You donβt have to use a single browser. I use multiple browsers on my desktop: Mullvad, Zen, Vivaldi, Orion, and Brave.
On iOS, I use Brave and Orion.
this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2025
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I have hundreds if not thousands of bookmarks; I'd like them to stay in sync between desktop and mobile and that requires the same browser on both platforms, no?
The main problem I'm having is finding a trustworthy iOS browser that does absolutely zero tracking of its users. You look at the privacy info on Apple's App store pages for like Firefox, Brave, Vivaldi, DDG, and other privacy oriented browsers, and they say they collect this or that. Only Orion from what I can tell promises they collect nothing (whether that can be independently verified idk since it's closed source).
Iβve stopped using bookmarks. Instead, I use workspaces and vertical tabs. I have various workspaces, such as main, work, learning, shopping, and so on. Thanks to Orion, the tabs hibernate, which means less resources are consumed. All the tabs are available, and as soon as I click on one, it becomes active.
Best part is workspaces also sync with iOS.
Orion is said to be open source in the future according to its developer.
AFAIK apple only allows their own browser engine on IOS, so there isn't really a fundamental difference beyond having an account to sync bookmarks and history
While the rendering engine (WebKit) is the same across iOS browsers, WebKit is an open source project. To my knowledge there isn't any telemetry baked into WebKit that reports back to Apple or whomever about user identity or behavior; tracking would have to be added by the developers making use of WebKit for their browser, I think? So in terms of privacy, it should make a difference which iOS you select.
But I did some digging into Kagi, the makers of Orion and was turned off by them being an AI search company.
It is optional. Unlike most other search engines, it only pulls an AI summary if you explicitly request it. They're not trying to push it at all. But they'd be dumb to just ignore it completely.
despite Kagi claiming Orion completely blocks fingerprinting I couldn't get Orion to pass EFF's fingerprinting benchmark tool
Fingerprinting is simply more complicated than pass/fail. Does your other browser(s) pass? Check out deviceinfo.me, look at the info there and have a good think about how much of it is specific to you. Also Safari is notoriously fingerprint-resistant and Orion is a fork.
There really aren't any "great" options for browsers. It's a very resource-intensive process that costs a lot of money without a lot of great ways to get that money back.
Mullvad browser is a good one, funded by their optional VPN service. It's basically TOR browser without TOR network. I find it to be too restrictive though.
Zen and Floorp are other good Firefox fork alternatives. One of those would be my recommendation if you don't like Brave or Orion.
Kagi doesn't just add optional AI features, they are an AI-first company that wants to turn search into an AI agent. They wrote a manifesto about it.
Maybe manifestos aren't worth much anymore, what's with Mozilla abandoning theirs, but I tend to believe a company when they tell me what they are.
Where did you find this "manifesto"?
https://help.kagi.com/kagi/company/
Read about Kagi's origin story and The Age of Pagerank is Over blog post, which serves as our manifesto.
https://blog.kagi.com/age-pagerank-over
Previously posted at kagi.ai on a page titled "Our Manifesto"
iCab is pretty configurable and pretty old school.
Wow, I didn't know iCab was still being developed. I remember it from like 20 years ago.
Its iOS app store page says it doesn't collect any information, so that's promising. The recent reviews as of version 11 aren't great; lots of bugs apparently. I might try it nevertheless.
Thanks for the recommendation!
Orion is nice
Kagi is more of a private search company than an AI search company, but you need AI in your marketing to get funding these days.
They have done a pretty decent job of actually making useful applications of AI though; their summarizer tool is actually quite useful. It normally at least gets the jist of the page or YouTube video you're looking at.
They also have taken steps to protect user privacy with their privacy pass extension ... and they've announced a Linux port of Orion is on the way.
I'd feel much better if Orion was open source; but Kagi does seem to be taking their privacy commitments seriously.