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PM of Orion here. Orion (https://orionbrowser.com https://orionbrowser.com) is a WebKit-based browser for Mac, Linux, iPadOS and iOS that supports both Chrome

PM of Orion here. Orion (https://orionbrowser.com https://orionbrowser.com) is a WebKit-based browser for Mac, Linux, iPadOS and iOS that supports both Chrome and Firefox extensions natively ⟩ including uBlock Origin. We have no plans to drop extension support. Content blocking is a feature, not a loophole, and we think users should have full control over what runs in their browser.

coffe2mug 4mo ago
Linux? I can't find it in the downloads.
hamburgererror 4mo ago
I will consider Orion only when it is open source.
- maxloh 4mo ago
  Yeah. At least Chromium is open source.
- yannicklesuisse 4mo ago
  We get this question a lot. Our CEO is clear about this: Our guiding principle isn’t about licensing models ... it’s about interoperability. The original Unix philosophy (McIlroy, Ritchie, Thompson) says nothing about source code licensing. It’s about programs that do one thing well and work together through universal interfaces. Open source is a distribution and licensing model; conflating it with software openness misrepresents those core tenets. Orion supports Chrome extensions, Firefox extensions, and standard web APIs — that’s interoperability in practice. That being said, the future is not written ;)
  - stonogo 4mo ago
    Applying the 'one thing well' bumper sticker to a web browser, which does a million things in a mediocre fashion, is a bizarre take. Not only is that whole comparison inapplicable, it's orthagonal to the point. You can do 'one thing well' and open source the code too, but you're not, and this post does not explain why.
  - thisislife2 4mo ago
    Sure, there's nothing wrong in pursuing a closed-source commercial business model. But you guys also said you won't collect any user data with the browser, and that may be true. And yet, you stopped offering offline installers, in lieu of online installers that can be used (in theory) to add persistent and unique ids, do data harvesting and dynamic / customised installations. That doesn't inspire trust to your pro-privacy claims.
  - tempaccountabcd 4mo ago
    [dead]
- graemep 4mo ago
  I only use open source browsers, but there are quite a few with adblocking. Firefox and a few Firefox forks, Brave and a few other Chromium based ones.
red_alpacalypse 4mo ago
While you can install the Firefox uBlock Origin extension in Orion on iOS, it doesn't block any ads. This has been reported for some time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43203237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43203237 Could you please clarify?
- TingPing 4mo ago
  They can’t modify webkit on ios. They also don’t appear to contribute upstream. So it’s just not supported.
  - red_alpacalypse 4mo ago
    Exactly. And that is why I find the parent comment from the Orion PM misleading at best. Because it sounds like uBlock Origin works on iOS, when in reality it doesn’t and probably won‘t in the forseeable future.
    - Obscurity4340 4mo ago
      What does uBlock Origin say in response to this? They had a TestFlight debut but i dont know anything beyond that
      - red_alpacalypse 4mo ago
        uBlock Origin Lite had a TestFlight and now works fine as a Safari extension on iOS. uBlock Origin never claimed their Firefox extension works in Orion. So I don't think they need to respond.
        lxgr 4mo ago
        Origin and Origin Lite are by the same developer.
        red_alpacalypse 4mo ago
mead5432 4mo ago
What about the glaring memory issues that is a pinned thread in your forum? It’s had one comment by a staff member over 5 or so months? I loved Orion and have been using as a daily driver almost since day 1 including paying for it but now it’s completely unusable. I’ve since moved to Firefox. The fact that a pinned thread was silent for months concerns me about the future of Orion. It honestly hurts to see.
- dabbz 4mo ago
  Literally this. Every response initially was "we don't see that and we let it sit for weeks". Now there's just no response from devs. I was unable to browse past more than 1 or 2 pages before memory ballooned to 30gb.
jayofdoom 4mo ago
No, you don't support Linux. I just tried to download it and got a "coming soon". Please don't post misleading things to HN :(. Kagi has a good rep; misleading comments like this hurts it.
- HelloUsername 4mo ago
  > No, you don't support Linux Here you go, official beta flatpak: https://orionbrowser.com/download/oriongtk-early-beta https://orionbrowser.com/download/oriongtk-early-beta
  - giancarlostoro 4mo ago
    Any idea if that browser will ever go open source? I don't mind flatpaks but would rather just have some of my tools installed on my distro (which can be monumental to maintain).
    - pseudalopex 4mo ago
      They said the plan was they would if enough people paid for it to sustain development.[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46554890 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46554890
- arikrahman 4mo ago
  I am also strongly perturbed by the misrepresentation, especially with no real package support. An alpha flatpak that posts "coming soon" is a bad first impression.
prmph 4mo ago
Why do you have quite a number of glaring UX issues? I want to love Orion, but even something as basic as the tabs theming is driving me away. By default is it almost impossible to distinguish which tabs i active in some situations. I think the browser automatically tints the window based on the dominant color of the page you are viewing, which means if I am viewing youtube for example, the whole browser windows is tinted a bit darker, in such a way that I can't easily make out outline of the currently selected tab. Such a bummer for what should have been an easlity changeable behavior with settings: I do not want any tinting, and I want hight contract mode
monitron 4mo ago
I'm a devoted Kagi user and really want to use Orion but keep running into perf issues and jank that frustrate me enough to switch back to something else. My most recent attempt was this past week. You all seem to maintain a very fast pace of development (the changelogs are always chock full of cool stuff) but the problems I am hitting have remained broken for ages. Some examples include: * The app hangs for 1~2 sec partway through typing a URL/search, when using the back button, or during other navigation * The 1Password extension fails to fill usernames and passwords most of the time, regardless of which version I install. It works fine in Safari, Chrome, Firefox. * Your built-in ad blocking triggers anti-ad-blocking measures on many news/blog sites now, resulting in the entire page being blocked. I don't know your business, but maybe pausing new features and pushing for stability/perf/quality of life for a while (a la macOS Snow Leopard) would make sense.
- stogot 4mo ago
  “Your built-in ad blocking triggers anti-ad-blocking measures on many news/blog sites now, resulting in the entire page being blocked.“ This issue persists on other browsers with ad blocking extensions? Including on iOS with FF Focus enabled. Is there a browser+extension combination that does not have this issue
  - beej71 4mo ago
    I don't know what uBO on FF is doing, but it seems like ages since I've been blocked for using it. Maybe I've just gotten lucky with the sites I visit.
- fnordian 4mo ago
  Kagi is the new arch Linux.
- yannicklesuisse 4mo ago
  Thanks for the honest feedback, and I hear you. Some context that might explain (though not excuse) the situation: unlike browsers built on Chromium or Firefox/Gecko, Orion was built from scratch on top of WebKit. No fork, no upstream codebase to pull from. That means every feature, every integration, every compatibility shim is ours to build and maintain. Browsers that fork Chromium or Gecko inherit years of battle-tested extension support, rendering fixes, and platform work for free — we don’t. On top of that, the macOS team is 3 people. About 70% of our engineering time goes to maintenance and keeping up with WebKit/OS updates, ~20% to third-party app compatibility (extensions like 1Password, ad blocking lists, etc.), and what’s left — maybe 10% — goes to community support, discussions, and new features combined. That’s why our changelogs look active but long-standing issues persist: we’re constantly triaging a backlog with thousands of entries and making painful priority calls every single day. None of this is meant as an excuse. You’re right that stability matters, and the issues you describe are real. But this is the cost of building a genuine alternative to the browser market rather than shipping another Chromium or Gecko wrapper. We think that trade-off is worth it for users who want real engine diversity and full extension support without Google’s or Mozilla’s constraints. That said, we can’t do it alone — that’s exactly why Orion+ exists. If you believe in what we’re building, subscribing is the most direct way to help us grow the team and get to that “Snow Leopard” moment faster. We’re sorry for the rough edges. We know they’re there, and we’re working on it.
TiredOfLife 4mo ago
[flagged]
- stouset 4mo ago
  For context, a small amount (~2% of subscription fees IIRC) goes to Yandex. The CEO argues that their goal is to provide the best possible search, and that they remain impartial to geopolitical issues. Reducing the quality of their product to pick sides on political issues is not a sacrifice they are willing to make. Whether or not you agree with this take, framing this as being supporters of the war in Ukraine is extremely dishonest. And to be clear, while I understand their point, I generally don’t agree. All information comes in a political context. Choosing which information to favor is inextricably tied to political context. If I search for flat earth content, do you show the science? Do you show content that favors the flat earth model? Do you focus on the controversy itself? Those are inherently political choices whether or not you want them to be.
  - Obscurity4340 4mo ago
    Are accuracy and relevance calculable?
    - stouset 4mo ago
      Would Kagi be spending money on these partners if they weren’t relatively certain it was improving their product?
sjs382 4mo ago
Happy Kagi customer here—I wish Orion was available on Android.
Obscurity4340 4mo ago
I recently needed to download Orion on a new computer and I couldnt find it in the AppStore. No problem directly downloading from the source (arguably better cuz I can keep the installer) but is there a reason Apple isnt allowing Orion on the AppStore or was that a choice on Kagi's part?

coffe2mug 4mo ago

Linux? I can't find it in the downloads.

hamburgererror 4mo ago

I will consider Orion only when it is open source.

maxloh 4mo ago
Yeah. At least Chromium is open source.
yannicklesuisse 4mo ago
We get this question a lot. Our CEO is clear about this: Our guiding principle isn’t about licensing models ... it’s about interoperability. The original Unix philosophy (McIlroy, Ritchie, Thompson) says nothing about source code licensing. It’s about programs that do one thing well and work together through universal interfaces. Open source is a distribution and licensing model; conflating it with software openness misrepresents those core tenets. Orion supports Chrome extensions, Firefox extensions, and standard web APIs — that’s interoperability in practice. That being said, the future is not written ;)
- stonogo 4mo ago
  Applying the 'one thing well' bumper sticker to a web browser, which does a million things in a mediocre fashion, is a bizarre take. Not only is that whole comparison inapplicable, it's orthagonal to the point. You can do 'one thing well' and open source the code too, but you're not, and this post does not explain why.
- thisislife2 4mo ago
  Sure, there's nothing wrong in pursuing a closed-source commercial business model. But you guys also said you won't collect any user data with the browser, and that may be true. And yet, you stopped offering offline installers, in lieu of online installers that can be used (in theory) to add persistent and unique ids, do data harvesting and dynamic / customised installations. That doesn't inspire trust to your pro-privacy claims.
- tempaccountabcd 4mo ago
  [dead]
graemep 4mo ago
I only use open source browsers, but there are quite a few with adblocking. Firefox and a few Firefox forks, Brave and a few other Chromium based ones.

red_alpacalypse 4mo ago

While you can install the Firefox uBlock Origin extension in Orion on iOS, it doesn't block any ads. This has been reported for some time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43203237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43203237 Could you please clarify?

TingPing 4mo ago
They can’t modify webkit on ios. They also don’t appear to contribute upstream. So it’s just not supported.
- red_alpacalypse 4mo ago
  Exactly. And that is why I find the parent comment from the Orion PM misleading at best. Because it sounds like uBlock Origin works on iOS, when in reality it doesn’t and probably won‘t in the forseeable future.
  - Obscurity4340 4mo ago
    What does uBlock Origin say in response to this? They had a TestFlight debut but i dont know anything beyond that
    - red_alpacalypse 4mo ago
      uBlock Origin Lite had a TestFlight and now works fine as a Safari extension on iOS. uBlock Origin never claimed their Firefox extension works in Orion. So I don't think they need to respond.
      - lxgr 4mo ago
        Origin and Origin Lite are by the same developer.
        red_alpacalypse 4mo ago

mead5432 4mo ago

What about the glaring memory issues that is a pinned thread in your forum? It’s had one comment by a staff member over 5 or so months? I loved Orion and have been using as a daily driver almost since day 1 including paying for it but now it’s completely unusable. I’ve since moved to Firefox. The fact that a pinned thread was silent for months concerns me about the future of Orion. It honestly hurts to see.

dabbz 4mo ago
Literally this. Every response initially was "we don't see that and we let it sit for weeks". Now there's just no response from devs. I was unable to browse past more than 1 or 2 pages before memory ballooned to 30gb.

jayofdoom 4mo ago

No, you don't support Linux. I just tried to download it and got a "coming soon". Please don't post misleading things to HN :(. Kagi has a good rep; misleading comments like this hurts it.

HelloUsername 4mo ago
> No, you don't support Linux Here you go, official beta flatpak: https://orionbrowser.com/download/oriongtk-early-beta https://orionbrowser.com/download/oriongtk-early-beta
- giancarlostoro 4mo ago
  Any idea if that browser will ever go open source? I don't mind flatpaks but would rather just have some of my tools installed on my distro (which can be monumental to maintain).
  - pseudalopex 4mo ago
    They said the plan was they would if enough people paid for it to sustain development.[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46554890 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46554890
arikrahman 4mo ago
I am also strongly perturbed by the misrepresentation, especially with no real package support. An alpha flatpak that posts "coming soon" is a bad first impression.

prmph 4mo ago

Why do you have quite a number of glaring UX issues? I want to love Orion, but even something as basic as the tabs theming is driving me away. By default is it almost impossible to distinguish which tabs i active in some situations. I think the browser automatically tints the window based on the dominant color of the page you are viewing, which means if I am viewing youtube for example, the whole browser windows is tinted a bit darker, in such a way that I can't easily make out outline of the currently selected tab. Such a bummer for what should have been an easlity changeable behavior with settings: I do not want any tinting, and I want hight contract mode

monitron 4mo ago

I'm a devoted Kagi user and really want to use Orion but keep running into perf issues and jank that frustrate me enough to switch back to something else. My most recent attempt was this past week. You all seem to maintain a very fast pace of development (the changelogs are always chock full of cool stuff) but the problems I am hitting have remained broken for ages. Some examples include: * The app hangs for 1~2 sec partway through typing a URL/search, when using the back button, or during other navigation * The 1Password extension fails to fill usernames and passwords most of the time, regardless of which version I install. It works fine in Safari, Chrome, Firefox. * Your built-in ad blocking triggers anti-ad-blocking measures on many news/blog sites now, resulting in the entire page being blocked. I don't know your business, but maybe pausing new features and pushing for stability/perf/quality of life for a while (a la macOS Snow Leopard) would make sense.

stogot 4mo ago
“Your built-in ad blocking triggers anti-ad-blocking measures on many news/blog sites now, resulting in the entire page being blocked.“ This issue persists on other browsers with ad blocking extensions? Including on iOS with FF Focus enabled. Is there a browser+extension combination that does not have this issue
- beej71 4mo ago
  I don't know what uBO on FF is doing, but it seems like ages since I've been blocked for using it. Maybe I've just gotten lucky with the sites I visit.
fnordian 4mo ago
Kagi is the new arch Linux.
yannicklesuisse 4mo ago
Thanks for the honest feedback, and I hear you. Some context that might explain (though not excuse) the situation: unlike browsers built on Chromium or Firefox/Gecko, Orion was built from scratch on top of WebKit. No fork, no upstream codebase to pull from. That means every feature, every integration, every compatibility shim is ours to build and maintain. Browsers that fork Chromium or Gecko inherit years of battle-tested extension support, rendering fixes, and platform work for free — we don’t. On top of that, the macOS team is 3 people. About 70% of our engineering time goes to maintenance and keeping up with WebKit/OS updates, ~20% to third-party app compatibility (extensions like 1Password, ad blocking lists, etc.), and what’s left — maybe 10% — goes to community support, discussions, and new features combined. That’s why our changelogs look active but long-standing issues persist: we’re constantly triaging a backlog with thousands of entries and making painful priority calls every single day. None of this is meant as an excuse. You’re right that stability matters, and the issues you describe are real. But this is the cost of building a genuine alternative to the browser market rather than shipping another Chromium or Gecko wrapper. We think that trade-off is worth it for users who want real engine diversity and full extension support without Google’s or Mozilla’s constraints. That said, we can’t do it alone — that’s exactly why Orion+ exists. If you believe in what we’re building, subscribing is the most direct way to help us grow the team and get to that “Snow Leopard” moment faster. We’re sorry for the rough edges. We know they’re there, and we’re working on it.

TiredOfLife 4mo ago

[flagged]

stouset 4mo ago
For context, a small amount (~2% of subscription fees IIRC) goes to Yandex. The CEO argues that their goal is to provide the best possible search, and that they remain impartial to geopolitical issues. Reducing the quality of their product to pick sides on political issues is not a sacrifice they are willing to make. Whether or not you agree with this take, framing this as being supporters of the war in Ukraine is extremely dishonest. And to be clear, while I understand their point, I generally don’t agree. All information comes in a political context. Choosing which information to favor is inextricably tied to political context. If I search for flat earth content, do you show the science? Do you show content that favors the flat earth model? Do you focus on the controversy itself? Those are inherently political choices whether or not you want them to be.
- Obscurity4340 4mo ago
  Are accuracy and relevance calculable?
  - stouset 4mo ago
    Would Kagi be spending money on these partners if they weren’t relatively certain it was improving their product?

sjs382 4mo ago

Happy Kagi customer here—I wish Orion was available on Android.

Obscurity4340 4mo ago

I recently needed to download Orion on a new computer and I couldnt find it in the AppStore. No problem directly downloading from the source (arguably better cuz I can keep the installer) but is there a reason Apple isnt allowing Orion on the AppStore or was that a choice on Kagi's part?