Very unfortunate news: was looking forward to another browser based on webkit available for the Linux community. The good news is that they’re at least open sourcing the code for the community.
TLDR; Kagi is ending development of Orion for Linux and Windows, but they’re open-sourcing both so the community can carry them forward. Kagi is stepping back from developing these platforms directly so the team can put more focus on Orion for macOS and iOS.
<Full Article in this spoiler>
Today we have an important update. We are ending development of Orion for Linux and Windows, and we’re open-sourcing both so the community can carry them forward. Kagi is stepping back from developing these platforms directly so our team can put more focus on Orion for macOS and iOS.
Orion is built by a very small team, just a handful of developers, funded entirely by Kagi users. We also chose to build it the hard way by not forking Chromium. That independence matters more than ever. The web needs more than one engine, and more than one company deciding what a browser should be.
When we announced Orion for Linux, the response was overwhelming. Many of you were thrilled, tested early builds, filed bug reports, and told us how much you wanted a WebKit-based browser on Linux that respects your privacy. Thank you. That work will soon belong to everyone.
Why we’re doing this When we decided to take Orion beyond the Apple ecosystem, we knew it was a big bet for a small, independent company. We made it because we believe owning the whole experience beginning with the browser, matters.
Building a cross-platform browser is something usually done by companies backed by venture capital or by large open-source communities. Kagi is neither. One thing we hear often from members is that they want us focused. They’re right. Rather than spread a small team across three platforms, we’re putting our energy where we can do our best work and opening the rest to people who want to take it further.
What this means for Orion on macOS and iOS Orion for macOS and iOS isn’t changing, except to get better. The team and resources that were split across platforms are now focused on making Orion on Apple devices faster, more stable, and more capable. Expect steady improvements in the coming months.
Download Orion for macOS Download Orion for iOS What open-sourcing looks like We’ll release the source code for Orion for Linux and Orion for Windows. A lot of good work went into it, and it deserves a future even if we aren’t the ones who finish it now. We’re thinking about this carefully and will release details in the next 30 days.
We’ve also reached out to open-source foundations and organizations about long-term stewardship. To be clear about our role: Kagi won’t be the core maintainer. These projects need people who want to own them.
Get involved If you’re a developer, maintainer, or organization interested in stewarding Orion for Linux or Windows, we want to hear from you. Reach us at support@kagi.com.
What this means for current users Linux: The current Linux Beta will keep working, but it will stop receiving updates from Kagi after October 2, 2026. We don’t recommend using it as your main browser.
Windows: We had planned to launch Orion for Windows in late 2026. That release won’t come from Kagi. Instead, the code will be available for the community to build on. If you signed up for the Windows newsletter, this will be the last update you receive from that list.
Thank you To everyone who tested, reported bugs, and believed in an independent browser beyond the Apple ecosystem: thank you. You helped build something worth sharing, and we’re glad to share it with the community.
Thank you for your patience, your enthusiasm, and your trust.
— the Kagi team
That is unfortunate, I was looking forward to seeing them expand beyond Apple platforms only.
Maybe the community will take interest in it. Good on them for open sourcing it
I think this is the right move. They started on MacOS. They expanded to Linux and Win for reasons that were unclear (to me). If they can’t keep all three going, open-sourcing the code is appropriate. If people want to keep going, awesome. If not, well… And they refocus their resources to the platform that they presumably consider their primary home, else they wouldn’t have started with MacOS first.
I have Orion installed and occasionally use it. But I’m also a browser junky and can’t resist trying every new browser I read about. (I’m posting this from the recently announced Search browser and it’s using impressively low system resources. I recommend test driving it if you’re curious. I’m not affiliated in any way).
I read the article. They’re open sourcing the Windows and Linux versions, so the community can take over if they want to. So it will live or die based on what the community actually wants from it.
As a Mac user, it’s weird to see a company drop the other two in favour of maintaining the Mac version. I don’t use it, or Kagi, but I’m aware of both. It’s a good platform but we don’t have the users. Same with Linux, but it runs on more hardware, and bleeding the Windows market share benefits everyone, including Windows users.
As for iOS, there’s no winning the browser war there. It’s either Safari or compromise. I like Firefox, but it doesn’t/can’t do enough. DDG is good for YouTube because it blocks the ads. But mostly I just use Safari. On my Android phone, I use Firefox with uBlock Origin, naturally.
very good argument for using orion on ios is that they actually support ublock…
Between Google taking a dump all over Android and this, I might actually switch to iOS after being an Android user for almost 20 years.
Haha and here I am thinking about switching to graphene os. Although I’m reasonably happy with that iPhone. At least Apple is pretending to care about privacy and it is very clear from the start on what it can and can’t do. Biggest grieve for me is the keyboard, hate it and for some reason there are not many alternatives.
SwiftKey is the only good keyboard on either OS, which sucks because it’s owned by Microsoft. I might be biased though, I’ve been using it for nearly a decade and a half.
I made the switch a while ago and I’m much happier with the result. It’s far from perfect, but it’s free from the jankiness and random bullshit that comes with a Google product. At least you know what you’re getting with Apple. And the hardware is far superior and is supported for a long time.
Honestly it’s not as bad as people make it out to be and it’s also worse all at the same time. The gestures are awful, the animations take too long even if you reduce them and the keyboard has autocorrupt with the added bonus of not registering input properly. The three main positives for me are: the battery (on standby time), video/camera are very good, and the shortcuts app which enables you to create things that are missing in iOS.
Oh and certain apps do get preferential treatment on iOS but the open source space is quite barren compared to Android.
There’s uBO Lite for Safari.
does it work for youtube? that’s basically the only reason i use this anyway, the rest can be blocked with vpn based ad blocking usually
When I was on ios i just sideloaded a modded yt client in sidestore+livecontainer. I don’t remember the name but some are very popular amoung the ios sideloading community.
for macos just freetube should work.
Otherwise you can just use an individous instance in your browser pr whatevs.
Sorry if that isn’t related at all tho lol.
oh thanks for the suggestion! didn’t explore the sidestore situation yet, maybe i should!
Ye, you can only install 3 apps without exploits tho (I used to use lara until i broke my phone doing something very dumb and had to update it(the hardware broke not the software) it does only work for like a bit of 17 to a bit of 26 or something, before that you can probably jailbreak anyway) but you can use livestore and livecontainer as 1 app, livecontainer lets you install multiple apps in 1 container, basically bypassing the limit, problem is they’re on the same sandbox so be careful with personal info and that. It also doesn’t work for all apps.
You can also make shortcuts to apps inside livecontainer(s). Also you do need a pc or laptop for the initial setup but it’s actually mostly incredibly easy unless you’re the kind of people who don’t know to install a .exe file (I’ve seen people do that(i don’t even main windows))
Also idk if apple is trying to break this stuff but I’ve heard some stuff breaks sometimes, I didn’t experience it cuz I didn’t actually update my devices but yeah.
You normally can’t use JIT but you can activate it but it does use the vpn slot and you need to sideload something like stickdebug I think, idk if that’s what people are still using nowindays, it also takes the vpn slot to install apps. you need a specific vpn app that’s on the app store.
Idk if this was very useful, specially after 13h but yea.
I still try to avoid using youtube on mobile, but I don’t see any ads when I do use it.
No idea who would touch this AI browser slopware.
Good. I use and love Kagi, but they are spread way too thin
They should also drop the Mac and iPhone versions, it seems a waste of time and money.
I use the iOS version for the built-in uBO.
Does uBO work normally for you? I tried it a few months back but it didn’t seem as effective. I still have Orion installed but haven’t really used it much.
Yeah it works fine for me, even in youtube.
You pay monthly to have a browser?
We should all be doing that if we wanted the browsers to not be shit, but alas, there’s no paid option for any browser I know of.
There’s a force paid option for Kagi. Pay, or it doesn’t work. So I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I don’t understand why people throw a shitfit about YouTube ads and streaming ads- while simultaneously defending a paid browser.
No it’s free, only the search engine is paid (I don’t use it).
Agreed
I use the browser all the time, but tbh they really don’t need to offer it. Safari with Wipr2 is perfectly good. I just use Orion on my work laptop as a separation of work vs personal.
they are spread way too thin
So they focus on macOS, the least used platform?
I’m not in favor of Windows exclusive applications but if you only have the resources to focus on one platform, use the one with most users.
As for the Linux version: Looked like yet another Gnome Web knockoff. A WebKit browser whose GUI actually works well on Plasma and other non-Gnome desktops would be welcome but another one of those isn’t a benefit IMO
Also the platform users are probably least likely to deviate from the standard browser
It’s also the platform users most likely to pay for software or services.
iOS is no small platform
The vast majority of Apple users stick with the default browser and the vast majority of Windows users change the default browser. That’s why Chrome is the number one browser by active users.
That’s why Chrome is the number one browser by active users.
And I thought that was because it’s the default browser on Android, which accounts for the majority of the world’s devices.
Edge is 3rd place after Safari not because vast majority of Windows users change the default browser, but because basically nobody uses a computer anymore.
It’s the least used but the one where the users have the bigger bucks unfortunately
Tbh Orion is not stable on macos, they shouldnt have made the stable release, it still feels like a beta product. Memory hogging is a big issue in it. I stopped using it and switched to Librewolf.
I’ve been using kagi for some time and have foggy idea what orion was and why would anyone use it beyond ‘it’s a browser’.
At the same time it feels really weird as in they are making it bigger then it is, there were (is?) multiple webkit based browsers that were doing fine with very small teams of mainteiners.
Orion on iOS is my favorite iOS browser.
It has the ability to use Firefox and chrome extensions so you can use uBlock Origin.
Many people would rather use Brave but I don’t trust Brave as they own an ad network.
It’s like Safari in terms of performance and battery usage, with extension support that isn’t pants-on-head stupid like Safari’s, better customization, and some advanced features. That’s all I really want.
Safari is just too basic for me to use as an everyday browser (especially on iOS).
I think the original impetus was that Safari makes it unreasonably difficult to change its search engines.
Sad, but makes sense. I always wondered how they could fund the dev effort for Linux/Windows.
These comments though, whoa… it seems everyone either loves or hates Orion.
I canceled my Kagi subscription a few years ago when they jumped back on the AI bandwagon and saw all the resources being moved off their core product and into AI features no one asked for.
All their AI is opt in, can be turned off everywhere with one switch, and even support small web.
I didn’t want my money funding AI development.
They’re not developing AI. They give you access to a bunch of AI models, but they don’t train/create them. And as the guy above says, it’s completely optional. You don’t even get an AI answer like Google unless you add a ? to your search.
So if I, the customer, pay money, and this money gives me (optional) access to a bunch of commercial models… Does that not fund AI?
You can see exactly where every penny went on your account page. Search and AI use are separate line items. If you don’t use it, no money will go to it
Well that’s a pretty good system, I have to admit.
Don’t forget that money is fungible.
Well that’s complicated. You are not funding AI development. Kagi is not an AI developer.
Is purchasing product from a company who uses an AI chatbot on their website or to take phonecalls funding AI? I wouldn’t think so, but if enough people are using it, maybe it is…? Guess it really depends on how you look at it.
Money coming from me that ends up with a company that supplies an AI product, directly or indirectly, funds AI. Am I wrong in saying that?
If I’m not wrong, it’s not complicated. But maybe I’m missing something. I don’t think I can easily see in which way you are looking at it in your example. 🫣
If I’m not wrong, it’s not complicated. But maybe I’m missing something. I don’t think I can easily see in which way you are looking at it in your example. 🫣
I’m looking at it from both ways, because as I said, it’s complicated. Half of the companies you deal with these days are using AI in some form, whether it’s your internet provider, TV manufacturer, local grocery store, etc.
As another example: Your local grocery store used AI to write short descriptions for products for an ad or display. First of all, can you even tell it’s AI from a short description…? And second of all, does that mean buying groceries from that business is funding AI…?
I personally don’t think having a Kagi subscription is considered “funding AI”, especially considering another comment that points out they are transparent about where your subscription goes, but depending on where you draw the line, maybe you would.
As someone in the same position, it’s a difficult line to manage.
I’ve criticized Kagi before, but it’s still unfortunately the best model for search on the market. I pay them money, they give me search results. As the prior post said, they’ve introduced switches to disable all of the AI. And if you believe what they’ve said about costs, then search is more expensive for them than AI — so if you use a lot of search (as I do, ≈1.2K/Mo), and don’t rack up AI usage, then that money isn’t going to AI, viewed in a vacuum of course.
No only can you disable all ai features, they also have a report button for slop that will downrank ai generated results.
You might dig Uruky.
Thanks!
But there’s not a good way to debug for Orion on mobile without using the Kagi browser and Orion on iOS does behave differently than Safari even though in the US they are both built on WebKit
What are they built on outside the US?
why did they build from scratch instead of contributing to Firefox?
Firefox is incredibly complicated. It has a ton of bugs and security problems. Instead of building from scratch, I would start with Servo.
When Orion started, the Servo project was kind of dead. It wasn’t until a year later at FOSDEM, that they announced the refresh that started development up again. A great choice now, but at the time, and still today, WebKit is also a decent choice, as long as one doesn’t mind that most of its development and optimization targets the Apple ecosystem.
WebKit doesn’t help diversify the ecosystem, Blink still shares some code with it.
They forked almost 15 years ago. Of course they share some code, but not a lot. And even still… so? Or course it helps diversify when blink has nearly 80% market share.
But you’re just adding to another big player. WebKit going from 14% to 15% doesn’t actually do anything. Getting 1% market share with a completely different engine would definitely turn some heads
I suspect we’re on the same side here with only a slightly different perspective. I’m on complete agreement that ladybird, aside from its controversy, and servo represent way more diverse entries for new browsers to consider. I’m just saying WebKit is better for diversity than blink. Only by 5x or so but still, that’s something. Making the decision to start a browser today, 100% I’m going with servo.
If i wanted a Webkit based browser on Linux, Gnome Web (aka, Epiphany) it is.
My only complaint about Orion was that it wasn’t open source so that’s good at least
That’s dissapointing. Was looking foward to trying it. At least they are open sourcing those versions though.
TIL Orion was even available for Windows. I use it heavily on my Mac, but would’ve happily used it alongside Firefox on Windows, ah well.
