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Vivaldi – A Browser for Our Friends

209 points by matthberg 10y ago

asimjalis 10y ago
Just installed it. Reading this on Vivaldi. Looks great so far.
CoryG89 10y ago
A lot more interesting information on the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivaldi_(web_browser) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivaldi_(web_browser) Looks like it uses Blink engine, first release was 8 months ago. Looks like you can also use Chrome extensions with it.
- matthberg 10y ago
  I was blown away by the customizability, I used Firefox with a split tab extension, yet this has native support.
  - Jonsvt 10y ago
    Thanks. That is what we are all about. We believe we all deserve to get a browser that can be made to work just right. Thus we have the motto : when in doubt, make it an option.
  - nhumrich 10y ago
    Unfortunately you can't resize the split. I almost never want an exact 50-50 split. One webpage always scales better then the other in split mode.
    - ardivekar2 10y ago
      Don't know about you, but on the latest release (1.6) I can resize the split to be between 10-60%
    - triage4 10y ago
      You could have one site set as a panel and resize.
    - StavrosK 10y ago
      You guys need to rotate your screen 90 degrees.
kome 10y ago
For context: behind Vivaldi there is part of the original Opera team. Vivaldi indeed really resemble to Opera 12: and that's awesome. But they are using Blink instead of the defunct Presto.
lawnchair_larry 10y ago
Uh oh. They made the browser mistake.
- jdormit 10y ago
  Care to elaborate?
  - erwinkle 10y ago
    They made the browser mistake, which part do you need elaborated?
    - Gabriel_Martin 10y ago
      This is part of the team behind Opera. Sounds like they have the chops
    - jdormit 10y ago
      What is the browser mistake?
    - kmill 10y ago
      Right now, searching for "the browser mistake" just leads to this page.
segphault 10y ago
There are a ton of great ideas in Vivaldi's user interface. And it's built on Chrome, so you still get all the standards and extension compatibility. They regularly add clever new features that materially improve tab management and navigation. I'm looking forward to making it my default browser at some point in the future when they add sync for bookmarks etc.
lsh 10y ago
I switched to Vivaldi as my default browser 6+ months ago after new-Opera became such an overwhelming disappointment I felt I had to abandon what it had become after fifteen or more years of use. Vivaldi definitely has the old Opera spirit, but not the performance. On original Opera I could have hundreds of tabs open, in Vivaldi I can have 60? not such a big deal, right!? well it's partly that, partly just a constant reminder that software has become horribly inefficient even with scads of system resources - Opera always felt extremely small and efficient. Vivaldi feels big and heavy like emacs (that I also love and use) but less performant. I feel that came off negatively! Vivaldi is a fantastic modern browser. On Arch: yaourt -S vivaldi-snapshot
- ploxiln 10y ago
  I fear this is largely due to modern websites. If you used old Opera on modern websites they would be broken (lack of new features) and still pretty slow. JS and image sizes have gone up exponentially. I remember discussion on Slashdot a decade ago about average page size going above 100KB - now the average is easily into multiple megabytes. It "works fine" in chrome on a macbook pro so who gives fuck, right? We can't go back to an older web - we can't get off this train, and we can't slow it down, it's inexorably pulled forward by market mechanisms way bigger than we are.
  - cyberferret 10y ago
    +1. I noticed the other day that a single Medium blog post downloaded MORE assets (in terms of MBs) that a multi user ERP application that I used to maintain in a large multi million dollar turnover business network back in the 80's. (And I am including the ERP database file sizes as well.)
    - JdeBP 10y ago
      Enjoy this metric: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11548816 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11548816
  - netsharc 10y ago
emptyfile 10y ago
Been using it for 6 months now and I love it. Verticals tabs were literally the only thing keeping me on Firefox. Love the search bar which splits suggestions into Typed, Bookmarks, History categories. So many great details and customization features in this browser.
- mistermann 10y ago
  It still doesn't nest tabs like Tree-Style tabs addin for FF though right? When they get that I'll switch at least part time, FF for me is getting so laggy (due to inefficient JS on certain websites like twitter) it is extremely painful to use. EDIT: https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/3255/tree-style-tab/16 https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/3255/tree-style-tab/16 One page 4: https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/3255/tree-style-tab/67 https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/3255/tree-style-tab/67 "I do know that internally, there is discussion as to various ways TST might be implemented. Nothing has been settled on, but there is discussion."
  - phowat 10y ago
    You can stack tabs in Vivaldi. It's pretty similar, good enough for me. One thing I miss from firefox is the tab groups feature though.
deleted 10y ago
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deleted 10y ago
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gkya 10y ago
I could've given it a try if it was opensource. But because it's closed I immediately classify it as vaporware, and as the browser is one of the two centers of my daily computing (the other being emacs), I won't invest in vaporware. I believe that opensourcing is the best choice of the company behind this.
- jaredklewis 10y ago
  You are using the word vaporware in a very odd way. Vaporware is stuff that won't actually come into existence. Vivaldi has already been publically available for nearly a year.
  - gkya 10y ago
    Sorry, yes, I intended "software that'll become useless, unmaintained and outdated rather quickly".
    - Guest98123 10y ago
      Abandonware.
    - Elv13 10y ago
      That's pre-abandonware
      - StavrosK 10y ago
        I.e. "software".
    - Karunamon 10y ago
      <snark>If I had a penny for every useless, unmaintained, and outdated open source project...</snark>
      - vortico 10y ago
        ...you'd have more pennies than me if I had a penny for every unmaintained commercial software.
cyberferret 10y ago
I've been using Vivaldi now for over a year (since early beta days), and finding it a great experience. A couple of things I really like - (1) that the browser chrome changes to suit the colour scheme of the website that you have loaded when flicking through tabs. Makes it really easy to identify what site you are on especially if you have scrolled down past the header. (2) that they have a slider on the bottom toolbar for zooming in/out of websites. For this old guy with failing eyesight, that is a killer feature that I use all the time. Happy to also see that the number of sites reporting "You are not using an approved browser" has reduced to nearly 0 when browsing via Vivaldi, but that is more a problem for lazy web designers who only create sites specifically for a particular rendering engine, I guess. EDIT: Interesting Observation - I remember that in the early days, their main selling point was their command line functionality for power users. That was what made me change over back then, although ironically I never ever use their CLI tool set at all these days, and just use the mouse like always. I note that they have downplayed the CLI functionality on their current website, so perhaps it wasn't such a drawcard for other users either?!?
- BuuQu9hu 10y ago
  > Makes it really easy to identify what site you are on especially if you have scrolled down past the header. You find using browser chrome color is easier than using URL bar for identifying the site?
  - cyberferret 10y ago
    LOL, next you'll be saying that we should replace coloured traffic lights with black and white "STOP" and "GO" signs? I'd suggest you do a Google search on the human ability to discern colour as an indicator way faster than reading text. Especially if on the peripheral vision outside of direct line of sight. NASA and USAF research papers on layouts of aircraft/spacecraft instrumentation etc. too might be helpful to you. Real world example - Right now, as I type this in another browser in the foreground, my Vivaldi browser is 80% obscured by this window, but I can tell by the right edge of the window colour that the currently active tab on it is my Google Mail.
EugeneOZ 10y ago
Hope they will not repeat fatal error of Opera - closed bug-tracker.
spacehacker 10y ago
Is it possible to arrange the tabs in the side bar in a hierarchical list view? It seems it is possible to make stacks of tabs, but the individual tabs in the hover menu are not very accessible IMHO ("out of sight, out of mind"). Otherwise this browser looks really nice.
- matthberg 10y ago
  Vivaldi uses chrome extensions, if there's one that would provide that, it looks like it can be used.
jgest 10y ago
another one will bite the dust
chrisper 10y ago
My only concern is that it does not have settings / history sync yet.
- cyberferret 10y ago
  But that will mean that you probably have to set up an account with Vivaldi.com, similar to how you have to do it on Google.com for Chrome. Personally, I like not having to remember yet another set of login credentials for every app I use. Perhaps if they supported syncing of browser setups via DropBox, G-Drive etc. then it may be a way to (a) backup your browser settings in one place and (b) share it among your devices or even among work colleagues.
npace12 10y ago
As a web developer using chrome and emacs all day, I was very skeptical. Decided to give it a try and looks really good so far. It's got a lot of the good chrome stuff and so far I haven't found absolutely anything I miss. So far I really like: - Ctrl-P-like tab switcher / command thingy - fast (but that may be just how different new browsers always feel like at first) - the web page size indicator on the address bar - tabs can be configured to be wherever the hell i want them - the regular, good chrome debugger - can run chrome extensions straight from the store I don't know who the devs are and how long this browser will be around for, but it's seriously well done! Set as default.
- aquadrop 10y ago
  Developers of Vivaldi used to work on Opera browser.
  - Jonsvt 10y ago
    Thank you for your kind words about Vivaldi. I was the co-founder of Opera and now co-founder of Vivaldi. A big part of the team is former Opera people. We are based in Norway and Iceland, mostly, with team members in a couple of other locations.
    - aquadrop 10y ago
      Thank you for the Opera, it was my primary browser for a number of years. And good luck to you with your new endeavor, you certainly have some right ideas in Vivaldi :)
      - Jonsvt 10y ago
        Thanks. We aim to please. :) There is a lot more cool stuff in the pipeline. :)
    - oblio 10y ago
      I know it's a lot to ask, but is there any timeline for the release of the mail client? And a separate question, would it be possible to include a light calendar app in it? (ICS)
Jonsvt 10y ago
Glad you like our browser. We are working hard to continue to add really useful features, cool stuff and more flexibility. Our philosophy is that we all deserve a browser that works in the way we want it to. This means we listen to input and gradually add the features and options you want. Cheers, Jon of Vivaldi
- terrestrial 10y ago
  Hi Jon! I know you are a stand-up guy [0]. Have you considered working with the free software community to create a truly free and modern browser? No-one trusts Chromium since it's filled with Google-specific bits and tweaks, even analytics. Assuming you've trimmed all of that away, releasing your add-ons as free software (e.g. GPL or BSD) would create some real traction around Vivaldi as a browser alternative. This also avoids the "Opera mistake". If Presto had been open sourced, it would still be alive and kicking today. With Blink things are different, and I don't see how keeping a proprietary user interface is going to sustain a browser company. Suggestion: make the core browser slim, pluggable and free, and sell extensions and infrastructure parts necessary for sync, updates etc with a GPL and/or proprietary license. Oh, and [0]: https://i.imgur.com/UFh2M.png https://i.imgur.com/UFh2M.png
  - Tomis02 10y ago
    I knew which picture it was before i even opened it :) the Opera community used to be so amazing.
- LordWinstanley 10y ago
  Any plans for an Android version?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
reformedjuju 10y ago
Until proper mobile sync comes about for passwords and bookmarks I'm going to have to stick to Safari, unfortunately.
thecrumb 10y ago
Would switch to this immediately but it still doesn't support any sort of sync. People use browsers on multiple devices these days. Not sure why this isn't a priority for the Vivaldi team?
- Jonsvt 10y ago
  This is a priority for sure. We are getting there.
  - StavrosK 10y ago
    Can I point out that we want to have our cake and eat it too? I really really want password sync, but I also really don't want you to know any of my passwords. This is going to be hard for you to pull off successfully. How are you planning to achieve it?
- Soulsbane 10y ago
  Yeah, same here.
- wlesieutre 10y ago
  Same. I was occasionally running it last year, but lacking all of my bookmarks it fell out of use after a couple of weeks when the novelty wore off. The level of customizability is great for sure. Sidebar tabs supported natively, and the whole browser UI can be restyled with CSS.
StevePerkins 10y ago
I check in on Vivaldi every few months to see how it's coming along, and there are some things that I like. However, I think they're a bit TOO fixated on Opera as it was 15 years ago. I keep waiting for bookmark sync, which today is a fundamental browser feature rather than a nice-to-have. But the Vivaldi guys insist on pouring resources into an integrated desktop email client instead, because that was a signature feature of Opera back in the day. However, it's probably no exaggeration to say that most users haven't used a desktop email client in over a decade. So why is such a retro throwback feature prioritized so high? Another example is right-clicking a link in Vivaldi, to open it in a new tab. Every other major browser opens the link in a background tab, keeping the focus in the tab you're currently on. However, Vivaldi automatically jumps the focus over to that tab right away... because that was default Opera behavior 15 years ago. This is frequently brought up in Vivaldi forums, and the response from the devs is simply to grumble that old-school Opera was best and all other browsers today have bad defaults. I'm a huge Opera fan, and have been for years. However, the thing is... I just don't WANT a re-implementation of Opera from 15 years ago. I'm sorry, but desktop email is dead for most of us. I'm sorry, but Chrome has acclimated us to some slightly different default behaviors, and at this point those are the defaults that I expect and want other browsers to mirror. You want to enable a whole new level of customization for power users? That sounds AWESOME! You want to provide some security and an alternative path forward, for Opera fans who worry about that company's ownership changes? Great! But please don't be so beholden to the Opera of 2002 that you don't make an offering well-suited for 2017.
- tornadoboy55 10y ago
  > However, it's probably no exaggeration to say that most users haven't used a desktop email client in over a decade. Almost everyone that uses macOS uses Apple Mail. Actually, I prefer that from having to (keep ) open a tab for Gmail.
  - tnecniv 10y ago
    I even use Postbox
binarycrusader 10y ago
So what's the business model here? This is a "free" product, so how does Vivaldi intend to ensure its continued existence?
- vortico 10y ago
  I'm wondering this too. Mozilla has tons of sponsorship from Yahoo and others. Google invests in Chrome to give them leverage for their own products. Since Vivaldi is closed source, how do I know they aren't selling my data?
  - ymse 10y ago
    Vivaldi is allegedly free software: https://vivaldi.com/source/ https://vivaldi.com/source/
    - vortico 10y ago
      Looks like you're right. The original Vivaldi code is a BSD-style license, and although I didn't check all the dependencies, it seems to be mostly Chromium + lots of original code.
    - Aoyagi 10y ago
      AFAIK that's only a part of it, specifically the layout engine-related one.
    - bigbugbag 10y ago
      No. no it's not. see vivaldi://about/ Vivaldi Technologies AS. A Browser For Our Friends Copyright 2017 Vivaldi Technologies AS. All rights reserved. Vivaldi is made possible by the Chromium open source project and other open source software. Vivaldi Terms of Service and vivaldi://terms Vivaldi End User License Agreement Last updated: November 18, 2016 1. This End User License Agreement ("EULA") governs your use ("You") of the browser software in executable form ("Software") and any ancillary services ("Services") provided to You by Vivaldi Technology AS ("Vivaldi") to the exclusion of all other terms and conditions. Source code used in the Software, under open source license agreements, can be obtained at https://vivaldi.com/source https://vivaldi.com/source. (...)
Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
No source, no deal.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- dchest 10y ago
  There's this: https://vivaldi.com/source/ https://vivaldi.com/source/ (don't know what's inside)
  - m45t3r 10y ago
    AFAIK, this is mostly Chromium and their patches. The interface itself (that is mostly build in something similar to Electron, i.e. JavaScript, CSS and HTML) is completely closed source.
cphoover 10y ago
aren't we kinda passed the days of closed source browsers?
- jhasse 10y ago
  Safari and Edge are closed-source, Google Chrome (not Chromium) is too, in some way.
  - bigbugbag 10y ago
    I wonder in which way chrome is not proprietary. AFAIK it is 100% proprietary freeware, at least this my understanding of the legal terms in the ToS / EULA: https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/browser/privacy/eula_text.html https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/browser/privacy/eula_t...
    - jhasse 10y ago
      In the way that you can build a very similar version of it (Chromium) from source code released under OSS licenses. You can't do that with Edge, Safari or Vivaldi.
- bigbugbag 10y ago
  Well what browser are you using ? AFAIK there's not a plethora of popular free software web browsers around.
tscs37 10y ago
One thing that always turns me off is the lack of proper popup support (last I checked). Some addons I like don't like that and that one website I need for studying doesn't like it any more either. But otherwise it's a solid browser.
warcode 10y ago
Been using Vivaldi for probably a year, but I am now looking for a new browser. Too many media/crash issues have started popping up with running the browser without hardware acceleration enabled. And the options that let me disable it in the first place have been removed. I guess all I really want is chrome without the tracking.
- bigbugbag 10y ago
  What you want is iron, which was available since pretty much the early day of chrome. here: https://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php https://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php and this: https://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron_chrome_vs_iron.php https://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron_chrome_vs_iro... You could also have a look at epic over there: https://www.epicbrowser.com/ https://www.epicbrowser.com/
fredoralive 10y ago
Vivaldi is frustrating, as it nearly implements all the bits of Opera I use, but there are odd bits where it falls short The main thing for me is the fact that tab minimisation doesn't work correctly, sometimes tabs you've minimised get selected, sometimes even when there are unminimised tabs. It's just wrong, and the tab handling was one of the main reasons I used Opera Beyond that there's a lack of a bookmark menu, the fact that toolbars aren't customisable, no click-to-active for plugins and no site preferences, but they're less important things that don't mess up my workflow as much. Also it's rather ugly, but I fear we'll have to wait for several more years before flat design goes out of fashion to fix that. I really want to get rid of my current Firefox + a load of extensions setup, especially as I haven't a clue if it'll survive Mozilla's next round of extension breaking updates. But Vivaldi just isn't quite there yet. I really want it to be...
- Aoyagi 10y ago
  One of the most frustrating things for me is the lack of Dragonfly...
  - bigbugbag 10y ago
    and live editing of html source from cache.
known 10y ago
I've decided to roll out and use my own browser; "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" --Isaac Newton
Al-Khwarizmi 10y ago
As an old Opera user I really want to like Vivaldi, but the weird titlebar without title and especially the non-native menubar really turn me off (in a native menubar under Windows, once you click a menu, you can just move your mouse without clicking to navigate the rest of the menus. In Vivaldi's menubar, you can't, making the menus way clunkier to navigate). For this reason, I actually find the experience of Otter Browser (http://www.otter-browser.org/ http://www.otter-browser.org/) to be closer to Opera's than that of Vivaldi: even if Otter is more bare-bones in terms of functionality, it really gets the efficient UX feel better. I encourage old Opera fans to check it out as well. I hope the Vivaldi team fixes these so I can really like it. Some of my previous turnoffs (like lack of "click tab to minimize") were implemented so I'm hopeful... although not too hopeful because this menu implementation has been there for quite long so they don't seem to take the menubar too seriously.
- Aoyagi 10y ago
  I was asking for a proper native title bar possibly a year ago since I'm using the "classic" Windows theme and that's just ideal. It doesn't take up much space and it shows the whole page title. http://puu.sh/tcYJ7/b7479e05cd.png http://puu.sh/tcYJ7/b7479e05cd.png
  - atlemo 10y ago
    Have you seen this setting? Apperance -> Window Appearance -> Use Native Window https://www.dropbox.com/s/d4ew5ptyusm4cjb/Screenshot%202017-01-06%2012.27.41.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/d4ew5ptyusm4cjb/Screenshot%202017-... You can also choose between horizontal menu on top, or "Vivaldi Menu" in the top left.
    - fredoralive 10y ago
      Doesn't work properly on Windows, you just just get a blank title bar with only the window controls at right (not even the window icon / menu on the left appears). Does work correctly on Mac OS though.
- tomw2005 10y ago
xkxx 10y ago
I'd become your friend if your browser became open source.
NKCSS 10y ago
First time I heard or used Vivaldi; the whole 2-panels in 1 browser chrome side by side looked interesting, but using it, docking/undocking tabs and resizeing the area's just feels very slow, especially when you're used to how snappy Google Chrome feels. Too bad because I want to like this :)
- ankka 10y ago
  This is a sad problem that has come with developers using Javascript for everything. Development might be faster, but the end product is simply slow even on high-end machines. Same thing happens with Visual Studio Code, Brackets and Atom when compared to Sublime Text, for instance.
bobsgame 10y ago
Vivaldi is awesome! Thank you Vivaldi team!
anw 10y ago
I've used Vivaldi as my primary (Chrome as secondary) browser the past 3 months (along using Vivaldi.net as my e-mail address – thank you for offering this, Vivaldi team). I love the browser so far, and think it deserves many accolades for what it has and is attempting to accomplish. I do run into the occasional issues that remind me this is a newer browser, though. Mostly these are only noticeable because they completely break your concentration from what you were doing. For instance, if you attempt to bookmark the current page but realize you want to put it in a new folder, then you'll have to break your flow of bookmarking by going to the Bookmarks page, create the folder, then go back to page again to add it to the newly created folder. Right-clicking on a link and opening in a new tab will immediately take you to that new tab, even if you wanted to save it for after you finished the current page. There may be a chrome setting for this, but a cursory glance at the preferences window didn't show any kind of wording that would indicate "open new tab in background". The only main gripe I really have is in retrieving saved passwords. Yes, I can put the URL directly into the bar and go there that way, but it's an inconvenience I don't have to deal with in Chrome (or Firefox). Even with these few issues, Vivaldi has been my favorite browser these past months, and I can't wait to see how it matures.
silliaris 10y ago
I really like Vivaldi, but I cannot use it as my main browser because I really miss browser synchronization. With Chrome, I have everything synchronized, so setting up my browser environment I'm used to on new computer takes just few clicks. I hope Vivaldi will have this too soon.
0wl3x 10y ago
Is it bad to say at this point I've spent so much time with Chrome that I am not interested in switching? Things work well for me.
msimpson 10y ago
Waits patiently for the mail client.
vermaden 10y ago
No FreeBSD support. No go.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
kevinSuttle 10y ago
Just gonna leave this here. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11830326 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11830326
wallacoloo 10y ago
Coming from Firefox, it's got a very nice default UI - I love the loading animations and such. It seems easy to customize, though puzzlingly the icons don't seem to be themeable even though colors, address bar appearance, etc are - which is a bummer because the default icons are ugly Windows 8-style/Metro things. Also, it seems to be implementing its own scrollbars that are stylized differently than everything else on my computer. Firefox also uses my GTK theme for things like checkboxes, etc (right out of the box), which is pretty cool. Vivaldi's doing some cool things, but it's still got a ways to go.
notduncansmith 10y ago
How is Vivaldi's power consumption and memory footprint? Those were the biggest motivators to switch from Chrome to Safari on macOS for most browsing (I still use Chrome for some front-end dev stuff). I can browse the web forever with Safari on my 2012 MacBook Air, Chrome not so much (haven't tried FF as a daily driver in ages so would love to hear about it too). Off-topic aside: is power consumption even a concern for engineers these days? Looking at what's possible with technologies that are somewhat fringe, it's hard not to think about how much power we're gobbling up that we really don't need.
digi_owl 10y ago
One thing i like about Vivaldi is that i can set a whole UI scaling factor. Because this makes it easy to adapt for touch input (just crank the factor up until the elements are of a practical size). Just wish it didn't have frequent issues with touch screens on my Windows tablet, leading to it not responding to any input until i switch to different window and back. Also, it never seems able to bring up the on-screen keyboard when tapping input areas on sites. But it comes up (unless the previously mentioned unresponsiveness kicks in) when tapping the url field.

209 points by matthberg 10y ago

Just installed it. Reading this on Vivaldi. Looks great so far.

A lot more interesting information on the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivaldi_(web_browser) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivaldi_(web_browser) Looks like it uses Blink engine, first release was 8 months ago. Looks like you can also use Chrome extensions with it.

matthberg 10y ago
I was blown away by the customizability, I used Firefox with a split tab extension, yet this has native support.
- Jonsvt 10y ago
  Thanks. That is what we are all about. We believe we all deserve to get a browser that can be made to work just right. Thus we have the motto : when in doubt, make it an option.
- nhumrich 10y ago
  Unfortunately you can't resize the split. I almost never want an exact 50-50 split. One webpage always scales better then the other in split mode.
  - ardivekar2 10y ago
    Don't know about you, but on the latest release (1.6) I can resize the split to be between 10-60%
  - triage4 10y ago
    You could have one site set as a panel and resize.
  - StavrosK 10y ago
    You guys need to rotate your screen 90 degrees.

kome 10y ago

For context: behind Vivaldi there is part of the original Opera team. Vivaldi indeed really resemble to Opera 12: and that's awesome. But they are using Blink instead of the defunct Presto.

lawnchair_larry 10y ago

Uh oh. They made the browser mistake.

jdormit 10y ago
Care to elaborate?
- erwinkle 10y ago
  They made the browser mistake, which part do you need elaborated?
  - Gabriel_Martin 10y ago
    This is part of the team behind Opera. Sounds like they have the chops
  - jdormit 10y ago
    What is the browser mistake?
  - kmill 10y ago
    Right now, searching for "the browser mistake" just leads to this page.

segphault 10y ago

There are a ton of great ideas in Vivaldi's user interface. And it's built on Chrome, so you still get all the standards and extension compatibility. They regularly add clever new features that materially improve tab management and navigation. I'm looking forward to making it my default browser at some point in the future when they add sync for bookmarks etc.

lsh 10y ago

I switched to Vivaldi as my default browser 6+ months ago after new-Opera became such an overwhelming disappointment I felt I had to abandon what it had become after fifteen or more years of use. Vivaldi definitely has the old Opera spirit, but not the performance. On original Opera I could have hundreds of tabs open, in Vivaldi I can have 60? not such a big deal, right!? well it's partly that, partly just a constant reminder that software has become horribly inefficient even with scads of system resources - Opera always felt extremely small and efficient. Vivaldi feels big and heavy like emacs (that I also love and use) but less performant. I feel that came off negatively! Vivaldi is a fantastic modern browser. On Arch: yaourt -S vivaldi-snapshot

ploxiln 10y ago
I fear this is largely due to modern websites. If you used old Opera on modern websites they would be broken (lack of new features) and still pretty slow. JS and image sizes have gone up exponentially. I remember discussion on Slashdot a decade ago about average page size going above 100KB - now the average is easily into multiple megabytes. It "works fine" in chrome on a macbook pro so who gives fuck, right? We can't go back to an older web - we can't get off this train, and we can't slow it down, it's inexorably pulled forward by market mechanisms way bigger than we are.
- cyberferret 10y ago
  +1. I noticed the other day that a single Medium blog post downloaded MORE assets (in terms of MBs) that a multi user ERP application that I used to maintain in a large multi million dollar turnover business network back in the 80's. (And I am including the ERP database file sizes as well.)
  - JdeBP 10y ago
    Enjoy this metric: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11548816 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11548816
- netsharc 10y ago

emptyfile 10y ago

Been using it for 6 months now and I love it. Verticals tabs were literally the only thing keeping me on Firefox. Love the search bar which splits suggestions into Typed, Bookmarks, History categories. So many great details and customization features in this browser.

mistermann 10y ago
It still doesn't nest tabs like Tree-Style tabs addin for FF though right? When they get that I'll switch at least part time, FF for me is getting so laggy (due to inefficient JS on certain websites like twitter) it is extremely painful to use. EDIT: https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/3255/tree-style-tab/16 https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/3255/tree-style-tab/16 One page 4: https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/3255/tree-style-tab/67 https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/3255/tree-style-tab/67 "I do know that internally, there is discussion as to various ways TST might be implemented. Nothing has been settled on, but there is discussion."
- phowat 10y ago
  You can stack tabs in Vivaldi. It's pretty similar, good enough for me. One thing I miss from firefox is the tab groups feature though.

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gkya 10y ago

I could've given it a try if it was opensource. But because it's closed I immediately classify it as vaporware, and as the browser is one of the two centers of my daily computing (the other being emacs), I won't invest in vaporware. I believe that opensourcing is the best choice of the company behind this.

jaredklewis 10y ago
You are using the word vaporware in a very odd way. Vaporware is stuff that won't actually come into existence. Vivaldi has already been publically available for nearly a year.
- gkya 10y ago
  Sorry, yes, I intended "software that'll become useless, unmaintained and outdated rather quickly".
  - Guest98123 10y ago
    Abandonware.
  - Elv13 10y ago
    That's pre-abandonware
    - StavrosK 10y ago
      I.e. "software".
  - Karunamon 10y ago
    <snark>If I had a penny for every useless, unmaintained, and outdated open source project...</snark>
    - vortico 10y ago
      ...you'd have more pennies than me if I had a penny for every unmaintained commercial software.

cyberferret 10y ago

I've been using Vivaldi now for over a year (since early beta days), and finding it a great experience. A couple of things I really like - (1) that the browser chrome changes to suit the colour scheme of the website that you have loaded when flicking through tabs. Makes it really easy to identify what site you are on especially if you have scrolled down past the header. (2) that they have a slider on the bottom toolbar for zooming in/out of websites. For this old guy with failing eyesight, that is a killer feature that I use all the time. Happy to also see that the number of sites reporting "You are not using an approved browser" has reduced to nearly 0 when browsing via Vivaldi, but that is more a problem for lazy web designers who only create sites specifically for a particular rendering engine, I guess. EDIT: Interesting Observation - I remember that in the early days, their main selling point was their command line functionality for power users. That was what made me change over back then, although ironically I never ever use their CLI tool set at all these days, and just use the mouse like always. I note that they have downplayed the CLI functionality on their current website, so perhaps it wasn't such a drawcard for other users either?!?

BuuQu9hu 10y ago
> Makes it really easy to identify what site you are on especially if you have scrolled down past the header. You find using browser chrome color is easier than using URL bar for identifying the site?
- cyberferret 10y ago
  LOL, next you'll be saying that we should replace coloured traffic lights with black and white "STOP" and "GO" signs? I'd suggest you do a Google search on the human ability to discern colour as an indicator way faster than reading text. Especially if on the peripheral vision outside of direct line of sight. NASA and USAF research papers on layouts of aircraft/spacecraft instrumentation etc. too might be helpful to you. Real world example - Right now, as I type this in another browser in the foreground, my Vivaldi browser is 80% obscured by this window, but I can tell by the right edge of the window colour that the currently active tab on it is my Google Mail.

EugeneOZ 10y ago

Hope they will not repeat fatal error of Opera - closed bug-tracker.

spacehacker 10y ago

Is it possible to arrange the tabs in the side bar in a hierarchical list view? It seems it is possible to make stacks of tabs, but the individual tabs in the hover menu are not very accessible IMHO ("out of sight, out of mind"). Otherwise this browser looks really nice.

matthberg 10y ago
Vivaldi uses chrome extensions, if there's one that would provide that, it looks like it can be used.

jgest 10y ago

another one will bite the dust

chrisper 10y ago

My only concern is that it does not have settings / history sync yet.

cyberferret 10y ago
But that will mean that you probably have to set up an account with Vivaldi.com, similar to how you have to do it on Google.com for Chrome. Personally, I like not having to remember yet another set of login credentials for every app I use. Perhaps if they supported syncing of browser setups via DropBox, G-Drive etc. then it may be a way to (a) backup your browser settings in one place and (b) share it among your devices or even among work colleagues.

npace12 10y ago

As a web developer using chrome and emacs all day, I was very skeptical. Decided to give it a try and looks really good so far. It's got a lot of the good chrome stuff and so far I haven't found absolutely anything I miss. So far I really like: - Ctrl-P-like tab switcher / command thingy - fast (but that may be just how different new browsers always feel like at first) - the web page size indicator on the address bar - tabs can be configured to be wherever the hell i want them - the regular, good chrome debugger - can run chrome extensions straight from the store I don't know who the devs are and how long this browser will be around for, but it's seriously well done! Set as default.

aquadrop 10y ago
Developers of Vivaldi used to work on Opera browser.
- Jonsvt 10y ago
  Thank you for your kind words about Vivaldi. I was the co-founder of Opera and now co-founder of Vivaldi. A big part of the team is former Opera people. We are based in Norway and Iceland, mostly, with team members in a couple of other locations.
  - aquadrop 10y ago
    Thank you for the Opera, it was my primary browser for a number of years. And good luck to you with your new endeavor, you certainly have some right ideas in Vivaldi :)
    - Jonsvt 10y ago
      Thanks. We aim to please. :) There is a lot more cool stuff in the pipeline. :)
  - oblio 10y ago
    I know it's a lot to ask, but is there any timeline for the release of the mail client? And a separate question, would it be possible to include a light calendar app in it? (ICS)

Jonsvt 10y ago

Glad you like our browser. We are working hard to continue to add really useful features, cool stuff and more flexibility. Our philosophy is that we all deserve a browser that works in the way we want it to. This means we listen to input and gradually add the features and options you want. Cheers, Jon of Vivaldi

terrestrial 10y ago
Hi Jon! I know you are a stand-up guy [0]. Have you considered working with the free software community to create a truly free and modern browser? No-one trusts Chromium since it's filled with Google-specific bits and tweaks, even analytics. Assuming you've trimmed all of that away, releasing your add-ons as free software (e.g. GPL or BSD) would create some real traction around Vivaldi as a browser alternative. This also avoids the "Opera mistake". If Presto had been open sourced, it would still be alive and kicking today. With Blink things are different, and I don't see how keeping a proprietary user interface is going to sustain a browser company. Suggestion: make the core browser slim, pluggable and free, and sell extensions and infrastructure parts necessary for sync, updates etc with a GPL and/or proprietary license. Oh, and [0]: https://i.imgur.com/UFh2M.png https://i.imgur.com/UFh2M.png
- Tomis02 10y ago
  I knew which picture it was before i even opened it :) the Opera community used to be so amazing.
LordWinstanley 10y ago
Any plans for an Android version?
deleted 10y ago
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reformedjuju 10y ago

Until proper mobile sync comes about for passwords and bookmarks I'm going to have to stick to Safari, unfortunately.

thecrumb 10y ago

Would switch to this immediately but it still doesn't support any sort of sync. People use browsers on multiple devices these days. Not sure why this isn't a priority for the Vivaldi team?

Jonsvt 10y ago
This is a priority for sure. We are getting there.
- StavrosK 10y ago
  Can I point out that we want to have our cake and eat it too? I really really want password sync, but I also really don't want you to know any of my passwords. This is going to be hard for you to pull off successfully. How are you planning to achieve it?
Soulsbane 10y ago
Yeah, same here.
wlesieutre 10y ago
Same. I was occasionally running it last year, but lacking all of my bookmarks it fell out of use after a couple of weeks when the novelty wore off. The level of customizability is great for sure. Sidebar tabs supported natively, and the whole browser UI can be restyled with CSS.

StevePerkins 10y ago

I check in on Vivaldi every few months to see how it's coming along, and there are some things that I like. However, I think they're a bit TOO fixated on Opera as it was 15 years ago. I keep waiting for bookmark sync, which today is a fundamental browser feature rather than a nice-to-have. But the Vivaldi guys insist on pouring resources into an integrated desktop email client instead, because that was a signature feature of Opera back in the day. However, it's probably no exaggeration to say that most users haven't used a desktop email client in over a decade. So why is such a retro throwback feature prioritized so high? Another example is right-clicking a link in Vivaldi, to open it in a new tab. Every other major browser opens the link in a background tab, keeping the focus in the tab you're currently on. However, Vivaldi automatically jumps the focus over to that tab right away... because that was default Opera behavior 15 years ago. This is frequently brought up in Vivaldi forums, and the response from the devs is simply to grumble that old-school Opera was best and all other browsers today have bad defaults. I'm a huge Opera fan, and have been for years. However, the thing is... I just don't WANT a re-implementation of Opera from 15 years ago. I'm sorry, but desktop email is dead for most of us. I'm sorry, but Chrome has acclimated us to some slightly different default behaviors, and at this point those are the defaults that I expect and want other browsers to mirror. You want to enable a whole new level of customization for power users? That sounds AWESOME! You want to provide some security and an alternative path forward, for Opera fans who worry about that company's ownership changes? Great! But please don't be so beholden to the Opera of 2002 that you don't make an offering well-suited for 2017.

tornadoboy55 10y ago
> However, it's probably no exaggeration to say that most users haven't used a desktop email client in over a decade. Almost everyone that uses macOS uses Apple Mail. Actually, I prefer that from having to (keep ) open a tab for Gmail.
- tnecniv 10y ago
  I even use Postbox

binarycrusader 10y ago

So what's the business model here? This is a "free" product, so how does Vivaldi intend to ensure its continued existence?

vortico 10y ago
I'm wondering this too. Mozilla has tons of sponsorship from Yahoo and others. Google invests in Chrome to give them leverage for their own products. Since Vivaldi is closed source, how do I know they aren't selling my data?
- ymse 10y ago
  Vivaldi is allegedly free software: https://vivaldi.com/source/ https://vivaldi.com/source/
  - vortico 10y ago
    Looks like you're right. The original Vivaldi code is a BSD-style license, and although I didn't check all the dependencies, it seems to be mostly Chromium + lots of original code.
  - Aoyagi 10y ago
    AFAIK that's only a part of it, specifically the layout engine-related one.
  - bigbugbag 10y ago
    No. no it's not. see vivaldi://about/ Vivaldi Technologies AS. A Browser For Our Friends Copyright 2017 Vivaldi Technologies AS. All rights reserved. Vivaldi is made possible by the Chromium open source project and other open source software. Vivaldi Terms of Service and vivaldi://terms Vivaldi End User License Agreement Last updated: November 18, 2016 1. This End User License Agreement ("EULA") governs your use ("You") of the browser software in executable form ("Software") and any ancillary services ("Services") provided to You by Vivaldi Technology AS ("Vivaldi") to the exclusion of all other terms and conditions. Source code used in the Software, under open source license agreements, can be obtained at https://vivaldi.com/source https://vivaldi.com/source. (...)

Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago

No source, no deal.

deleted 10y ago
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dchest 10y ago
There's this: https://vivaldi.com/source/ https://vivaldi.com/source/ (don't know what's inside)
- m45t3r 10y ago
  AFAIK, this is mostly Chromium and their patches. The interface itself (that is mostly build in something similar to Electron, i.e. JavaScript, CSS and HTML) is completely closed source.

cphoover 10y ago

aren't we kinda passed the days of closed source browsers?

jhasse 10y ago
Safari and Edge are closed-source, Google Chrome (not Chromium) is too, in some way.
- bigbugbag 10y ago
  I wonder in which way chrome is not proprietary. AFAIK it is 100% proprietary freeware, at least this my understanding of the legal terms in the ToS / EULA: https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/browser/privacy/eula_text.html https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/browser/privacy/eula_t...
  - jhasse 10y ago
    In the way that you can build a very similar version of it (Chromium) from source code released under OSS licenses. You can't do that with Edge, Safari or Vivaldi.
bigbugbag 10y ago
Well what browser are you using ? AFAIK there's not a plethora of popular free software web browsers around.

tscs37 10y ago

One thing that always turns me off is the lack of proper popup support (last I checked). Some addons I like don't like that and that one website I need for studying doesn't like it any more either. But otherwise it's a solid browser.

warcode 10y ago

Been using Vivaldi for probably a year, but I am now looking for a new browser. Too many media/crash issues have started popping up with running the browser without hardware acceleration enabled. And the options that let me disable it in the first place have been removed. I guess all I really want is chrome without the tracking.

bigbugbag 10y ago
What you want is iron, which was available since pretty much the early day of chrome. here: https://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php https://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php and this: https://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron_chrome_vs_iron.php https://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron_chrome_vs_iro... You could also have a look at epic over there: https://www.epicbrowser.com/ https://www.epicbrowser.com/

fredoralive 10y ago

Vivaldi is frustrating, as it nearly implements all the bits of Opera I use, but there are odd bits where it falls short The main thing for me is the fact that tab minimisation doesn't work correctly, sometimes tabs you've minimised get selected, sometimes even when there are unminimised tabs. It's just wrong, and the tab handling was one of the main reasons I used Opera Beyond that there's a lack of a bookmark menu, the fact that toolbars aren't customisable, no click-to-active for plugins and no site preferences, but they're less important things that don't mess up my workflow as much. Also it's rather ugly, but I fear we'll have to wait for several more years before flat design goes out of fashion to fix that. I really want to get rid of my current Firefox + a load of extensions setup, especially as I haven't a clue if it'll survive Mozilla's next round of extension breaking updates. But Vivaldi just isn't quite there yet. I really want it to be...

Aoyagi 10y ago
One of the most frustrating things for me is the lack of Dragonfly...
- bigbugbag 10y ago
  and live editing of html source from cache.

known 10y ago

I've decided to roll out and use my own browser; "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" --Isaac Newton

Al-Khwarizmi 10y ago

As an old Opera user I really want to like Vivaldi, but the weird titlebar without title and especially the non-native menubar really turn me off (in a native menubar under Windows, once you click a menu, you can just move your mouse without clicking to navigate the rest of the menus. In Vivaldi's menubar, you can't, making the menus way clunkier to navigate). For this reason, I actually find the experience of Otter Browser (http://www.otter-browser.org/ http://www.otter-browser.org/) to be closer to Opera's than that of Vivaldi: even if Otter is more bare-bones in terms of functionality, it really gets the efficient UX feel better. I encourage old Opera fans to check it out as well. I hope the Vivaldi team fixes these so I can really like it. Some of my previous turnoffs (like lack of "click tab to minimize") were implemented so I'm hopeful... although not too hopeful because this menu implementation has been there for quite long so they don't seem to take the menubar too seriously.

Aoyagi 10y ago
I was asking for a proper native title bar possibly a year ago since I'm using the "classic" Windows theme and that's just ideal. It doesn't take up much space and it shows the whole page title. http://puu.sh/tcYJ7/b7479e05cd.png http://puu.sh/tcYJ7/b7479e05cd.png
- atlemo 10y ago
  Have you seen this setting? Apperance -> Window Appearance -> Use Native Window https://www.dropbox.com/s/d4ew5ptyusm4cjb/Screenshot%202017-01-06%2012.27.41.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/d4ew5ptyusm4cjb/Screenshot%202017-... You can also choose between horizontal menu on top, or "Vivaldi Menu" in the top left.
  - fredoralive 10y ago
    Doesn't work properly on Windows, you just just get a blank title bar with only the window controls at right (not even the window icon / menu on the left appears). Does work correctly on Mac OS though.
tomw2005 10y ago

xkxx 10y ago

I'd become your friend if your browser became open source.

NKCSS 10y ago

First time I heard or used Vivaldi; the whole 2-panels in 1 browser chrome side by side looked interesting, but using it, docking/undocking tabs and resizeing the area's just feels very slow, especially when you're used to how snappy Google Chrome feels. Too bad because I want to like this :)

ankka 10y ago
This is a sad problem that has come with developers using Javascript for everything. Development might be faster, but the end product is simply slow even on high-end machines. Same thing happens with Visual Studio Code, Brackets and Atom when compared to Sublime Text, for instance.

bobsgame 10y ago

Vivaldi is awesome! Thank you Vivaldi team!

anw 10y ago

I've used Vivaldi as my primary (Chrome as secondary) browser the past 3 months (along using Vivaldi.net as my e-mail address – thank you for offering this, Vivaldi team). I love the browser so far, and think it deserves many accolades for what it has and is attempting to accomplish. I do run into the occasional issues that remind me this is a newer browser, though. Mostly these are only noticeable because they completely break your concentration from what you were doing. For instance, if you attempt to bookmark the current page but realize you want to put it in a new folder, then you'll have to break your flow of bookmarking by going to the Bookmarks page, create the folder, then go back to page again to add it to the newly created folder. Right-clicking on a link and opening in a new tab will immediately take you to that new tab, even if you wanted to save it for after you finished the current page. There may be a chrome setting for this, but a cursory glance at the preferences window didn't show any kind of wording that would indicate "open new tab in background". The only main gripe I really have is in retrieving saved passwords. Yes, I can put the URL directly into the bar and go there that way, but it's an inconvenience I don't have to deal with in Chrome (or Firefox). Even with these few issues, Vivaldi has been my favorite browser these past months, and I can't wait to see how it matures.

silliaris 10y ago

I really like Vivaldi, but I cannot use it as my main browser because I really miss browser synchronization. With Chrome, I have everything synchronized, so setting up my browser environment I'm used to on new computer takes just few clicks. I hope Vivaldi will have this too soon.

0wl3x 10y ago

Is it bad to say at this point I've spent so much time with Chrome that I am not interested in switching? Things work well for me.

msimpson 10y ago

Waits patiently for the mail client.

vermaden 10y ago

No FreeBSD support. No go.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

kevinSuttle 10y ago

Just gonna leave this here. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11830326 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11830326

wallacoloo 10y ago

Coming from Firefox, it's got a very nice default UI - I love the loading animations and such. It seems easy to customize, though puzzlingly the icons don't seem to be themeable even though colors, address bar appearance, etc are - which is a bummer because the default icons are ugly Windows 8-style/Metro things. Also, it seems to be implementing its own scrollbars that are stylized differently than everything else on my computer. Firefox also uses my GTK theme for things like checkboxes, etc (right out of the box), which is pretty cool. Vivaldi's doing some cool things, but it's still got a ways to go.

notduncansmith 10y ago

How is Vivaldi's power consumption and memory footprint? Those were the biggest motivators to switch from Chrome to Safari on macOS for most browsing (I still use Chrome for some front-end dev stuff). I can browse the web forever with Safari on my 2012 MacBook Air, Chrome not so much (haven't tried FF as a daily driver in ages so would love to hear about it too). Off-topic aside: is power consumption even a concern for engineers these days? Looking at what's possible with technologies that are somewhat fringe, it's hard not to think about how much power we're gobbling up that we really don't need.

digi_owl 10y ago

One thing i like about Vivaldi is that i can set a whole UI scaling factor. Because this makes it easy to adapt for touch input (just crank the factor up until the elements are of a practical size). Just wish it didn't have frequent issues with touch screens on my Windows tablet, leading to it not responding to any input until i switch to different window and back. Also, it never seems able to bring up the on-screen keyboard when tapping input areas on sites. But it comes up (unless the previously mentioned unresponsiveness kicks in) when tapping the url field.