Kagi has announced it will stop developing the Orion Browser for Linux and Windows, ending its direct work on these platforms. The good news is that instead of dropping the project, the company plans to open-source both versions so other developers or organizations can keep them going.
For Linux users, this is a big shift for a browser that had just started to show real promise. Orion first came to Linux in early alpha at the start of the year, then officially entered beta in August.
Now, only a few months later, Kagi says the current Linux Beta will keep working, but it will stop getting updates from the company after October 2, 2026. Kagi also warns users not to use the beta as their main browser. The main reason is limited resources.
Kagi says only a small team of developers works on Orion, and the project is funded entirely by Kagi users. Expanding Orion beyond Apple platforms was always a big challenge, especially since the company chose not to use Chromium as its base.
Instead, Orion uses WebKit, which makes it one of the few browsers trying to offer an alternative to the many Chromium-based ones.
Kagi says that keeping a browser running on multiple platforms usually requires either a lot of funding or a big open-source community. Since Kagi has neither, it will now focus its limited resources on Orion for macOS and iOS.
The work done on Linux and Windows will be released as open source instead.
Kagi plans to publish the source code for both versions and share more details within 30 days of the announcement. The company has also reached out to open-source foundations and organizations about possibly taking over the projects in the long term.
However, Kagi makes it clear that it does not plan to be the main maintainer of either open-source project. Any future updates will depend on developers or organizations willing to take over the code.
In short, Orion for Linux’s future depends on what happens after the source code is released and whether a community forms to maintain it. For now, the current beta still works, but without future security updates or maintenance from Kagi, it likely won’t be a good daily browser for long.
For more details, see the official announcement
I had to give up using Orion on iOS because the feature that let me play YouTube music videos with the screen off was chewing through my battery like crazy.
Yes, it allowed me to also use uBlock origin and such but if I couldn’t use it for background music streaming then what’s the point?
That’s when I learned that safari lets you install uBlock origin and the others in addition to background YouTube streaming, so that’s my main browser now.
It’s uBlock Origin Lite*. It’s good but, not as powerful as uBlock Origin on Firefox proper.
That’s true, though to my knowledge Firefox on iPhone doesn’t let you use extensions besides what Mozilla decides to bake into the browser, so even a hobbled version of uBlock is worlds better than no uBlock.
It’s why my main browser was Orion + full uBlock origin for quite a while til I got sick of the battery drain problem.
Also ended up trying Wipr which also helps
Or use NewPipe
Your suggestion is use an android only app on iPhone 🤔
Didn’t know it’s only for Android, sorry.
Ironically, OsmAnd is on iOS (even though And is short for Android)
Lots of apps are cross platform by design, so it’s a fair assumption most of the time.
Is NewPipe on iOS? I thought it was Android only.