Bits 0x02: switching to Orion as a browser | Hacker News Reader

Bits 0x02: switching to Orion as a browser

andinfinity.eu

63 pointsfside28 comments

Seems like the Orion browser is only supported on macOS and iOS. I am only mentioning this to save some people a couple of clicks.

https://kagi.com/orion/

Yes, and I think it's unlikely that it will support other platforms in future because it's based on Safari.

It's based on WebKit.

https://forms.kagi.com/?q=orion_linux_news

It’s coming on Linux (scheduled for March 2026). See https://kagi.com/changelog#6479

They started working on a Linux version this year. There are already WebKit based browsers for Linux so definitely it does not have to be confined to macOS.

Konqueror is among one of those Linux browsers, it became WebKit. It does not make a port easy though.

Orion is a struggle on iOS. Despite it claiming to block ads, I find its ad-blocking capabilities heavily overstated - they barely work at all on many sites, even with all the filters enabled, and extension support doesn’t work with adblocking extensions making it a moot point. Right now Old Reddit is flooded with Samsung and other crap ads, even with all the lists turned on and updated.

The only browser that's trying to increase backwards-compatibility! I'm using it on macOS Mojave 10.14.6, and the developers are looking to support High Sierra in the future:

https://help.kagi.com/orion/support-and-community/os-version...

I like Orion on iOS- it’s Safari without all the ads showing up. I can run the DarkReader extension at night just like Safari. Unfortunately it’s the most unstable software on my phone- at times regularly freezing up and then I switch back to Safari.

Only browser I know that has zero telemetry by default, great UI, low battery drain and seamless Kagi integration.

To me Chrome and Firefox are like steampunk borg machines with all that valves and plugs fiddling needed to kid yourself they might do the right thing.

Tor has had zero telemetry since its inception and I’ve been disabling telemetry in Waterfox for as long as I can remember - which is almost 15 years.

There were Firefox forks before that as well doing the same thing.

Pretty sure there are Firefox forks that have telemetry disabled, Tor Browser being one of them, of course.

I use one of them, ice-cat, with privacy badger and jslibre and I have tor installed as well as chrome, Firefox, libre wolf, dillo, w3m, Mullvad, links, eww and others because I make oldschool websites. The real no telemetry browser is of course lynx.

> The real no telemetry browser is of course lynx.

links, w3m, and maybe even dillo have any telemetry? I would assume they could make your list of "real no telemetry browser".

Mullvad browser too, though it's maybe a bit extreme for a daily driver as it's essentially Firefox but permanently in private mode.

I like Orion for its feature that lets me set the whole internet to opt-in mode for javascript. Really a beautiful default for surfing, can't recommend giving it a try enough.

NoScript has brought this to mainstream browsers for a while.

I believe Chrome and Firefox can be configured to do it without any extensions.

> The only thing I’m missing is multi-account containers, or a way to isolate google or meta products for example into its own profile. But I can live with that for now.

Hmm, “profiles” work fine for me in Orion. A bit different to how Firefox and others achieve MAC, and less full featured maybe, but total separation is possible. You can’t assign sites to profiles but you can open separate profile windows.

Does it support SOCKS proxies now? If FoxyProxy or something like that works for it, I might give it a try. Last I checked, the browser itself only supported HTTP proxies and since Safari based it opened the Network Configuration system preferences page.

Edit: Tested on latest Orion. FoxyProxy silently does not function. You can configure a proxy, you can even enable it but it will just not use it. Still no way to use a SOCKS proxy.

Did you try setting a system-wide proxy server under System Settings » Network » (select a connection) » Advanced… » Proxies?

I haven't tried that and that likely will work but I don't want to use that proxy system-wide. I want it specifically for this browser only.

If you want Tor, "torsocks" probably works. I am not sure if it conforms to or cares about environment variables such as "http_proxy" and "https_proxy", or through CLI: "--proxy-server", as some programs do.

I use zen and I am gonna be honest I wouldn't consider it to be buggy and it works really perfect on my linux desktop

But to be fair as it is a linux desktop I am not sure / worried about power consumption so yeah I love zen browser and even some of my friends use this even on their laptops. Would recommend it a 100 times if I could.

For who wants something near similar in other UNIX or Linux, see Luakit, a webkit with customizable adblocker, jsblocker, userscripts and userstyles, vim command alike and fully configurable in Lua.

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