This is my next main browser: a review of Orion

Introduction

Back in late March 2021, among the many feedback emails I was still receiving after the little Mac OS X Snow Leopard retrospective I had published in February, I received a message from Vladimir Prelovac, asking me if I wanted to try Orion, a new browser for Mac his company Kagi was working on, and if I wanted to share my observations and criticism with him.

Full disclosure here: Since March 2021 I’ve been an Orion beta tester and I was also asked to provide feedback and insights on user interface-related matters. I have nonetheless approached writing this review by trying to be as unbiased as possible. Whether you think I’ve succeeded or not, I invite you to try Orion and judge for yourselves.

I’ve always loved trying browsers out, because I’ve always been curious to see how developers would approach such type of software tool which is fundamentally designed to accomplish a ‘simple’ task — browsing the Web. The fun part with indie-developed browsers has always been to see how developers would decide the browser’s structure. Which features they would give precedence to. Which feature they would elevate as the defining characteristic of the browser. And which features they would either put in the background or eliminate entirely as part of the specific approach they intended for their browser.

The Shiira Project back in 2004 released a WebKit-based open source browser called Shiira. From its Wikipedia page:

Since the browser was developed with Safari in mind, the main characteristics of the two browsers are similar. For example, Shiira employs private browsing options so that history and cookies are not recorded when activated. However, the search engines search field on the toolbar includes many search engines. Shiira also uses Cocoa programming to provide users with a customizable drawer extending from the left or right of the window. The drawer includes bookmarks, history, downloads, and an RSS reader. In version 2.0, the sidebar was replaced by a series of palettes opened and closed from the main window toolbar. Shiira natively supports in-browser PDF viewing.

Shiira was perhaps the first indie attempt to bring new UI ideas to the browser, and I liked the idea of that side drawer. If I remember well, it was also used for browser tab management, and you could actually see thumbnails of the other pages you had opened. Another browser that implemented tabbed browsing using a side drawer at about the same time as Shiira was OmniWeb in its version 5.0, released in August 2004. (OmniWeb’s historical importance can’t be overlooked, of course, but at this point in the timeline its development was starting to slow down).

The Barbarian Group in 2008 created a WebKit-based browser called Plainview whose defining characteristic was its being a truly full-screen browser, and, since it was a full-screen browser, they also devised a Presentation mode so that, say, a Web developer could showcase a few websites they built by essentially bookmark them and show them one by one like in a sort of slideshow.

Another experimental browser that appeared in 2008 was Stainless, by Danny Espinoza. Its defining feature was stated right in its tagline: A multi-process browser for OS X inspired by Google Chrome. In the final version of the browser’s official website when the developer announced he couldn’t keep developing Stainless and released its source code (circa 2013), you can read what made Stainless a very interesting browser:

Stainless started out as a technology demo to showcase my own multi-processing architecture in response to Google Chrome (Stainless 0.1 was released three weeks after Google released Chrome for Windows). Sensing an opportunity and inspired by a growing fanbase, I decided to craft Stainless into a full-fledged browser and work on features that I hadn’t seen before in other browsers.

A prime example is parallel sessions, which allow you to log into a site using different credentials in separate tabs at the same time. This new technology is woven throughout Stainless, from the private cookie storage system, to session-aware bookmarks that remember the session in which they were saved. I still believe this is a true browser innovation (and I’d love to see this implemented in Chrome).

I was a fan of Stainless. It was a rather bare-bones browser, but I really took advantage of its parallel sessions feature which, for example, allowed me to log into two (or more) different Gmail accounts at the same time, by keeping each login in its own tab.

Around 2014 a group of developers released Breach, “a new modular browser written entirely in JavaScript”. This was clearly a more geeky project, but the modularity concept intrigued me. As you can read in the archived site homepage for Breach, “Everything in the browser is a module, a web-app running in its own process. Construct your own browsing experience by selecting the right modules for you.” I only spent a limited time trying out Breach back then, but I was generally impressed by how lightweight and fast it felt.

These are just a few examples. Over time, many other experimental indie browsers have come and gone, but these are perhaps the ones I’ve used the most and that made me look beyond the official browsers built by larger tech companies.

Back to Orion

The Orion project is decidedly more ambitious. In a previous version of the browser’s website FAQ Page, the first question was “What is Orion’s goal?” and the answer was We want Orion to be the best browser for Apple devices. It sounds bold but, after using Orion for several months, and seeing it grow and mature update after update, I think Orion is on its way to fulfil that goal.

Orion’s approach is utilitarian. It doesn’t want to win users with a fancy UI or quirky æsthetics to appear ‘different’. Its user interface is not that different from Safari. Its design philosophy has to do with how the browser works, not how it looks. And today a browser should be fast (in a Web that’s getting progressively bloated and dragged down by intrusive, resource-consuming scripts), privacy conscious, and adhering to the web’s standards. And that’s what Orion is and does.

This, at first sight, sounds simplistic and unassuming. On paper, all major browsers are like that. What makes Orion noteworthy? Several things you only notice by actually using it.

It’s fast

Like, really fast. On my Mac, it feels perceptibly faster than Safari. It feels lighter, less encumbered, more responsive. In Safari, when I type an URL and then press Enter to load the website, there’s often a small but noticeable delay before Safari actually starts loading the website. With Orion the loading starts immediately. I’ve tested Orion on an Intel MacBook Pro, so perhaps the difference in performance between Orion and Safari is more nuanced on faster, Apple Silicon Macs. On this MacBook Pro I also have Brave and Firefox, and Orion is faster than those as well, in case you were wondering.

It’s energy-efficient

Speed is important, but of course it’s not everything. Orion is also a very energy-efficient browser. It’s certainly less memory-hungry than Chrome, Brave or Firefox, plus it has a Low Power Mode that really works and really saves battery life. The MacBook Pro I’m using as a test machine has an old battery with a lot of cycles (the Battery status is ‘Service recommended’), so, with medium-to-heavy use the MacBook never lasts more than 3 hours.

When its battery is running low (say, around 20%), I close all non-essential apps and keep Orion as the sole open browser. On more than one occasion I noticed how the MacBook’s battery took more time to discharge to the point where you get the warning to connect the Mac to a power source, or else it’ll go to sleep. In short, thanks to Orion I’ve managed to squeeze almost half an hour more out of a session on a single charge. And this with an old battery, imagine on better-performing machines.

It’s extremely respectful of your privacy

Read the privacy-related FAQ on Orion’s FAQ Page, because it really explains everything you need to know about Orion’s privacy features. I can simply confirm, by personal experience, that it does what it says on the tin. The very short version is: it’s at the very least as privacy-minded as Safari (same underlying technologies), and more.

One aspect worth mentioning is that Orion is, by default, a zero-telemetry application. You may have read this in the FAQ page, but what does it mean? In hopefully simple words, telemetry is the automated process of recording and transmission of data from one site to another that is capable of monitoring and analysing such data. One example could be a weather station, collecting information via an array of sensors, and transmitting such data to a meteorological institute to be processed, analysed, and archived.

When it comes to software, an application can collect a series of data about the machine it is installed on and the way the application is being utilised (how frequently, what kind of settings and preferences are selected, etc.). Subsequently, the application sends the data elsewhere, typically back to who developed it (hence the expression “to phone home”), so that they can analyse the behaviour of the user base when engaging with the app.

In theory this may not entirely be a bad thing, as a developer could use this data to improve their application, for example. But as it’s pointed out on Orion’s FAQ page, Most browsers regularly send dozens or even hundreds of requests. Each request poses a security risk, no matter what information it sends, by potentially exposing your IP address and your browser fingerprint. Telemetry can also inadvertently leak personally identifiable information or corporate intelligence.

Therefore, the fact that Orion does not have built-in telemetry means that the browser does not collect any kind of data about its users that could potentially expose them. Then how can Orion’s developers direct its development, how can they make Orion better if they don’t receive any usage data? Vladimir Prelovac gave me a simple answer via email:

[Orion’s development is] directed by user feedback and nothing else. People share with us an incredible amount of information, more valuable than any telemetry could tell us.

Orion supports both Chrome and Firefox extensions

This is because Orion natively supports the Web Extensions API. I think it’s a rather impressive goal and it’s unquestionably a very powerful feature. A lot of people are hesitant to stop using Chrome because, as they say, they don’t want to lose access to certain functionalities tied to some of their favourite extensions. But knowing that Orion supports them, they could potentially make the switch. And that would be great, since Orion consumes much fewer resources than Chrome, and it’s certainly more privacy-focused. At the time of writing, Orion’s extensions support is not yet 100%, but it’s getting there. I’m not a heavy extensions user, typically, but I’ve tried some of the most popular and they seemed to work just fine.

I like how extensions are managed. It’s all quite straightforward. I like that there’s a quick way to find and install the most popular. The first extension I usually look to install on any browser I use is uBlock Origin. In Orion, I went to Tools → Extensions → Manage, clicked on Add Extension, then Popular Extensions, and there it was. (At the time of writing, the other popular extensions offered in this panel are Dark Reader, Bypass Paywalls Clean, 1Password, Bitwarden, Grammarly, and Honey). You also have the additional option of allowing the extensions on all websites, allowing them for one day, or having the browser ask for each website.

Some personal favourites

The Tools menu contains a couple of features I really love. Edit Text on Page is very useful to me as a translator. Sometimes I get assignments like translating a block of text that is positioned in a certain way on a website. And the translated text often needs to fit in the same space (give or take a line or two) as the original. Being able to easily edit the text on a webpage, I can preview how my translation will look directly on the page. Take Screenshot of the Entire Page is something I’ve wanted in a browser since finding this feature in an old app called LittleSnapper. To me, it’s quite useful, especially when I’m exploring archived sites in the Internet Archive’s WayBack Machine. (LittleSnapper also let you edit text on page directly, by the way).

The use of a separate panel to manage Bookmarks and Extensions, to see the History and the saved passwords, is another welcome feature in my book. I’ve always disliked how Safari handles History. When in Safari you select History → Show all History, it loads the History in the same tab you’re viewing — it’s annoying, because more often than not, when you’re finished examining the History, you close the tab, and with it the site you had open before loading the History. The separate panel on Orion is a much tidier solution.

Focus Mode is nice. When you need to read a long-form article, for example, and you don’t want anything in your way, you select View → Focus Mode, and both the Address bar and the Tab bar disappear. (By the way, whether you’re in Focus Mode or not, if you put Orion in full-screen mode, the whole application chrome goes away, leaving you with just the webpage contents. If you prefer to keep seeing the toolbar in full-screen mode, like it happens in Safari, you can tell Orion by ticking the Always show toolbar in full screen option in Orion → Preferences → Appearance).

Vertical Tabs is another interesting option. If one is browsing on a particularly big screen (say, on iMacs, or Mac laptops with a bigger external display attached), I can see the appeal of having tabs stacked within a sidebar on the left. But even on a laptop the feature can be useful. When selecting View → Toggle Vertical Tabs, Orion defaults to showing just the website favicons on a sidebar that slides from the left and can be extended to progressively reveal each website’s title. For many users, favicons are so distinctive that are enough to make a site recognisable, therefore using vertical tabs minimised this way ends up being both a vertical and horizontal space saver, in my opinion.

I like the fact that Orion doesn’t have a default search engine. Instead, the first time you click on the address bar after installation, the browser prompts you to set (or not) the default search engine of your choice.

iOS and iPadOS, too

Another exciting thing is that Orion is also being developed for iOS/iPadOS. My review has focused exclusively on the Mac side of things because when it comes to browsers, Mac OS still offers a more versatile environment than iOS. But even at this stage, Orion for iOS already has unique features, like the ability to support web extensions, something other browsers don’t have. Orion for iOS is still in beta, so this kind of support is still at a preliminary stage at the time of writing, but this is undoubtedly excellent news.

Closing thoughts

Would I recommend Orion? Without a doubt. I was positively impressed right from the start. When I first launched Orion back in March 2021, the first reaction was that it felt a bit bare-bones and with a very ‘Safari lite’ look and feel. But its speed and stability were astounding for a beta. And Orion has been getting better and maturing at a staggering pace. This is not a passion project from a single developer who updates it intermittently, and ends up abandoning it for lack of resources, increased inertia, loss of interest. This is a solid piece of software that’s being developed by a company of competent people who have an ambitious goal — to make the best browser for Apple devices — and a business plan.

If you’re wondering “how will Orion make money?” there is, again, an answer to this exact question on the FAQ page: Our Pro version will allow users to support Orion’s development. Will it generate revenue? That’s up to you. Regardless, all funding for Orion will come from its users rather than ads, tracking, data monetization or any other indirect way. […] We believe this project will deliver an experience that its users value enough to support. We believe that enough to promise that we’ll never resort to ads or other such funding methods.

On a personal level, Orion is certainly going to be my next default browser on every Mac that can run it (it currently supports Mac OS 10.14 and higher, but there are plans to make it work on Mac OS 10.13 too). And it couldn’t have come at a more serendipitous moment. Apple’s recent tendency to experiment with software design and Mac user interface in a way that seems increasingly forgetful of good design and usability practices has got me worried and disappointed. The butchering of Safari 15’s design and user interface was averted and reverted at the last minute, but who knows what Apple will pull next.

The existence of Orion, in this regard, is a relief. I can forget about the next Safari entirely and make Orion my primary browser — it looks and feels like the ‘good old’ Safari, and adds more interesting and useful features on top of it. The fact that Orion is designed to prioritise being a powerful tool to navigate today’s Web, rather than being a cool app with an ‘opinionated’ UI, is truly refreshing to me, because it’s exactly what I expect from a Web browser in this day and age.

And I suspect Orion will attract a lot of users who share my perspective — people disappointed in Apple’s software quality and UI design direction; people who love their extensions but maybe don’t love Chrome or Firefox as much; people who love to browse this bloated, ad- and tracker-ridden Web unhampered and with as much privacy as possible. With a browser made by a company that’s quite transparent about its intentions and goals — to be on the user’s side and give users the best possible tool for the job. It reminds me of Apple, a few years back.

This is my next main browser: a review of Orion was first published by Riccardo Mori on Morrick.me on 8 February 2022.