Leave a Review Orion Browser by Kagi
Crashes on iPhone loading any page
In time, this will become my goto browser once all the bugs are ironed out.
The ability to have true desktop sites (override viewport width) and custom user agent, not to mention actual browser extension support for most Chrome AND Firefox desktop extensions sets this browser WAY ahead of the competition, and I say that as a loyal Brave user who ditched Safari years ago.
However, both of the above browsers are stable to use, whereas Orion currently cannot load any page on my iPhone without crashing to home.
I am currently on iOS 13.3.1. I hope it gets better support later. Unfortunately, the app doesn't really work much at all on this iOS at this time.
On my iPad which has a much more recent iOS version, this is a fantastic browser, although the two streaming sites I tried using still didn't work—1 still wanted me to download the mobile app, while the other thought I was on desktop but ran into playback error when trying to play video. But I assume these are problems because they're not meant to be streamed in mobile browsers sadly. Not the app’s fault.Show lesstook the name I wanted
Amazing
Better than 99% browsers available for IOS, brave and firefox focus are only ones that I would use apart from this. However, the Orion browser offers surprising functionality and compatibility with chrome and mozillla addons that other browsers do not. So if you are willing to sacrifice a bit of stability this is a no brainer. The issues with adblocking come down to having extensions that interfere with the built in adblocker; so if you want to have the best adblocking experience just turn off the built in adblocker if you are using any addons. Adblockers use CSS on to block ads on IOS such as with Safari extensions so your results are going be varied regardless of which browser you use.Show lessBob 🧐
Nicely organized but too slow
I like the organization of options and tabs. Adding AI tab organization would be good. The ability to turn off scripts is wonderful to read sites with annoying ads. But I’ve stopped using the browser almost altogether because it takes so long to load. It may be from having a lot of tabs open, but I’ve had a lot of tabs open in chrome and other browsers without any problem. Sometimes it crashes. Also, when I turn my phone to landscape and the back to portrait mode, half the screen is blank and I have to close it and restart. Would have been 5 stars but for the slowness, crashing, and orientation problems. I would be happy to pay for a better supported browser.Show lessIsaytenagra
Fantastic Browser
This browser is fast, well appointed, and gets the job done. The browser and search engine (Kagi) are game changers. It’s is my every day driver now. It is frequently updated with feedback from the community of users in mind. If you like it and want to see it go places consider supporting development via Orion+. Pretty neat to see these folks making a browser (and search engine) that feels like they are being designed to be my tools versus others that are designed to use me for financial gain (ads/tracking/algorithms). I am rooting for these folks.Show lessGiant Microbe
Extension support is poor. Otherwise fantastic
I was very excited to hear about better extension support on iOS. Sadly, it seems this wasn’t meant to be. Basically every big name extension I tried failed completely. I was especially disappointed that Tap to Tab didn’t work. The customization is otherwise amazing compared to Safari, and I really appreciate the gestures. I hope the devs keep at this and focus more on the extension support as the rest of the browser is basically perfect in my eyes, and this would be the other big advantage it could have over SafariShow lessIceBlueLugia
You Can Install Chrome Extensions
The fact you can choose Brave Search and install Chrome Extensions makes this an automatic 5 stars. The only issue I run into is while the extensions work, you can’t always see the info of the app from the extensions menu. It’s really the only downside to the browser. It’s basically Safari but with Chrome Extension support. Another positive is you can set it to not keep history similar to Firefox FocusShow lessxMattForever
External links don’t work 100% of the time
It’s a decent browser, but the dealbreaker for me is the fact that links just don’t open sometimes. I think the app needs to be open in the background or something in order to work. Imagine pressing a link in some other app, and Orion opens up, but nothing happens. It’s just on some old tab. Therefore I can’t recommend Orion for use as a default browser at this time. Other than this, it works alright. But until they get that fixed, I’m not using this browser.Show lessRaki K
Extensions are neat
…but! There is only a locked-in sync function. I mostly use Fedora Linux with Firefox, so sync on this app is all but useless. I’d love to see a Mozilla Account sync, kinda like Epiphany (GNOME Web). The Firefox Sync APIs are surprisingly easy to work with! When there’s Mozilla sync, I’ll use this as my main browser. Until then… no dice 😖✨
edit: you can clear all tabs by holding down on the tabs menu button. they should probably add that to the groups dropdown too! i just closed 560 tabs - the app could barely start LOLShow lessBarrett Ray
disappointed :(
so, this seemed great. use extensions? on my ipad? native vertical tabs? yes, please! ...but no. neither of those features work. like, at all.
i tried extensions from both Firefox and Chrome. they installed perfectly, but they fuctionally did absolutely nothing. and no, i did not install some random extensions. i tried uBlock Origin, which is literally one they recommend. it would not work on any page. neither version. then i tried Ghostery, same issue. honestly i primarily wanted an ad blocker, so i didn't even bother with anything else since neither of those two worked and they're two of the most popular extensions. i mean, if they weren't going to work, there's no point in using the browser. Dark Reader did seem to work most of the time, to be fair.
the "vertical tabs" thing they're touting is frankly a joke. it's the exact same layout as Safari. if you expand the left hand sidebar i guess the tabs are technically vertical? but the horizontal tabs are still visible along the top, sooo... super pointless. the "grid" setting also does nothing. does not change the tab view at all. lol.
this is the second chance i have given Orion. i tried it a while ago on my Mac Studio, where it was so buggy, it was unusable. this ios version technically worked, but it is the exact same as using Safari, except a little slower. so i don't see the point.
i wanted this to be good. oh well i guess, back to the never-ending hunt for a good iPad browser.Show lessfloofydloofy
Every day, this browser gets better.
I’ve been using this browser as a daily driver since late 2022, along with its default search engine, Kagi. When I started using it, I was willing to overlook bugs as a tradeoff for the extensive telemetry prevention and adblocking services built in. I really believe in their mission to wrest personal user data out of the control of companies, and into the control of the user. While in the past this browser had several bugs and crashed fairly frequently, today it’s so much smoother and the team works hard to communicate the improvements, and listens to their users on their forum. This browser allows Crome and Firefox extension support to a fairly large number of common extensions, including recently some password managers. I also appreciate many of the features which have been added that ease use, it has a much more comprehensive feature list than most other browsers I’ve seen, including the default Safari, while still being excellent out of the box.
It’s exciting to ride along for the journey. Kudos to the team of developers for what they stand for and the hard work they do.Show lessFélixFawkes
