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  • 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 really tried to make Orion work for me on iOS but I was running into so many issues browsing websites. Performance issues, issues with certain interactive controls. Switched back to Safari and it was like night and day. Feel like it needs a lot of polish so on one hand I think this is a good move to help them focus. However, I feel like it is very much possible that in a year we will hear them shuttering Orion completely to refocus on search.
  • 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?"

  • https://orionfeedback.org/d/13108-megathread-orion-memory-is... open issue since January. They should open source macOS too, they don't have the personnel to develop this.
  • I'm not a kagi subscriber (yet), but am more and more becoming a fan of them and their approaches. I count myself as one of the folks who was thrilled about this web browser, because as much as i love firefox, we need diversity. Ok, ok, not too too much fragmentation...but still we need offerings to help people. So, while i was hopeful for kagi folks to keep working on orion i'm happy that at least they'll open source it and have a community continue it forward. My future hope now is that community members indeed take this browser and grow it further.
  • 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.

  • It's ironic (and sad) that they'd both abandon it and open source it at the same time — open sourcing a browser is key step in expecting it to gain any adoption on Linux, but abandoning it kinda kills motivation for anyone to contribute.

    As other said: the target audience of the Linux version was never clear.

  • 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.

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