Friday, October 8, 2021

Orion 0.99

Vladimir Prelovac (Hacker News):

Orion is fast, privacy-respecting and open to the web, standards and protocols. If you want a browser that just works, is lightning fast, respects your privacy, stays out of your way and lets you get the job done, Orion makes it possible. It is a browser built for professionals, by professionals. It is also that one browser that you install for your grandma and the web would just work for her, on default settings.

[…]

Safari features are great to begin with, but they also leave a lot to be desired. Whether a built-in ad-blocker or productivity enhancements, with Orion we are able to provide the users with exactly what they need.

If you thought Safari is fast, wait until you experience Orion. Orion is simply the fastest browser on Mac. We took the same WebKit core web engine (also used by Safari) and built a snappy, lightweight browser around it.

I was skeptical, but I’ve been using the Mac version on and off for several months, and it really does feel faster than Safari. It kind of reminds me of iCab back in the day, except that being based on WebKit it’s fully compatible. Tabs can work like in Safari 14 (i.e. standard macOS tabs) or vertically like in Edge. The developer has been very responsive to feedback.

Orion is also a truly zero telemetry browser, with a built-in powerful ad and tracker blocker. Orion has the highest possible protection for your privacy on the web, by default.

And finally, extensions! Orion has native support for both Chrome and Firefox extensions.

It also works with EagleFiler’s capture hotkey. Unfortunately, there’s no way for it to integrate with Safari-specific features like Reading List, iCloud Tabs, bookmarks syncing, and security code auto-fill.

Previously:

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It definitely feels faster than Safari, but almost all of the extensions I've tried have either not worked at all, or only partially worked. I know it's still early days and hope things will continue to improve.

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