being based off of WebKit comes with the obvious limitation that....it's based off of WebKit! So much slower than chrome or firefox, and plagued with decisions that are just not to my taste. For example, just the way it behaves when I hit the back button (or, rather, when I swipe back) feels incredibly sluggish. Loading is often terrible, with constant repaints of the screen as well. A bunch of websites don't work properly either. The only true reason why I wanted Orion to work was because I wanted a browser that would be good for my battery life and "optimized for the mac". But, since then, I've realized I don't really use the battery that much (or that I don't notice it being a problem), and that, whatever "optimized for the mac" means, it definitely isn't speed. After Arc went around and poo-pooed on its users, I migrated to Zen (I did try Orion again, like I mentioned). Zen is also filled with bugs, but at least I don't want to throw my computer out the window because of it being slow.

timenotwasted 10mo ago

I was curious but unfortunately can't get it to launch

filoleg 10mo ago

Is there any info with a bit more details on extensions on the desktop version? More specifically, is Orion going to have its own extension ecosystem? Is it compatible with chrome or FF extensions? If it is gonna be its own thing, are there dev docs available anywhere? Asking because I’ve read the article, and I noticed extensions being mentioned a few times (including in one of the subchapter titles). However, I couldn’t find any actual info about extensions there.

yannickburky 10mo ago
Orion is compatible with a large number of extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. Not all of them work, and yes, we plan to offer documentation for creating extensions that are immediately compatible with Orion.
- filoleg 10mo ago
  Thank you for the response! To be clear, I didn't mean for my original comment to be a dig at Orion at all. I am just genuinely excited for it, but an extension ecosystem is something I value a lot in a browser. So I was a little bit miffled, when the original post namedropped extensions, but didn't provide any details beyond that. However, thanks for clarifying the current state of affairs in terms of extensions, and I am eagerly looking forward to checking out the docs.
thisislife2 10mo ago
Orion has been trying to integrate / extend the WebExtensions API to its fork of webkit, with a goal to make uBlock Origin 100% compatible in Orion. It's still a work in progress ...

oa335 10mo ago

I’m using it now, feels so much snappier on my 10 year old iPhone than the previous version on Orion.

NetOpWibby 10mo ago

I switched my mobile browser to Orion a few weeks ago and it's so great to have built-in support for Kagi. Before, I'd have to manually go to the Kagi page when I wanted to search for something since Safari doesn't support custom search engines. Currently looking to switch from Arc to Orion. The one thing I'm gonna miss is Arc's Portrait Mode.

mulderc 10mo ago
There is a Kagi extension that makes Kagi the default search engine.

tdub311 10mo ago

Really liked orion when trying it out but extensions that changed the theme (namely using dark mode with RES) flashed the original theme first, so I was getting flash banged any time I changed the page. There was a bug[0] for this that was marked as done but I tried after the fact and it was still happening. And looking at the comments on that report suggest I am not the only one still experiencing it. If it weren’t for that I would probably be using it as my daily browser. [0] https://orionfeedback.org/d/324-dark-reader-has-a-slightly-delay-kicking-in-resulting-in-white-flashes/29 https://orionfeedback.org/d/324-dark-reader-has-a-slightly-d...

ofrzeta 10mo ago

Money quote: "In a world dominated by Chromium, choosing a rendering engine is an act of resistance"

burnte 10mo ago
Yeah, except it's pure bullshit. I'm actually a tiny bit irritated they worded it like this because it's insultingly misleading. "From day one, we made the deliberate choice to build Orion on WebKit, the open‑source engine at the heart of Safari and the broader Apple ecosystem." Chromium's Blink is based on Webkit and was for YEARS. While Blink and Webkit had some major differences now, it's not Webkit that's the better core now. They picked Webkit because it's fast and easy, what ships on both MacOS and iOS. They couldn't put an alternative engine in the iOS and distribute it outside of Europe, so they stuck with webkit. For an Apple-only application, it's a smart choice for fast development, but it's NOT an act of resistance AT ALL. It's completely caving to Apple. This is not a bold new choice in the browser space, it's just another privacy focused Webkit browser. That's great, but pretending this is sticking it to the man is delusional.
- CharlesW 10mo ago
  > …it's not Webkit that's the better core now. I'm curious about your definition of "better". It's nice that Google is catching up to Safari on Speedometer benchmarks (Blink was 20% slower a year ago), so at minimum one can appreciate Safari for being the mechanical hare that triggers Google's prey instinct. Bun chose WebKit's JavaScriptCore for performance reasons. Safari's supposedly-poor support for web standards is mostly Google propaganda.
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
  - bigyabai 10mo ago
    > Safari's supposedly-poor support for web standards is mostly Google propaganda. I don't think that users "mostly" agree. Safari's market share on macOS craters compared to Chrome: https://radar.cloudflare.com/reports/browser-market-share-2025-q1#id-7-market-share-by-os https://radar.cloudflare.com/reports/browser-market-share-20... Google propaganda or not, Mac owners aren't sticking with this "superior" preeinstalled browser tech. And I get it, as a Linux user I find WebKit intolerable compared with Blink and even Gecko.

rdg1991 10mo ago

I love Orion, but it's pretty unusable with 1Password set up - delay on keyboard input is unbearable with the extension enabled and it slows everything down significantly. I just ran a few benchmarks with BrowserBench Speedometer: 1Password extension disabled: 17 1Password extension enabled: 10 (and the test takes much longer) Vivaldi with extension enabled: 25 I really, really want to move back to Orion as my daily driver but as a pretty heavy 1Password user this is absolutely a dealbreaker.

colinmarc 10mo ago
I opened this link intending to post exactly this. 1Password is just extremely broken on Orion. It's a testament to how much I like the browser that I'm still using it despite that (and despite the fact that Github was completely broken on Webkit this summer, but that's not Orion's fault).
- rdg1991 10mo ago
  I was in that camp, but then switched to Vivaldi and the experience is much better. Would love to move back to Orion since I do like just about everything else that it does better.
saint_yossarian 10mo ago
Bitwarden just had a similar bug with keyboard lag in their browser extension: https://github.com/bitwarden/clients/issues/17090 https://github.com/bitwarden/clients/issues/17090 I wish browsers offered some kind of autofill extension API so password managers don't have to inject their own bullshit into every page.
- bobbylarrybobby 10mo ago
  On macOS, they do! It's not clear why 1Password and Bitwarden don't utilize it. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/authenticationservices/ascredentialproviderviewcontroller https://developer.apple.com/documentation/authenticationserv...

forgotpwd16 10mo ago

>While doing so, it expands Kagi ecosystem of privacy-respecting, user-centric products (that we have begun fondly naming “Kagiverse”) to now include: Search, Assistant, Browser, Translate, News with more to come. Are people really interested in those other than Search? >A bold technical choice: WebKit, not another Chromium clone Only real choice for iOS so not sure what the bold choice is for an Apple-centric browser.

temp0826 10mo ago
I don't speak for everyone obviously but if they only provided search and it led to a lower price I'd be happy. I say this as a user of Orion (iOS); I really only use it because it's half-decent and supports uBO (though it feels pretty buggy and I'm not totally sure it's working most of the time...I really do wish more people were squashing bugs, it seems like a very small team).
baggachipz 10mo ago
Webkit works on any OS.

Alifatisk 10mo ago

”We have officially started development on Orion for Windows, with a target release scheduled for late 2026” Fantastic news!

danielhep 10mo ago

I want to be able to sync Orion with Firefox. I use non Apple operating systems on some computers, and I would love to have Orion sync with Firefox on them.

philipwhiuk 10mo ago

Begun again the browser wars have.

fudged71 10mo ago

I’m now using it on iOS, switching from Arc. It’s working surprisingly well, good feel and customization. Might keep it.

rckt 10mo ago

I’m going to use it on iOS and macOS. Feels like the previous Safari. On Linux I’ll keep to Firefox.

TiredOfLife 10mo ago

Just skip the middleman and use Yandex browser.

HHalvi 10mo ago

I really love to hate Safari (extensions, ad blocking, dev tools amongst many other reasons) but love using a non chromium browser. I discovered Orion a few years back and it has been my go-to standalone browser but never strong enough to be my primary browser. So many daily drivers of mine refuse(d) to work from time to time (1P, Netflix, Youtube, Slack, Gmaps, Hey & the list goes on). I eventually started relying on Orion RC instead of Orion to band-aid fix these problems. I truly hope they succeed but a few hours of driving the 1.0, it doesn't feel like a 1.0 yet.

ndom91 10mo ago

I love Kagi, but is this necessary? Another browser, really? I wish they'd spend their eng resources as a small startup on their legitimately great primary product - ad-free search.

jjice 10mo ago
Well they've been working on Orion for six years now, so I feel like their effort split between the browser and their other services has been fine.
Apocryphon 10mo ago
I think there's just an instinctual draw to building a new browser, partly because so much of our modern software is dependent on web apps. Not sure if SerenityOS has been progressing as much as it originally did now that Andreas is all enamored with Ladybird.
freediver 10mo ago
We started working on Orion browser before Kagi search. Source: Kagi founder.
ndom91 10mo ago
Oh well TIL they did the browser first!

awill 10mo ago

Is this Webkit 2?

TingPing 10mo ago
Yes, WebKit 1 is extremely dead, many web features don’t function in it.

lolftw 10mo ago

I love Orion on iOS especially because the ability to use desktop extensions in it (some may not work)

__s 10mo ago
Same. Sadly haven't been able to find a working twitch ad mute extension after they made latest anti adblock changes. At least Youtube Live is still in growth phase so I don't get ads there yet

ssaakaash 10mo ago

As of Tuesday 6:33 PM UTC, it shows the error: Update Error! An error occurred in retrieving update information. Please try again later.

geraltofrivia 10mo ago

Love most of the work you folks are doing, and I am a paying Kagi customer for over a year now. That said, it leaves a salty taste in the mouth to see > Orion is part of the broader Kagi ecosystem and > Supporters (via subscription or lifetime purchase) unlock a set of Orion+ perks I would imagine that paying for Kagi is also a vector for having the paywalled features of your browser.

weikju 10mo ago
I think the only perk I ever got from paying for Orion+ in the past was a special badge on my profile on their support forum...

konart 10mo ago

The floating sidebar totally breaks UI\UX on any web site with a header. And I still can't select multiple tabs with shift\cmd\whatever button pressed down to do something with a group of tabs instead of a single one. And a feel no difference in speed on my M1 Pro. For now this 1.0 feels just as beta as it was.

dvno42 10mo ago

This looks neat but the biggest question I have and care about... UBO? Not the limited manifest v3 version or whatever it's referred to as, but the full bore block lists like in FF. Excited to see where this goes!!

TingPing 10mo ago
It doesn’t support the APIs ublock requires.
- aranelsurion 10mo ago
  Huh? But I see it says "uBlock Origin" when I install it and the UI looks like what I remember from the full version. It says "Firefox" when I check the extensions page, so maybe that's where it manages to bring the full version from.
  - TingPing 10mo ago
    Yes it lets you do it. It doesn’t work. https://browser.kagi.com/WebExtensions-API-Support.html https://browser.kagi.com/WebExtensions-API-Support.html The webRequest API is key, dns is used, maybe a few more. Looks like the macOS support has improved but iOS may never happen.
    - freediver 10mo ago
      uBO is supported on Orion MacOS. On iOS it still depends on Apple.
      - TingPing 10mo ago
        Apple open sourced their WebExtension implementation, they seem open to contributions. I worry Orion doesn’t want to contribute upstream though.

gainda 10mo ago

I will give this another chance but the last time I used this on my 14 Pro Max it would get hot to the edge of discomfort

thisislife2 10mo ago

Thank you offering Orion outside the App Store. I am excited to try it. But where is the offline installer? If you don't collect data, why does the "installer", that has already been downloaded from the internet, need to again connect to the internet to download the browser, which is what the "installer" should already be having within it??

ed_mercer 10mo ago
This doesn’t have to be malicious, it might check for patch updates.
- thisislife2 10mo ago
  Good point. The world however has made me cynical, and I prefer full offline installers. One of the (many) reasons is that I also tend to save the full installers, of softwares I like, in case they suddenly disappear from the web.

isodev 10mo ago

Remember around the early 2000s, every company had a toolbar you could install in your browser? They’d do search, news, IM, plugins, all kinds of things… on many occasions they’d try to squeeze entire websites into these things. You could install more than one toolbar. Some were malware, but there were toolbars that promised security and privacy too (though probably still malware by today’s standards). Well, if you’ve seen one of those screenshots where 80% of the screen was toolbars and only a fraction left for the viewport … that’s a bit how I feel now when I look at the landscape of browsers today. Browsers… everywhere, each one trying to grab your attention long enough so you give them clicks, cookies, “anonymised” search queries and who knows what else… There are no more browsers that fight for the user.

traceroute66 10mo ago

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. Meanwhile on macOS you have Mullvad Browser.

ajdude 10mo ago
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.
- traceroute66 10mo ago
  > I dropped firefox 9 months so after they updated their privacy policy and removed "we don't sell your data" from their FAQ. "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).
  - ajdude 10mo ago
    > Please do not conflate the two I'm not talking about Firefox focus? I'm talking about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43213612 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43213612 Mozilla has hired a lot of execs from Meta and bought an ad company, looking through a lot of their privacy policy at the time, a lot of it involves rewriting it to say that they can serve you sponsored suggestions when you're searching for things in their search bar and stuff and sharing out some of that data with third parties etc. Firefox was bringing in half a billion a year for the last decade, if they would've just invested that money in low risk money market accounts (instead of paying their csuite executives millions of dollars in salary and putting the rest on non-Firefox related related social causes), the company would be able to easily survive off the interest alone. I've been using Firefox since like 2006 and have defended it for decades even when they've made questionable decisions that have gotten everybody upset with them. But this time it wasn't just making stupid decisions to try and fund the company, this time they actuality sold out their own customers. In public announcement in the above link explaining why they removed "we don't sell your data" from the FAQ, the rationality was that some jurisdictions define selling data weirdly, they cited California's definition as an example but California's definition is exactly what I would consider the definition of selling my personal data. They're justifying this by saying that they need it to stay alive since they're not going to be getting money from Google anymore, but I argue that you shouldn't sell out your customer base on the very specific reason anyone would choose you. I would rather pay a monthly fee to use Firefox to support them, but even if you gave them $500 million today they would just squander it away like they've done since forever so I really don't have any solution I can think of which frustrates me. It's absolutely Firefox that I'm trying to avoid completely at this point. > 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 DNS adblock doesn't automatically skip sponsored segments of videos like sponsorblock does.

dickiedyce 10mo ago

I'm a keen Orion user, and general Kagi user - early adopter since June 2022 (So kool-aid? ;-) ) That said, I have Chrome installed for mandated office work (profile managed by IT ;-( ), Brave for LinkedIn & YouTube... but for everything else I use Orion. Recent versions have been rock solid, and it does exactly what it says on the tin. My only gripe is that the favourites bar isn't right-click editable like Chrome or Brave - assume this is down to Webkit. Apart from that, joy to use and develop against.

semiinfinitely 10mo ago

> After six years of relentless development if it took 6 years of bug fixing to release version 1.0 I'm sure there are still innumerable bugs in orion

Glemkloksdjf 10mo ago

Its not a new browser, its a new webengine wrapper?

deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]

MrDrMcCoy 10mo ago

Wake me when it's available for Linux.

wpm 10mo ago

I've been mainlining Orion on my iOS devices for a while now, over a year. Certainly have some issues here and there but overall it's been a solid experience for me, glad to see this hit 1.0. Congrats to the Orion team! My favorite feature by far is the ability to disable the stupid "hide the address bar if you're not scrolled all the way to the top of a page" behavior every mobile browser does.

sedatk 10mo ago

Reportedly, current desktop OS marketshare[1] is: - 66% Windows - 18% MacOS - 3% Linux Right now, I can't try out Orion as one of the 66%. [1] https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide/ https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide...

microtonal 10mo ago
So? Companies are free to choose their markets. For a long time there were a lot of shops that only focused on the Mac.
- sedatk 10mo ago
  Sure, but Kagi isn't a Mac shop; their only source of revenue is subscriptions. Majority of their desktop customers must be Windows users too. So, their prioritization just looks strange to me.
zero0529 10mo ago
I mean they say in the article that the have started on the windows version and are aiming for late 2026
- sedatk 10mo ago
  I know, the prioritization just looks counter-intuitive to me, especially if you make money primarily from subscribers.
  - 0_gravitas 10mo ago
    Well, paying money for consumer apps/services (besides games) has always seemed a bit more normalized in the iOS ecosystem, and I imagine it must be a _somewhat_ simpler interface than the lovecruftian monolith of windows-N saying this as a Linux user, I've never owned an apple device in my life (nor do I want to)
    - 10mo ago

aranelsurion 10mo ago

my initial, 15min impression is.. wow so much to like here! It feels very snappy, really nice UI, supports "real" version of uBlock Origin, has built-in Vertical Tabs with nesting and Tab Groups, and also the iOS-like grid of tabs if you prefer. What I don't like: Seems like no way to disable two-finger back/forward gesture? I hate that one and managed to disable a similar feature in Chrome. Also either it doesn't have any kind of Developer Tools, or I couldn't find it yet in my 15min speedrun. (edit: found it) I'm hopeful.

aucisson_masque 10mo ago

Orion for Linux and windows is actually a huge thing. I'm sick of having to choose between chromium clone and gecko clone, I find WebKit to be very efficient and Orion on my Mac was very good. The only reason I didn't use it is because safari, I already paid for all the extension i need and I found safari to be better on iphone. But compared to Firefox or chrome, this is so much better.

HacklesRaised 10mo ago

This is the way...

TrevorFSmith 10mo ago

I'm a happy Kagi subscriber and look forward to Orion on Linux. Every well supported browser other than Chrome is a win. I'd love Kagi to fund people working full time on web standards in the W3C and WHATNG, too.

whamlastxmas 10mo ago

I wish it touched on its approach to very common finger printing data. Does it send browser window size? Your time zone? Your OS? The languages you've previously chosen to translate? Unless it meaningfully closes the loop on not sending data to fingerprint with, I'm not sure "zero telemetry" is really a selling point at all

ksherlock 10mo ago

I appreciate that it supports Mojave.

duxup 10mo ago

It's worth installing on MacOS just to enjoy the video that plays the first time you start it. It's kinda retro awesome.

jug 10mo ago

I would understand this project much better on Windows, which: 1. Doesn't have an established WebKit browser, which 110% sucks due to issues with testing for Mac and iOS. This is a long standing issue. 2. Relies on a Chromium-based browser with its own integrity issues, as well as a Microsoft approach to telemetry. I don't associate Safari nearly as much to neither invasive telemetry, tracking, or ads beyond those on the web, nor poor performance on Mac. In fact, I often find it excellent especially in terms of battery life, and Safari has integrated content blocking and tracking protections. Maybe not as powerful as here (?) but telling of Apple's approach to caring for this. Edit: I saw there's work on Windows support. That's good news. IMHO, this browser should be Windows-first. It makes far more sense there to me. But maybe you like Mac more as a platform?

lylo 10mo ago

I love the profiles feature of Safari. I find it a bit odd that profiles are entire browser instances in Orion, unlike Safari which I find a lot easier to use. Maybe I just need to get use to it…

sunaookami 10mo ago

Extensions still default to the English language, this is a bug I reported two years ago and it's still there... kinda disappointed. Not everyone uses or wants to use English.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 10mo ago

Looking forward linux android and windows versions!

GaryBluto 10mo ago

> Zero telemetry, privacy‑first access to the internet: a basic human right. Just because something is good does not make it a "basic human right"; why do so many people now suggest it does?