Even the title says it's webkit based

Isn’t this why ladybird exists?

If it's WebKit-based, it is still using one of those four engines owned by large companies...the engine isn't the selling point. As I read it, Orion is to Safari as Brave is to Chrome.

That page only lists browser engines it thinks are "notable", which is not the same as viable. Microsoft stopped developing its own engines when it moved Edge to Blink.

Currently there are four viable browser engines (still being developed and capable of displaying enough sites with enough accuracy to make a plausible daily driver) in two families: WebKit and its fork Blink, and Gecko and its fork Goanna. Goanna is not corporate. In addition, there are some experimental engines, like Ladybird's.

I won't deny that the situation is dire, but it isn't quite as bad as you've painted it. Yet.

https://d-shoot.net/kagi.html

Basically everything being said here. They don't offer the source code of quite a few of their apps, they have very delirious ideas about what is identifiable information, they are trying to jump into the AI bandwagon, they don't seem to have a serious plan to keep financing all the things they are doing, the dude wants to do some filtering of news based on "biased" "unbiased", doesn't listen to critique from users, etc.

Almost certainly just somebody that distrusts all business by default.

I am all for holding business to account but can we not acknowledge that much of what we love in our lives would not be possible without business?

Kagi is not my friend or anything but they seem like a pretty decent company to me. I have seen no reason to be so cynical about them.

Read my comment.

Read my comment.