Orion (https://orionbrowser.com) is a WebKit-based browser for Mac, Linux, iPadOS and iOS that supports both Chrome and Firefox extensions natively ⟩ including uBlock Origin.
We have no plans to drop extension support. Content blocking is a feature, not a loophole, and we think users should have full control over what runs in their browser.
You all seem to maintain a very fast pace of development (the changelogs are always chock full of cool stuff) but the problems I am hitting have remained broken for ages. Some examples include:
* The app hangs for 1~2 sec partway through typing a URL/search, when using the back button, or during other navigation
* The 1Password extension fails to fill usernames and passwords most of the time, regardless of which version I install. It works fine in Safari, Chrome, Firefox.
* Your built-in ad blocking triggers anti-ad-blocking measures on many news/blog sites now, resulting in the entire page being blocked.
I don't know your business, but maybe pausing new features and pushing for stability/perf/quality of life for a while (a la macOS Snow Leopard) would make sense.
This issue persists on other browsers with ad blocking extensions? Including on iOS with FF Focus enabled. Is there a browser+extension combination that does not have this issue
Some context that might explain (though not excuse) the situation: unlike browsers built on Chromium or Firefox/Gecko, Orion was built from scratch on top of WebKit. No fork, no upstream codebase to pull from. That means every feature, every integration, every compatibility shim is ours to build and maintain. Browsers that fork Chromium or Gecko inherit years of battle-tested extension support, rendering fixes, and platform work for free — we don’t.
On top of that, the macOS team is 3 people. About 70% of our engineering time goes to maintenance and keeping up with WebKit/OS updates, ~20% to third-party app compatibility (extensions like 1Password, ad blocking lists, etc.), and what’s left — maybe 10% — goes to community support, discussions, and new features combined. That’s why our changelogs look active but long-standing issues persist: we’re constantly triaging a backlog with thousands of entries and making painful priority calls every single day.
None of this is meant as an excuse. You’re right that stability matters, and the issues you describe are real. But this is the cost of building a genuine alternative to the browser market rather than shipping another Chromium or Gecko wrapper. We think that trade-off is worth it for users who want real engine diversity and full extension support without Google’s or Mozilla’s constraints.
That said, we can’t do it alone — that’s exactly why Orion+ exists. If you believe in what we’re building, subscribing is the most direct way to help us grow the team and get to that “Snow Leopard” moment faster.
We’re sorry for the rough edges. We know they’re there, and we’re working on it.
I loved Orion and have been using as a daily driver almost since day 1 including paying for it but now it’s completely unusable. I’ve since moved to Firefox.
The fact that a pinned thread was silent for months concerns me about the future of Orion. It honestly hurts to see.
Kagi has a good rep; misleading comments like this hurts it.
Here you go, official beta flatpak:
The original Unix philosophy (McIlroy, Ritchie, Thompson) says nothing about source code licensing. It’s about programs that do one thing well and work together through universal interfaces.
Open source is a distribution and licensing model; conflating it with software openness misrepresents those core tenets. Orion supports Chrome extensions, Firefox extensions, and standard web APIs — that’s interoperability in practice.
That being said, the future is not written ;)
This has been reported for some time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43203237
Could you please clarify?
Because it sounds like uBlock Origin works on iOS, when in reality it doesn’t and probably won‘t in the forseeable future.
uBlock Origin never claimed their Firefox extension works in Orion. So I don't think they need to respond.
Instead I'd like a reply from the Orion PM, because they are the ones throwing around seemingly misleading claims about their product.
By default is it almost impossible to distinguish which tabs i active in some situations. I think the browser automatically tints the window based on the dominant color of the page you are viewing, which means if I am viewing youtube for example, the whole browser windows is tinted a bit darker, in such a way that I can't easily make out outline of the currently selected tab.
Such a bummer for what should have been an easlity changeable behavior with settings: I do not want any tinting, and I want hight contract mode
No problem directly downloading from the source (arguably better cuz I can keep the installer) but is there a reason Apple isnt allowing Orion on the AppStore or was that a choice on Kagi's part?
I can't find it in the downloads.