I've been de-googling myself slowly over the past 5 years or so. The shift has been marked, but even cynical old me is surprised how quickly they are turning on their user base.
The signs have been there all along though.
So... in all seriousness... Brave or Firefox? What about that Kagi Orion browser?
Orion browser is still too young to match the requirements of the major userbase.
But Kagi beats Google already as search engine.
[1] _ https://librewolf.net/
Orion is older than Kagi search. What is it missing in your opinion?
It is only possible to use it currently if you are deep into Apple ecosystem.
I know it takes resources, but there is no other way.
To add: Browser itself is in quite good shape, maybe the best you get on iOS. But for example, sync with iCloud only does not work in the long term. Vendor lock-in is hindering adaption.
The goal of Orion is not to go for maximum possible market share, but to be the best browser for Mac. This specialization may be seen as a sign of maturity and devotion to a well-built, native user experience.
On the other hand, browsers like Chrome and Firefox are not native on Mac and look out of place when used on macOS. They do not use native controls and do not integrate native services. This is exactly because they are cross-platform and have to carry the burden of being built by a committee on all these platforms. Their design language traces back to the first platform they were designed for - Windows. So at least to me, they look 'young' and unpolished on a Mac despite being 20 years old. I doubt they even look and feel native on Windows any more, they are kind of hopelessly lost in translation. If that is a sign of maturity, then they did not age well.
Orion may be called young for many things, but not being cross-platform is not one of them. We'd like to build similar native experiences for other platforms, but you have to start somewhere. (Orion dev here, if it was not obvious)
For example, every devoloper who currently buys Mac because of its power efficiency, that user base which is the most interested about privacy, is likely not adapting it because they use other operating systems too.
> Their design language traces back to the first platform they were designed for - Windows. So at least to me, they look 'young' and unpolished on a Mac despite being 20 years old. I doubt they look and feel native on Windows any more, they are kind of lost in translation. That is not a sign of maturity if you ask me.
That might be true, but in the end, does it matter? And what is good? If user buys Mac, does it mean that they wants everything to be Mac-like? There is already Safari.
Ideally, browser is used for browsing the internet. You want to see the websites, not the browser. Users still likely use mouse and scroll wheel for doing that.
The basic end-user is usually satisfied with search bar and being able to organize tabs and bookmarks. Basic end-user does not notice that <5% performance gain what focusing on single platform target might benefit. If you compete with Safari on this, Safari already won becausd it was pre-installed.
The more advanced user, more settings buttons they want to see, and better extension support.
They want to configure things and see the websites. Whether the browser looks ”native” to the platform, is minor concern.
They want security updates fast. They want that websites work on that browser. They like privacy features, like Firefox containers. Is it gestures why they would change the browser? Only if it also fulfills all the above.
In some respects Orion has more features than Firefox and Chrome, and certainly more than Safari.
It is also zero telemetry and comes with a built in ads and tracking blocker, something all these browsers are very far away from.
And Orion was faster than Safari to ship a patch for iLeakage WebKit vulnerability recently.
So I would really like to understand what makes your perception as such.
I originally tried proton mail. It was nice but I never took advantage of the encryption features. So I eventually settled on fastmail and I have zero complaints.
I still have my gmail accounts for a few things (SSO, sharing calendars), but I haven't logged into the email account in years.
I have Firefox installed on my phone (Android) as well, but I found Brave to be faster with its "baked in" ad blocker compared to Firefox Android + uBO.
Brave on Android is still an annoying software, with VPN, Rewards, and News icons in the burger menu that you can't disable. You can turn off the services, but the icons do not go away.
Their user base are not us.
I'll likely revisit it soon, when there's hopefully been some more fixes and improvements.
Chrome? Friends don’t let friends use Chrome. It’s the unadulterated Android OS of the browser world.
I’ve been considering Kagi, but I don’t see an easy way to pay for it without basically removing all anonymity… it really is a relentless yet boring dystopia.