alt Hacker NewsAn Update on Orion for Linux and Windows
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So as a non-Apple-using Kagi subscriber since Beta, I kind of wish they'd just concentrate on search - the thing I'm paying for.
Yes, it's good, and I'll keep using it for the foreseeable future, but it's not an unassailable lead.
Lately I haven't been very happy with Kagi. A few searches have completely failed for me returning a blank page when both DuckDuckGo and Google had a response. The Kagi translate on/off switch made me think their services are unreliable. Then this happens and it feels like more that their word is unreliable. They expanded into too many domains and spread themselves too thin and that doesn't give me confidence.
My subscription is up for renewal in December and I think I actually have a decision to make. For now I'm very happy with the Kagi MCP for my research agent. But I'm definitely having a moment of "how reliant should I really be on this company?"
Kagi subscriber here. I think mature technologists should stop supporting proprietary browser technology workarounds, and I personally wont support them although I like the spirit of what Kagi tried to do with Orion on Mac OS.
We dont need ad blockers. We need advertiserproof/trackingproof browsers. Like we have waterproof shoes and coats and hats. We could also use some nicer browsers in terms of features.
But what folks who really care about these details should do is simply de-apple, and de-google (and obviously de-windows!). That will get you much further than using a particular browser, but a good browser helps.
I’ve been a long-time subscriber to kagi, but also a long-time critic that they bite off more than they can chew. Relatively happy to see this, and I’m sure there’ll be an open-source community willing to carry on the Linux work.
I wish they would cancel the Mac version as well. It really has no clear purpose and just further dilutes the "alternatives to Chrome" space. If they have money to spend on a browser, why not put that effort into a browser that actually has a chance to tilt the scales a bit, like Zen?
I wish these articles would have a link to what they are at the top.
I know they don't want more users at this point, but half the things I find out about are through their discontinuation press releases.
I want the same browser (port) on each of my OSes. No Linux/AOSP port means I won't use your browser. But I guess I wasn't interesting enough of a customer (am subscribed to Kagi Search). No problem. For example: on my Steam Deck, I am happy with Mozilla Firedox and uBlock Origin. This company pivots too much to USA to my taste anyway.
> We also chose to build it the hard way by not forking Chromium.
Bad call, because it's genuinely too hard for someone the size of Kagi, as they've discovered.
There's room for a Chromium fork that has a better reputation than Brave. (I use Brave, and it's great, but I realise many people don't want to use it.)
Like others in this thread I’ve questioned why Kagi is developing a browser. My only guess is they at one point thought there would be some opportunities in integrating AI stuff and a browser. Because their CEO has said in the past that they are convinced of LLM usefulness but in a specific way.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see some agentic features in their browser at some point. Their assistant tool is already quite good - it has replaced search for me in a number of scenarios.
As ex-Kagi subscribers, I could no longer see the value in paying $10, as the results weren’t significantly different from those on my self-hosted SearXNG.
If orion was open source and had a beautiful UI like Arc it could be the best browser for me. But it is not beautiful and I can't fix its bugs.
Sad that the other two platforms won't have the same stewardship as Orion on macOS. Especially since we're likely to see drift from the core WebKit implementation between them now.
Orion is great on iOS, good browser. Some jank on sites like Substack but for that I blame Substack for janky user hostile code.
I don't understand the reasoning behind Kagi developing a browser. Such a small team would gain more from partnering with the likes of Mozilla/Vivaldi/etc IMO
Very disappointing. I have no reason to use Orion on my iPhone if it isn’t matched by a Windows version. Immediate uninstall for me. Orion on iOS is slightly subpar, so idk why anyone would use it over Safari.
I was very excited about the possibility of having some rendering engine competition on Windows.
Maybe it is for better. I used Orion as my main browser for awhile on iOS, but then it started getting weird bugs. Now I have both Safari and Firefox open all the time and watch yt on Brave.
I try to see if they got Orion to behave again, but find a bit difficult to trust it as the main browser.
Huh -- this blog post was published on October 2nd and says updates stop as of October 2nd. Some more notice would've been nice, but I also wonder if maybe they've been considering this for a while and just couldn't take it anymore.
That's unfortunate, though kind of expected
I found the move to release Orion on Linux and windows weird.
If you were Google and you wanted to spread your search engine to the world, it would be fine but such a small company. And the market share would still have been abysmal on the platforms.
Great thing that they release it before abandoning it, truely a great move !
And hopefully they keep making it better on macOS and iOS.
I've never understood what niche Orion is supposed to fill. People who value privacy would be more likely to use an open-source browser. Firefox and Brave already serve that purpose. Maybe it's less important to Mac users, but on Linux, a proprietary browser is a major deal-breaker for most people. Plus, it's less convenient if the browser isn't simply included in the repository as a result. Orion should have been developed as open source from the start, with community involvement. Kagi can still benefit from this, though, by serving as the default search engine in exchange for funding the development, and by having the Kagi Assistant directly integrated into the platform.