Is that true? Maybe it is and I'm out of the loop but I can't remember the last time someone complained about browser speed. The bottleneck seems to be website bloat more than anything else. Would love to see this argument quantified.

1Password extension disabled: 17

1Password extension enabled: 10 (and the test takes much longer)

Vivaldi with extension enabled: 25

I really, really want to move back to Orion as my daily driver but as a pretty heavy 1Password user this is absolutely a dealbreaker.

1. Doesn't have an established WebKit browser, which 110% sucks due to issues with testing for Mac and iOS. This is a long standing issue.

2. Relies on a Chromium-based browser with its own integrity issues, as well as a Microsoft approach to telemetry.

I don't associate Safari nearly as much to neither invasive telemetry, tracking, or ads beyond those on the web, nor poor performance on Mac. In fact, I often find it excellent especially in terms of battery life, and Safari has integrated content blocking and tracking protections. Maybe not as powerful as here (?) but telling of Apple's approach to caring for this.

Edit: I saw there's work on Windows support. That's good news. IMHO, this browser should be Windows-first. It makes far more sense there to me. But maybe you like Mac more as a platform?

Is there a way to get a useful visualization like a burndown chart out of their bug tracker? The people who have created it seem unaware that one important task of such a tracker is to reveal the big picture and help answer questions like "Is the project getting better or worse?" They should study the Github Insights tab. https://orionfeedback.org/

Well, if you’ve seen one of those screenshots where 80% of the screen was toolbars and only a fraction left for the viewport … that’s a bit how I feel now when I look at the landscape of browsers today.

Browsers… everywhere, each one trying to grab your attention long enough so you give them clicks, cookies, “anonymised” search queries and who knows what else…

There are no more browsers that fight for the user.

My favorite feature by far is the ability to disable the stupid "hide the address bar if you're not scrolled all the way to the top of a page" behavior every mobile browser does.

Fantastic news!

On a side note - I don't know why Apple still doesn't let you set a custom search engine in Safari even today, so random.

And I still can't select multiple tabs with shift\cmd\whatever button pressed down to do something with a group of tabs instead of a single one.

And a feel no difference in speed on my M1 Pro.

For now this 1.0 feels just as beta as it was.

There was a bug[0] for this that was marked as done but I tried after the fact and it was still happening. And looking at the comments on that report suggest I am not the only one still experiencing it.

If it weren’t for that I would probably be using it as my daily browser.

[0] https://orionfeedback.org/d/324-dark-reader-has-a-slightly-d...

Excited to see where this goes!!

   > Because something fundamental has been lost.
   > Zero telemetry, privacy‑first access to the internet: a basic human right.
   > We believe there needs to be a different path: a browser that answers only to its user.

Disable Daily Ping and Crash Reports in Firefox Focus and you too have a telemetry-free browser on iOS.

Meanwhile on macOS you have Mullvad Browser.

if it took 6 years of bug fixing to release version 1.0 I'm sure there are still innumerable bugs in orion

Asking because I’ve read the article, and I noticed extensions being mentioned a few times (including in one of the subchapter titles). However, I couldn’t find any actual info about extensions there.

Currently looking to switch from Arc to Orion. The one thing I'm gonna miss is Arc's Portrait Mode.

  Update Error!

  An error occurred while parsing the update feed.

  [ Cancel Update ]

Maybe it's related to PiHole? I'm on MacOS 26.1

> A bold technical choice: WebKit, not another Chromium clone

I don't find this a bold technical choice at all for a macOS only browser? I think this would be more impressive if it was Windows as well, as back (maybe ~5 or so years ago) when I was investigating WebKit on Windows, builds were not on an equal playing field[1]. So the engineering to get that up and running would be impressive.

> Speed by nature

Unfortunately, as of 16:40 UTC, I am unable to run the browser (installer?) to benchmark it due to "An error occurred while parsing the update feed.", but I recall 2 years ago when I tested Orion it was the slowest of all the browsers on macOS and Safari had quite a lead. I'd also be curious, being based on WebKit, how much faster it will actually be on macOS vs Safari?

I dropped speed as a focus point on Waterfox after compilation flags started making less of a difference compared to the actual architectural changes Mozilla were making for Firefox.

> Privacy etc

I think comparing to other major browsers such as Chrome the points are valid, but against Safari I'm not convinced it holds up as much. I know there is some telemetry related to Safari, but privacy is a big selling point for Safari as well and I'd be curious to see actual comparisons to that?

Safari includes iCloud Privacy Relay (MPR based on MASQUE[2]) and Oblivious DNS[3] - arguably two very valuable features that a company at a scale like Apple can subsidise.

The entire AI section also feels like trying to have it both ways as well. They criticise other browsers for rushing AI features, position themselves as the "secure" alternative, then immediately say they'll integrate AI "as it matures." This reads more like "we're behind on AI features" than a principled stance. If security is the concern, explain your threat model and what specific architectural decisions you're making differently? Currently Firefox has kept AI out of the "browser core" as it's been put, and I don't see them ever changing that.

Kudos that they have >2000 people paying for the browser directly, but I will say it doesn't excite me to see another closed source browser entering the market (I don't see any mention here of open-source apart from mention of WebKit being open source).

I do realise this is more a marketing post than an actual technical deep dive, but so much is just a rehash of every feature almost every modern web browser has?

I'll keep updating this comment as and when I can explore the browser itself a bit more.

[1] https://fujii.github.io/2019/07/05/webkit-on-windows/

[2] https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/masque/about/

[3] https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3340301.3341128

The only reason I didn't use it is because safari, I already paid for all the extension i need and I found safari to be better on iphone. But compared to Firefox or chrome, this is so much better.

Are people really interested in those other than Search?

>A bold technical choice: WebKit, not another Chromium clone

Only real choice for iOS so not sure what the bold choice is for an Apple-centric browser.

Update Error! An error occurred while parsing the update feed.

On Linux I’ll keep to Firefox.

That said, it leaves a salty taste in the mouth to see

> Orion is part of the broader Kagi ecosystem

and

> Supporters (via subscription or lifetime purchase) unlock a set of Orion+ perks

I would imagine that paying for Kagi is also a vector for having the paywalled features of your browser.

What I don't like: Seems like no way to disable two-finger back/forward gesture? I hate that one and managed to disable a similar feature in Chrome. Also either it doesn't have any kind of Developer Tools, or I couldn't find it yet in my 15min speedrun. (edit: found it)

I'm hopeful.

My only gripe is that the favourites bar isn't right-click editable like Chrome or Brave - assume this is down to Webkit. Apart from that, joy to use and develop against.

I discovered Orion a few years back and it has been my go-to standalone browser but never strong enough to be my primary browser.

So many daily drivers of mine refuse(d) to work from time to time (1P, Netflix, Youtube, Slack, Gmaps, Hey & the list goes on). I eventually started relying on Orion RC instead of Orion to band-aid fix these problems.

I truly hope they succeed but a few hours of driving the 1.0, it doesn't feel like a 1.0 yet.

Unless it meaningfully closes the loop on not sending data to fingerprint with, I'm not sure "zero telemetry" is really a selling point at all

For some reason, Orion is now getting slammed by Ad-Shield on my iPad on so many blogs and sites it’s not even funny. Endless “an error occured loading this page” blaming my ad blocker.

Anyone else?

I wish they'd spend their eng resources as a small startup on their legitimately great primary product - ad-free search.

- 66% Windows

- 18% MacOS

- 3% Linux

Right now, I can't try out Orion as one of the 66%.

[1] https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide...