Onion Browser is an interesting app that became popular mainly through YouTube videos. Its stated purpose is to “uncover stories hidden in internet, build a better understanding of news and current events, allow you to more easily participate in the process as a consumer”. What it does, in a nutshell, is allow users to explore local stories and social issues through an archive of news articles (mostly from older publications). This means that its not really an app that will introduce you to world of news; instead, it will help you to filter and navigate your information diet. It was first introduced to world as flagship app of New York Times-owned media company, The New York Times Company. NYT has published many material on app, both in form of blogs, long-form journalism. Fact that it's tied to such a well-known and respected news source in itself makes it an interesting app to investigate. Does it live up to its reputation? Let's take a look.
Software Onion Browser download was originally designed by the NYT company, but it was bought by a Chinese company, a year later, and subsequently redesigned by an outside agency. This kind of information is absent from the app's website, so it's hard to know for sure. What we can say for certain is that the original NYT design sensibility still infuses everything that the app does and does not do. Design-wise, it is highly reminiscent of the old New York Times website, with its brown and orange color schemes and heavy use of CSS animations. However, Onion Browser download for free while design is mostly static, with only a few small animations here and there, fonts and overall UI are heavily inspired by Chinese calligraphy. These are really interesting, well-executed choices, as the app's iconography and design language is a wonderful collision of East and West. It's just a shame that the content, so often abysmal, doesn't live up to design.
Before getting into meat of review, let's take a few minutes to discuss the content that we've already covered. Most of content on the app comes, unsurprisingly, from the New York Times. What is included, however, is a pretty varied and impressive collection of material. If you compare this to, for example, Feedly, which is another popular news reading app, you'll see that Onion Browser for Windows contains many more publications, both mainstream and niche. This allows for much broader scope and greater variability in the information that it contains. Aside from content from NYT, app includes many other well-known news publications, such as BBC, LA Times, and Wall Street Journal. There is a large collection of shorter-form journalism, such as blogs and microblogs. These can be great for quick news scoops, but they tend to lack the in-depth reporting and long-form journalism that you might find in a traditional newspaper.
Even more notably, app includes a large collection of independently-owned publications. Some of these publications for Onion Browser app are well-known for being tabloid-esque, such as New York Post, The Sun (United Kingdom), and others are more established and reputable news organizations, such as Financial Times and Los Angeles Times. Including these publications, many of which operate in regions that New York Times does not cover, gives app much greater credibility in eyes of average user.
Interface of Onion Browser for PC is, in a word, great. Fact that it's minimalistic, yet functional, makes it a joy to use. Software makes heavy use of CSS to achieve its unique look and feel, and it shows, with its clean, uncluttered appearance. Aside from being easy on the eye, interface provides the user with a great variety of options. At top of the page is a search bar, which is a great place to start if you're looking for a specific piece of content. Alternatively, you can click magnifying glass icon to see a variety of suggestions, or click on tabs at top to see content organized by date, topic, or author.
Based on our research, we've put together a detailed review of the value that you get with the app. All things considered, you can expect to spend about $3 per day, on average, on the content that you consume. This is, of course, a very rough estimate, but it gives you a general idea of the costs associated with using the app. Fact that value is so low even when you consider that the content is free makes us question whether or not the app is, in fact, a scam. Although the content on Onion Browser download for PC app is for the most part available free of charge, the fact that it's such a low value proposition is suspicious. It means that, for most part, users are not going to benefit much from using app, beyond a simple need for information.
To wrap up this review of Onion Browser for free, let's remind our readers that this is, in fact, a review of an app that you can get for free. The main purpose of this article is to examine whether or not the value that the app provides makes it a worthwhile download; in other words, is it a scam? Based on our investigation, we do not believe that it is. The app does have a very low value proposition, but this is mainly due to the fact that the content is already available freely on the internet. If you're looking for a simple, straightforward news app that can be used to browse the web, then we'd recommend giving Onion Browser download for Windows 10 a try. More details on the app can be found here.