Orion Browser by Kagi

sebjones

Been looking for a browser to replace Chrome which is very difficult I know. But Chrome just gets so bloated that my M1 Macbook Air is not able to run it anymore. How good is this browser in terms of actual daily performance?

fooqux

> WebKit. > A web browser designed from the ground-up. Both of these can't be true. Perhaps they're thinking of Ladybird?

arvid-lind

Was the Linux version just released or something? afaik Orion on iOS and Mac is nothing new.

villish

The best feature is being able to use Firefox extensions and thus uBlock Origin and sponsorblock on iOS. It's a little buggy but worth it for me.

salmonik

Where's the source code for their browser? Such move of not publishing it is almost bizarre for such a pro-privacy company.

mid-kid

Is the source code published anywhere?

ares623

No password manager built-in yet. Although I suppose I really should migrate to Apple's native password manager nowadays.

regecks

Any chance Apple Private Relay still works? That’s why I stick to Safari. Am a paying Kagi user.

Cyberdog

I'm giving it a try after a couple months of daily driving with Zen, which I've become quite fond of. One potential deal-breaker is that it seems to be impossible to log into GitHub. After autofilling my credentials from the keychain, the form submits, and then I get redirected right back to the form with no error message. The same thing happens when I try logging in with my passkey. Has anyone else run into this and found a workaround? I tried turning off auto-submitting password forms in the Settings but that doesn't change anything.

teravor

one of their "Curated Extensions" is Tampermonkey, a non open source userscript engine. when there are multiple open ones available. like attracts like?

TechRemarker

Tried switching a while back. It's like Safari but with so many little UI improvements that make it so much more enjoyable but while still feeling like something Apple would design. Alas didn't use long as lack to many things such as no native Apple Pay support (have to use iOS or scan a code etc), or 2fa email/sms auto fill, private relay support, doesn't fully support 1Password, and so on. Most all of which because of Apple limitations but still little things that I value more than the better UI. However, far more important than all of that is so many sites didn't work. With Chrome you know a site will work, with Safari you know a lot may not, but with Orion it was an enormous number of sites that continually ran into issues and unlike Safari too many to keep reporting or find work arounds. All the benefits of Safari make it worth the downside of some sites not working properly, but the benefits of Orion over Safari for the massive number that didn't work right was certainly not worth it for me. Which was all unfortunate since the Orion team is doing everything they can essentially on their end. Hopefully they have a large enough niche to stick around and offer even modest competition for the big players.

cyanydeez

The Linux ARM64 appears to only be for AArch. Ubuntu has a snapdragon X Elite version.

TiredOfLife

Skip the middleman and just use Yandex browser. It has great free video dubbing feature

spaghettifythis

My main gripe with this is the pretty shocking performance on old "supported" iOS devices (e.g. an iPhone SE 2). When you have too many tabs, or watch more than a couple videos it just starts freezing and will sometimes crash the phone - you get an unresponsive sideshow screen for a bit before it goes to the lock screen with fingerprint login disabled (like after a restart). I can only assume they've accidentally found a way to make webkit leak memory?

8jy89hui

I tried using Orion mobile for months but I just kept running into so many UI bugs that I had to switch away from it :(. I love Kagi, but Orion just feels unpolished right now

sodapopcan

I paid the one-time fee that gives you lifetime access to it over a year ago and it's been at least a year that I haven't used it (It was like $270USD or something... I can't remember). I wanted to, and still want to, like it so badly but there were just too many bugs and I have been using Firefox since. Every once in a while I come back to Orion to see what's up... Now... this is likely going to sound extremely stupid to many HNers, but the thing that makes me immediately quit is that I can't make the vertical tab bar as small as the width of the icons themselves (Orion forces extra left/right padding to accommodate the small row of buttons at the top). This is 100% a UI thing (and explicitly not a UX thing, per se) but there is just something about the ultra-thin, vertical tab strip that Firefox allows (and some other browers I might add) that... I just love it. It's so stupid, I know, but it just gets right out of my way. And as someone who always has tons of tabs open: this is exactly what my tab looked liked in my horizontal tab bar days. Anyway, that's all. Still love Kagi as a company. Zero regrets I gave them a bunch of money for a browser I don't use. I'm still hoping to make the switch one day! Oh... also that whole webkit thing that puts the URL in the centre and then it moves to the left... that shit sucks. This was one of my big problems when I tried out Zen. Just make it so I can edit the URL immediately with one click and no animation (and I'm not even anti-animation generally). Like... just do it. **in' **.

technovangelist

I only started using it about 6 months ago so I don't know what it was like before, but today it's a solid choice. far less problematic than Chrome or Firefox or Arc or Dia or Brave or any of the other browsers I had on my system. Orion was the first browser that let me delete all the rest and haven't run into any issues in months. Some of the other comments show they hadn't used it in a long time. 1Password works perfectly as does Apple Pay.

cute_boi

I will suggest people to use helium browser over this closed source browser. I know kagi is good company, but i don't understand why they aren't open sourcing browser.

xando

Happy Kagi user. I switched to Orion at some point, but due to bugs and battery drain, I had to switch back (to Safari!) As soon as those are fixed, I’m back again. I’d also pay for it, if that changes anything. Actually, I would pay for the browser, period, if it was good, respected privacy, was efficient and fast on mobile, and synced things between devices.

mediumsmart

Using it for years on iOS and Mac. Works great and the only zero telemetry browser. Apple Pay works and the compatibility button fixes any problem site worth loading. No complaints.