>Orion doesn't have any telemetry, doesn't force any updates on you, doesn't require any account.

Source: "Trust me".

As another person mentioned, telemetry could be sent out Sundays @ 2:00am, so my use of standard tools to verify that it isn't phoning home on a Tuesday afternoon is useless. This is just one isolated example.

>it doesn't need to be open source to do that, nor would making it open source obviate auditig the final executable anyways.

Trust is not a single bit that is flipped from "Fully trust" to "Fully distrust". Things become more trustworthy when the source can be reviewed, and less trustworthy when an employee says "We don't do this, trust us, but we're keeping the box closed because ~reasons~".

In my eyes, Kagi has a lot of trust-building to do, despite being the darling child that can do no wrong in many HNers eyes (for whatever reason).