> I’m honestly convinced a non-profit open-source model isn’t a good fit for browser development.
You think the freedoms granted by Free and Open Source licenses are a problem? How's that?
I see little value in the 'Kagi' browser, it looks like just another WebKit distribution. It promises to be free of telemetry, but refusing to even release your source is a death-knell for a privacy-oriented browser.
In its heyday, Netscape actually made a great paid browser. And Opera too. Even Trident derivatives like Netcaptor were excellent paid browsers. It was a good business model for users and devs alike, despite being closed source, because it aligned their needs.
It was Microsoft trying to EEE the web with bundled IE and ActiveX that led to free browsers becoming the norm, and with it came the normalization of giving up control and privacy rather than paying $50 for a browser. Google sealed the deal with Chrome.
Maybe browsers shouldn't be free. If it takes giant multinational conglomerates subsidizing them to make them free, at the expense of users and the Web as a whole, maybe that's just not a good business model.
If Kagi can make Orion profitable and sustainable, it might jumpstart other paid browsers again. Maybe even other renderers, eventually.
After Manifestv2 and the Firefox situation, I tried out Orion and was ready to pay for it ($150 for a lifetime license), but it kept crashing on me every few minutes :( If they fix that, I'd be very interested in supporting its continued development. Would rather it be open source, but not for any privacy concerns... their team is just too small to do all the work on their own.
You think the freedoms granted by Free and Open Source licenses are a problem? How's that?
I see little value in the 'Kagi' browser, it looks like just another WebKit distribution. It promises to be free of telemetry, but refusing to even release your source is a death-knell for a privacy-oriented browser.