Comment by mrweasel
7 months ago
Maybe a little off topic, but regarding Orion: Can someone explain to me why every search engine feel like they need to build their own browser, and by build I mean jiggle the handles on Chromium a bit?
It seems pointless. I can sort of see why Microsoft would do it, but that's Microsoft wanting a modern browser for their operating system, not DuckDuckGo, Kagi or Ecosia wanting a browser for their search box.
Why this is pretty much just a weird rant about Kagi, I do agree with the questioning of the investment in maintaining a browser.
Orion is based on WebKit, not on Chromium. The Mac version of DuckDuckGo's browser is based on WebKit too.
You're right, it doesn't negate the question though.
On iOS it is not simple to switch to other search engines on Safari that's not in their list: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38937619
The thing is they can't control the stability of alternative methods on Safari. It's up to Apple.
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Because controlling the browser means you control the default search engine, and that is valuable. If all it takes to do that is repackage chrome then so be it.
But if you can convince users to switch a browser, can you not convince them to use your search engine by default with less of an effort?