Orion Browser for Linux Gets Exciting Progress Update
Orion Browser for Linux Gets Exciting Progress Update
www.omgubuntu.co.uk
Orion Browser for Linux Gets Exciting Progress Update
22 comments
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Paid search engine makes sense to me but paid browser does not. The browser's target audience will have a better experience using a free of charge and Open Source browser than a paid one because the paid browser won't integrate very well with package managers.
This is off topic but their search engine pricing is quite scummy. Either you pay $5 for 300 searches per month, which is too little, or you pay $10 for unlimited searches, which is too many for a mere mortal. They are trying to up-sell the $10 subscription.
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The browser isnt paid though. https://help.kagi.com/orion/faq/faq.html#business
I agree the $5 a month option is pretty useless, but I also think $10 is completely reasonable for everything you get.
Also even if it was paid why would it have issues with a package manager? Paid software generally just uses an account or license key to verify payment, with the executable being frwely available. JetBrains and Burp Suite are two software that come to mind and both are in many repositories.
Edit: To be clear, the browser will only be for Kagi and Orion+ members during the testing phase, likely just to control the size of the testing group. After that it will be free.
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The browser isnt paid though.
So it's a closed source browser that relies on donations? Or is it Open Source? I could not find much about it (eg. a git repo or something) and just assumed it would have a similar business model to the search engine.
why would it have issues with a package manager?
Depends on the package manager. It's probably easy on Debian, but more difficult on rolling releases, mostly because of dependency hell. Binary distributed software is also harder to integrate in a build system and cross-compilation to a different architecture is not possible.
Regarding the cost of the search engine, I don't care about all the things you get. I just want a search engine and for a reasonable price compared to the price of their "all of them at once, I suppose" bundle.
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If you’re itching to test Orion for Linux, you’ll have to wait. No public builds are available yet, and when testing versions do arrive, they’ll initially be restricted to paid Orion+ and Kagi subscribers.
If reading this has you itching to try it out, you’ll have to wait. No public builds of Orion’s Linux port are available for testing, and when available, the plan is to only give paid Orion+ and Kagi subscribers first dibs – crushing, but there is a reason for it.
Seems they didn't give it a proofread before publishing. :p
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Does it feel like AI to you? I'm a Kagi subscriber and while they don't shove it down your throat like Google tries too it leaves a bad taste in my mouth that a) it's there at all; and b) that I'm paying for it regardless of not using it. AI should be an add-on you choose in addition to search.
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Feels like a LLM to me. There's interjections in sentences, like this one, and the dash ofc. I've found that most models also rarely use first person pronouns (is 'we' first person in english?) and there's none here (unless that's the style those articles are writen in, idk I don't read things like this)
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I was excited before I saw it was a libadwaita app.
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Can libadwaita just go die. So sick and tired of it.
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Its fine on Gnome,but other desktops meh.
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I love Orion on iOS for its ability to use WebExtensions, but I’m not sure what benefit yet another mediocre WebKit browser would bring to the Linux space…
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Extensions. Epiphany can't run Firefox and Chromium extensions, but Orion mostly can. I can't live without uBlock Origin or autofill from my password manager, and Orion is the only niche browser I know of that can.
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We have to wait and see if it's really mediocre. Gnome Web certainly has performance issues, but those may be due to WebkitGTK.
Orion is not using WebkitGTK, despite using GTK and Libadwaita. Their port may not have the same performance issues.
And when I say performance issues, I don't mean benchmarks. Gnome Web actually does pretty decent on benchmarks, but things like scrolling with a mouse just don't feel smooth (but do with a trackpad).
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I mean, I'd imagine the goal is to avoid being mediocre.
If Orion fully supports the Firefox extensions I use and is as privacy respecting as I expect, I'll likely switch to it as soon as I can. I'm sick of Firefox prioritizing features very few people want.
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22 comments
I've always been wary of Kagi, as they have not been very clear about how big part of their search is based on their own index and how much is metasearch on various other engines.