13 ms·

How Vivaldi browser is different from Google Chrome

163 points by philonoist 6y ago

YetAnotherNick 6y ago
Why does most of the chromium based browser so ungrateful to them. Vivaldi doesn't mention Chromium in the homepage even once but has "Chrome vs Vivaldi" comparison in the homepage. At least they should mention it, and better contribute back to it, if the 99.9% of your product is based on open source project.
merlinscholz 6y ago
I've tried multiple times. Basically, you get an absolutely bloated interface (or should I say OS-replacement?), containing a word processor and minigames. All things work, but none of them work good. Also, absolutely no tracking protection by default, I've found nothing about how their sync protocol works (is it e2ee?), so I take their argument of "vivaldy is better for your privacy than Chrome" with a grain of salt.
- alpaca128 6y ago
  Same here. I've tried it at least once a year and it still has the same issues it had on day one. The UI is incredibly slow and has an input delay on most mouse inputs. I gave up on it when they introduced Philips Hue remote controls instead of fixing the overall user experience or adding features like bookmark & settings sync(Light controls don't have a place in a web browser, ever, unless it's an opt-in addon). The vast number of settings and features is great, but that's meaningless if the everyday browsing feels like using a bloated website on a Raspberry Pi.
  - merlinscholz 6y ago
    I've read in another comment that they introduced mail and calendar tools and already was dumbfounded. But Philips Hue integration? At some point you just probably can replace gnome/kde/... With this "browser"
    - alpaca128 6y ago
      Yes, Vivaldi has this feature where the window borders change color based on the active website's color scheme. Then one day they decided to let the browser also connect to Hue lights so they can also change color in sync with the browser window. Now of course the devs can do what they want, but if they aim to compete with other browsers they have astounding priorities.
- matthiaswh 6y ago
  I've been using it as a daily driver for two years and don't understand what you're talking about. > bloated interface It looks almost exactly like Chrome to me. I have them side by side and the difference is barely noticeable. > word processor I assume you mean its note feature, which I know exists but has never once been used by me nor has it ever gotten in my way. > minigames If there are minigames I had no idea they existed. I'm fairly certain Chrome has some though. > All things work, but none of them work good. This isn't clear enough to be worth arguing against, but the only thing I'll point out that doesn't "work good" for me is the tab switching interface is sometimes slow and gets "caught" on the tab switching screen. Everything else is business as usual. > absolutely no tracking protection by default I'm not sure if they have ever claimed this, nor do I recall if it is enabled by default, but Vivaldi has a built in ad blocker, and you can still install Chrome extensions for additional protection. > I've found nothing about how their sync protocol works A quick search for "Vivaldi sync" turned up this: "You also need to pick an encryption password that is used for encrypting your data. Your encryption password is used locally on your computer for encrypting the data you’re about to send to our servers and to decrypt the received data. Your encryption password is never sent to us or any other third party, which ensures that we cannot decrypt your data." [0] (Also linked from the article you're commenting on.) Maybe that isn't the technical detail you're looking for but it's not "nothing." [0] https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/tools/sync/ https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/tools/sync/
  - Daho0n 6y ago
    Calender, mail and notes does not belong in a browser by default. It's bloat and attack vectors.
    - notatrumper 6y ago
      It doesn't have calendar or mail at the moment. Note taking is probably very simple. I am not sure if it lets you take notes per web site, or just in general. I'm not fully sold on "doesn't belong in browser" - arguably, it the browser is almost like an OS, it is not far fetched to ask for such features. I guess that is also what ChromeOS does.
    - 6y ago
- lucideer 6y ago
  > you get an absolutely bloated interface (or should I say OS-replacement?) This is basically the old Opera approach. Vivaldi was created by the Opera founders, is made up of ex-Opera staff, and has the goal of recreating an Opera 12-esque browser experience on top of the Chromium engine. If you liked Opera 12, you'll like their "bloated / OS-replacement" (also highly customisable, almost everything is removable) UI approach. If you didn't like Opera 12, you likely won't. If you haven't tried the latest snapshots you're in for a treat: the UI now bundles a full calendar and mail client :D I use Firefox as my daily driver today, but I was an Opera 12 user: the UI was bloated-by-default out of the box but the two important caveats were: (1) 100% customisability allowing you to streamline it easily, and (2) bloat never impacted performance at all (in fact Opera was the most performant browser back then for heavy tab use, even while the integrated mail client was indexing hundreds of incoming mails). I can see perf. being a bigger challenge for Vivaldi though since they have less control over the Chromium foundations... Curious to see how they get on with this. > I've found nothing about how their sync protocol works As far as I've seen they haven't released the source of their sync server[0] or protocol, but the mechanism seems similar enough to Chrome that they've likely stuck to using a similar protocol, just with their own server endpoint(s). It prompts me to use macOS keychain for sync encryption, as Chrome does, so this seems to strongly imply e2e. The internals UI[1] also gives some nice data for the curious. It shows e2e as being enabled for me, but it looks like it isn't always (possibly only newer versions of Vivaldi support e2e and they need some kind of backward compat.) [0] https://bifrost.vivaldi.com/ https://bifrost.vivaldi.com/ [1] vivaldi://sync-internals
  - mobilio 6y ago
    I still love Opera12
    - samoa42 6y ago
      same same "it's never quite the same as the first time you fall in love"
  - 32gbsd 6y ago
    Opera 12 is pretty good
- wnnzl 6y ago
  In one of my projects we used Google Hangouts as our main tool for video calls. I was using Vivaldi back then, it used to freeze whole browser once or twice a week, which was unacepptable when I was doing ie. demo of new version. Such freeze took few minutes to recover from, and the whole call was 30 min of length. After switching back to Safari problem was gone. So for me Vivaldi is big NO.
- veidr 6y ago
  My take on this is there are two common meanings of 'bloated'. One means 'too many features' (without impact on performance of other features). Maybe it makes things harder to figure out (though not necessarily). But it doesn't impact speed of execution, away from the bloat. The other is like a fat bloated human who just got finished eating way too much. Their belly distended, they find it hard to run or lift something heavy. They are slowed down. Vivaldi seems bloated in the first way, sure. It's like, a "wall of features". But it doesn't seem to me to be slow as a result. It seems faster than Chrome, Safari, or Firefox on my (macOS) main computer. True, I don't need most of the features. (But I love a few of them, such as the OmniWeb-style thumbnail tabs.) But I am not disadvantaged by them at all. I generally have 5-6 browsers open, and Vivaldi recently is usually among them. If it had in-built tracking protection (like Safari), or no-effort ad blocking (like Brave), it would probably be one of my "main" browsers.
krbzsq 6y ago
I actually tried Vivaldi the other day for the first time in a while, and every so often the browser frame/chrome just completely freezes on macOS. Tabs will not close, I couldn't open any new tabs etc. So it was a non-starter for me, hopefully this is an isolated issue. A bit of a shame because purely from a browser frame UI perspective I found it refreshing (however I do dislike the left/bottom bars). But one thing that irritated me is the right-click menu doesn't appear until you release the mouse rather than just when pressed. I do however acknowledge that's an entirely pedantic issue of personal preference.
- ryankrage77 6y ago
  > one thing that irritated me is the right-click menu doesn't appear until you release the mouse rather than just when pressed Firefox on Windows has the same behavior for me. Actually, Windows as a whole does this.
  - krbzsq 6y ago
    I haven't used Windows in any real capacity since the early days of Windows 7. As I say this is definitely a personal preference thing that i've likely picked up in recent years. It's just mildly annoying to me that every other browser I use has it on mouse press rather than release
  - TonyTrapp 6y ago
    This is how it should be - mouse actions trigger on releasing the button, not when pushing it. It allows the user to correct a mistake if they accidentally pressed the button, because they can move the mouse away from the clicked object and the action will not trigger. Many modern self-cooked UI systems seem to forget about this, it's just sad.
    - albertgoeswoof 6y ago
      Right click is different though, it shouldn't trigger an action in most cases, instead it should bring up a menu. The faster that comes up the better.
awicz 6y ago
I've been using Brave. I like it because it's not Google, but cannot comment on what's under the hood.
- easytiger 6y ago
  It's Chromium
- cheph 6y ago
  > I've been using Brave. I like it because it's not Google, but cannot comment on what's under the hood. It is just as much Google as Vivaldi is google because both uses Chromium.
  - dsissitka 6y ago
    It isn’t. For example, Brave has committed to supporting the web request API after Manifest V3 is released. Vivaldi is abandoning it.
    - fsflover 6y ago
      At some point supporting everything Google abandoned becomes too expensive. I wonder what happens with Brave then.
    - square_usual 6y ago
      Cynically speaking, it won't matter if Brave continues to support the web request API, since all the other chromium variants aren't going to be. Once the market for extensions is 99% unable to support an API, it won't matter if the remaining 1% still does; developers simply won't target it.
    - Ndymium 6y ago
      What's your source on Vivaldi abandoning it? Last I heard they hadn't chosen yet. If they go full Manifest V3 then I'll have to abandon my thoughts of returning to Vivaldi (on Firefox now but there are some annoyances).
TonyTrapp 6y ago
Firefox is my main browser, but I have Vivaldi installed for when I need to check if something works properly in Chromium. Having a vertical tab bar out of the box is my main motivation for that.
- samoa42 6y ago
  totally the same here. i cannot grasp why browsers abandoned the vertical-tab ui. is there something difficult about it?
mysterydip 6y ago
I was on a search for a good browser for an older machine that was lighter on resources. I tried vivaldi but ended up with SlimBrowser and have been happy so far with the experience.
netsharc 6y ago
One feature Vivaldi has that I can't live without is the tabs on the side, as the image shows: https://vivaldi.com/blog/tab-management-tricks-vivaldi/#1_View_titles_of_tabs_by_positioning_tabs_vertically https://vivaldi.com/blog/tab-management-tricks-vivaldi/#1_Vi... which makes a lot of sense since we mostly have widescreens and tab titles need to be readable - the alternative is to go for minimalism and not be a tab hoarder. Vivaldi also has a tab management panel where you can select multiple tabs and close them (it also lists the closed tabs if you want to reopen any), or bookmark all of them, etc. Edit to add: ah, #2 in link above is also another great feature: Hit F2 and get a Spotlight-esque search. If you have 100 tabs open in 4 windows and want to jump to a particular tab, you can hit F2 and type in part of the title, e.g. "Wikipedia", and it will suggest your open tabs which has "Wikipedia" as part of the title, as well as recently closed tabs.
- agotterer 6y ago
  I second the tabs on the side. This was the main reason I even gave Vivaldi a try. I’ve been using it daily for over two and a half years now. In addition to a lot of awesome features (one of my other favorites is side by side tabs), it’s a browser which treats me like an adult and gives me control over how it works. The configuration section can be overwhelming at times, but they provide a lot of knobs and switches to customize the browser how I want. I definitely recommend giving it a spin!
  - sanitycheck 6y ago
    Totally - vertical tab list, tiled tabs, "hibernate background tabs" and even a little note taking app with markdown and screenshot capability built in. My personal computers are also my work computers, so it's very handy to use Vivaldi for everything work-related. Chromium for testing, Firefox for personal (containers, noscript, and I trust Mozilla more).
  - gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
    > it’s a browser which treats me like an adult this is how I feel about Vivaldi too, and coincidentally about KDE as well
anhner 6y ago
No iOS version means a no go for me, since I like to use the same browser for mobile and desktop. There's a guy in their forums saying two years ago that "iPhone usage will drop to mac level usage (~8%)"[1], which is laughable. [1] https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/31772/mobile-vivaldi-for-ios?_=1610711668372&lang=en-US https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/31772/mobile-vivaldi-for-ios...
- someperson 6y ago
  Globally, Android has 85% market share, with iOS around 15% market share [1]. There are still billions users without smartphones in the world (especially in Africa and India), and most of them will be getting Android devices. [1] https://www.idc.com/promo/smartphone-market-share/os https://www.idc.com/promo/smartphone-market-share/os
  - marxplank0 6y ago
    >(especially in Africa and India) 77% of Indians use a smartphone, won't say billions
    - jefftk 6y ago
      The claim is that there are billions of users total without smartphones, not billions in each of Africa and India
  - anhner 6y ago
    I see different market share on statcounter[1], but both in their data and the one you provided, iOS usage has grown these past years [1] https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/mobile/worldwide/#monthly-201701-202012 https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/mobile/worldw...
- literallycancer 6y ago
  Apple only allows Safari reskins, doesn't it?
bennyp101 6y ago
I keep wanting to give it a good go, but I'm hooked on containers in Firefox (with cookie auto delete) which is a shame because FF just seems to be getting slower for me, and the dev tools have fallen behind Chrome IMO But I just feel happier having certain things always open in their own container, and not sharing cookies or anything with other ones - all my news sites are in one, banking in another etc I know they've said it's hard to do, and I don't doubt them, but until someone else implements containers I can't/won't move.
- cheph 6y ago
  > FF just seems to be getting slower It is a real pity, containers are awesome, one of the best new features in a browser for some time, but damn firefox is frustratingly slow.
  - bayindirh 6y ago
    I think the magic word is seems. My experience with Firefox got much faster after I installed a local DNSMasq server. Things got noticeably faster after that point. For details, see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21877330 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21877330 This comment was when I first installed DNSMasq on a very low powered OrangePi Zero (512MB) on home network. I worked a lot of kinks and this situation holds truer when compared to that time.
    - 2Gkashmiri 6y ago
      where does pihole fit with this dnsmasq? i am running a pihole on a pi zero wh and that has just worked. can a pihole do this?
      - bayindirh 6y ago
        I don't know which DNS server PiHole uses or whether it's configured to cache normal DNS queries too. The aim here is to minimize the DNS query turnaround time and reduce the latencies while opening a connection. When the network is working smoother, Firefox's performance goes up in a disproportional fashion. I didn't notice the same amount of improvement in other network bound stuff but, Firefox went from "meh" to "youjustdidwhat!?" after DNSMasq installation and modem change. Same thing also happened when I changed my modem 7-8 years ago after my venerable Alcatel Speedtouch died. So, in retrospect, modem chipset really plays a central role in your home network performance.
ReptileMan 6y ago
It's slow and hangs up/freezes quite a bit due to the exotic decision for the ui to be rendered on a common thread.
paulcarroty 6y ago
Closed source browser, skip it. Open source Brave still being a thing.
- lebaux 6y ago
  I love how people get their panties in the bunch over FOSS, yet they are completely fine with tomfoolery like their browser hijacking links and inserting their affiliate codes into them. I am talking about Brave. Skip it. https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2020/06/06/the-brave-web-browser-is-hijacking-links-and-inserting-affiliate-codes/ https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2020/06/06/the-brave-we...
  - paulcarroty 6y ago
    it was the bug, fixed same day.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Yizahi 6y ago
The question which need to be asked about Chrome clones and mods is not what additional features they have added or removed. That is still "addons" territory. The question which needs be asked - did you (developer) made any different decision at all about Google made decision. E.g. Google decides to abandon some protocol, or add support of some protocol, or whey decided to abandon some core option which adblockers depend on etc. Did you (developer) made a different decision at that point, forked code and maintain your decision independently from Google. Until that happens all the Chrome mods are just that - slightly lagging behind Chrome versions with addons.
- 32gbsd 6y ago
  This is the best explanation I have read so far. These people are offering candy flavours that will give us bad teeth.
- bitexploder 6y ago
  Chrome is a privacy nightmare. They push you hard to use a Google account and suck up your searches and private data. It’s an avoidable browser for privacy and a free Internet because if that alone.
  - literallycancer 6y ago
    You are supposed to use chromium
    - dvdgsng 6y ago
      As if ... take a look outside of your bubble, nobody besides us uses it.
- lebaux 6y ago
  > Google decides to abandon some protocol, or add support of some protocol, or whey decided to abandon some core option which adblockers depend on etc. They said if this scenario becomes reality, they will try to maintain the cut functions if they are indeed good for users. It is a tall order, but I worked/talked with couple of people from different departments and the company seems to maintain the user-centric spirit. I do not love the HN mentality - I do not like it = it is crap, because I am HN user and I know the best, but I never actually did more than skin deep inspection of the product, or googled my concerns... But I am most definitely capable of judging.
arendtio 6y ago
I like how they mention KHTML and Gecko/Quantum as it gives a good perspective, but I feel like the reasoning behind 'chromium' is the defacto internet standard is pretty weak. I mean, having one dominating browser engine is a sickness (it weakens the standards) and not something internet companies should embrace. But I understand their reasoning about resources.
samoa42 6y ago
A: it supports vertical tab-bar out of the box thou wish they'd put more effort into tab-grouping, the tabkit ff-plugin pushed this to perfection some time ago.
32gbsd 6y ago
I dont use anything chrome based out of principle. I am not a skin deep person. Fts. Too big to fork. Too big to even call it open source.
pcthrowaway 6y ago
Does Vivaldi have the option to always block all requests to a blacklist of domains? That would be a killer feature for me, which Chrome doesn't have.
- asdernr 6y ago
  Ehm hosts file?
  - samoa42 6y ago
    until chrome starts doing in-app doh by default and everyone else will be be drowned in captchas :-D
papito 6y ago
As much as I wanted to love Vivaldi, I had to go back to Opera. It's the Chrome engine wrapped into what I exactly want a browser to be.
browserthrow 6y ago
I interned at a company which makes Chromium mods tailored for a specific market (not Vivaldi), so AMA. In short what we did is pretty much the same thing as other Chromium mods: take the Chromium source and add a bunch of features on top of it. Some features that I could remember: * English dictionary / translator (our market's native language is not English) * Video downloader (includes Youtube) * Torrent client * Multithreaded downloading * Facebook unblocker. The company operates a bunch of proxy servers, and the browser can be remotely configured to proxy certain sites through those servers. Handy when the government decides to block Facebook/Medium/... * PIP video before Chrome has one * Sidebar
- lullibrulli2 6y ago
  Cool, I've used torch for quite some time ;) Was (probably is) a nice tool for downloading videos without youtube_dl.
  - browserthrow 6y ago
    Not Torch, but from their website we do share some features.
Fiveplus 6y ago
I was using Vivaldi when something needed to be done using Chromium. After MS updated Edge, it got an outstanding built-in text-to-speech engine, I couldn't find any more merit towards moving back to Vivaldi (since I love using that feature, it was a deal-maker). note: I'm already using a windows machine and am not much of a privacy evangelist. But, Vivaldi is an excellent browser with a neat feature set and I totally see its appeal to power users.
- traveler01 6y ago
  Tried it again and damn, they really improved it.
jccalhoun 6y ago
Am I the only one that has multiple browsers that you use regularly? Firefox is my main personal browser Chrome is on the second monitor with twitch and social networking sites Edge is my work browser Vivaldi is for my part time job I also keep Waterfox installed for the old version of video download helper which works on some videos the new version doesn't work on.
- bitexploder 6y ago
  Containers in Firefox make it so I don’t need other browsers to separate activities.
- tmslnz 6y ago
  You are not. Choosy OSX as the main browser. This is just a proxy to launch browsers depending on urls, not an actual browser. Chrome for Google Drive, Apps, whatever they call it today Firefox for Whatsapp + Facebook and for websites where I need multiple identities via containers (e.g. company & personal Amazon) Safari for everything else. There some overlap, but the main goal is to not be logged onto Google or Facebook in my main browser. I like to think my countermeasures work, but I am under no illusion that no one out there someone has a big fat fingerprint of mine. I also use Next DNS and often route my connection to a Wireguard VPS. Phew! Life's hard on the modern internet.
  - novaRom 6y ago
    All your countermeasures may not work unfortunately if your device can be fingerprinted uniquely despite your browsers choice, VPN, etc.
- qwerty456127 6y ago
  The most common reason to use multiple browsers is account isolation (to make tracking harder or to use multiple accounts, e.g. personal+work). At work I just use Firefox as it has handy containers feature built-in. My home laptop is too old and slow to run Firefox comfortably so I use Chrome and Chromium (with different visual styles configured - for easier visual distinction) as 2 separate "containers". I probably am going to start using Vivaldi when I need one more.
hobo_mark 6y ago
Just tried it and I quite like the ability to keep dedicated "web panels" open on the side, is there any way to do the same in Chrome?
literallycancer 6y ago
I got the impression that their developers mainly use Windows when I tried it on Linux. It wasn't possible to resize tab title font and the interface was nowhere near the responsiveness I remembered from Opera.
foolinaround 6y ago
Vivaldi should have explained what their business model is, and how that drove their architecture, choices, etc.
- chris_f 6y ago
  Agree. I went and looked how they monetize after reading the article [0] . Revenue comes from the below: 1. Search engine partners 2. Affiliate links on 'Start Page' [0] https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-business-model/ https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-business-model/
- ivanche 6y ago
  Already there https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-business-model/ https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-business-model/
_wka6 6y ago
Personally moved from using Firefox for the last 15yrs over to Brave after the Mozilla CEO called for further internet censorship this week. Sad.
- zapt02 6y ago
  This is a wild exaggeration, I suggest people read the post in question before parroting on disinformation: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2021/01/08/we-need-more-than-deplatforming/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2021/01/08/we-need-more-than-d...
  - richardARPANET 6y ago
    You sound like the parrot. "We need more than deplatforming" "Changing these dangerous dynamics requires more than just the temporary silencing or permanent removal of bad actors from social media platforms." Right from your link. Wake up.
  - valvar 6y ago
    Exactly how is it an exaggeration? I cannot fathom how anyone can not interpret that as a call for more censorship.
    - lucideer 6y ago
      There's 4 bullet points in that link. None of them are related to censorship. I can 100% understand how some people can conflate "deplatforming" with censorship (there is an argument to be made that they're the same thing), but this isn't calling for deplatforming. It specifically states: deplatforming has been done, but what we actually really need is these 4 extra (non-censorship-related) things. I'm curious to hear an explanation of how either of the following 4 things are censorship: 1. advertising transparency 2. selection algorithm transparency 3. algorithmic boosting of fact-checked sources 4. funding academic research into the impact of online platforms
      - infamia 6y ago
kevincox 6y ago
> Moreover, Chromium was becoming the de facto web standard meaning that if we wanted web pages to not break, we’d have to fork Chromium. This is why we need more users on non-Chrome browsers. I'm sad that Microsoft ditched Edge, and a major reason that I use Firefox is to keep Google from 100% control of the web (well I guess 95% of non-iPhone users). Vivaldi noted that this is a problem, but instead of helping they made it worse. "Not in my backyard" at its finest.
- majjgepolja 6y ago
  Sadly no one realizes such things that do not have an immediate effect, especially if it does not harm status quo. The only thing that can unseat chrome is competition from another well funded corporation, not some fringe activist MBAs who cannot keep engineering talent.
mixedCase 6y ago
Well it's closed source, so that makes it a non-starter as a platform to drive most of my Internet usage.
- TonyTrapp 6y ago
  While it doesn't have an OSI-approved license, its source seems to be available as snapshots: https://vivaldi.com/source/ https://vivaldi.com/source/
- lebaux 6y ago
  This was addressed https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-browser-open-source/ https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-browser-open-source/ TLDR: They are a business, and lot of FOSS projects get forked or raped by likes of Amazon. I love FOSS, but I understand they want to run a business. Big part of the product is open, but some parts are not deliberately. It might not be for you, and that is cool, pick what you want.
EwanToo 6y ago
For me, Vivaldi has the best vertical tabs implementation in a Chromium-based browser. I look forward to seeing how Edge tackles the same task. The user interface isn't perfect, but the tabs work well, the keyboard short-cuts work well, and you can install any of the Chrome extensions you want to ad-blocking, etc
BoppreH 6y ago
I've recently switched from Firefox to Vivaldi, for one reason: Firefox extensions must use javascript injection to capture keyboard shortcuts and mouse gestures. This basically kills all shortcuts+gestures that quickly change tabs, which is how I navigate 95% of the time. I was a big fan of Opera, so I decided to try Vivaldi, which has built-in features for this. After a few months I'm probably switching back again due to two problems: - Vivaldi runs a lot of stuff on the main UI thread, leading to unresponsive interfaces (try the History Panel with a large history, it takes several seconds to type each character in the search bar, and just having the panel open slows down every other tab). - The Android browser doesn't support extensions, and the ad-blocking is not as good as Firefox Mobile + uBlock Origin. If not for those two problems, I would keep it. It's a great browser and I admire its passion for its own power users.
- idoubtit 6y ago
  - My Vivaldi interface is responsive, YMMV. I just opened my History Panel, checked that several thousands of entries were present, then searched for various characters, then navigated in several tabs. Everything was instant. - Vivaldi Android has its own ad-blocking system. IIRC, it can load external lists. Though it has less features than uBlock Origin, it's enough for me. I prefer the desktop Vivaldi to other web browsers because of its features: - Vertical tab list - Mouse gestures (click-right-left to go back, down-up to duplicate a tab...) - Sane download manager (compared to Firefox) - The features above are native. No need for shady extensions (or clean extension that could become shady on a future upgrade). - More customization than most browsers (not counting the undocumented config of FF)
  - BoppreH 6y ago
    My history has hundreds of entries per day for two years (imported from Firefox). Opening the History Panel takes 6 seconds and the whole browser is completely unresponsive in the meantime. Your list of features is the same reason why I started using Vivaldi. I have a lot of respect for the team, and I'm glad to be using a tool that explicitly caters to power users too.
- jjordan 6y ago
quicksilver03 6y ago
It has a proper menu bar, that alone makes it a thousands times better than Chrome for me.
sim_card_map 6y ago
Can't trust a closed source browser.
MaxBarraclough 6y ago
> If you look closely, you’ll notice that no-one has built a new engine from scratch in 20 years. This seems a little dismissive of the Servo project.
- jefftk 6y ago
  And Flow: https://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2020/01/new_browser_on.html https://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2020/01/new_browser...
  - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
    Good point. Pity it's proprietary.
- idoubtit 6y ago
  > This seems a little dismissive of the Servo project. I disagree. The servo project has not (yet) "built a new engine from scratch". In fact it is very far from being a complete engine, if you look at their "Remainig Work" Page[^1]. BTW, last year, they focused on Virtual Reality, which isn't helpful to build a basic web engine. According to their roadmap[^2], they're not even sure of what their long-term target is: a new web browser or an embedable lib. [^1]: https://github.com/servo/servo/wiki/Remaining-work https://github.com/servo/servo/wiki/Remaining-work [^2] https://github.com/servo/servo/wiki/Roadmap https://github.com/servo/servo/wiki/Roadmap
kakalot 6y ago
What we can do in Vivaldi that I love - Quick commands popup (imagine Sublime Text/Visual Code Ctrl Shift P) - Keyboard shortcuts to do anything, especially to hide and show tab bar, hide and show address bar and even hide title bar - Ublock Origin works (compared to Safari) What stopped me using after a week - Energy consumption is toooo high (compared to using Firefox/Safari) that kept me close to the electric outlet.
loufe 6y ago
I used Vivaldi for almost two years before switching back to Firefox. I loved the amount of customization you are able to do through the GUI. I miss that a bit in Firefox but after Firefox and their great leap forward in speed won me back a couple years ago, I haven't looked back. I really wish Gecko / Quantum was an accessible and interesting alternative to Chromium.
ppeetteerr 6y ago
I didn't know much about Vivaldi prior to this post. Was happy to find a page on their blog explaining how they make their money: https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-business-model/ https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-business-model/
lazerl0rd 6y ago
> If you look closely, you’ll notice that no-one has built a new engine from scratch in 20 years. That's not true. Servo is new, which is where Mozilla are picking their changes to Gecko/Quantum from. These false blanket statements aren't convincing me to use Vivaldi at all. Sure it has it's fair share of issues, but it "works" to a degree and maybe it'll chug along enough to finally be used by 2022. Currently I'm using Ungoogled Chromium [1] on Windows and Bromite [2] on Android, but the latter will eventually be replaced with the former when I end up building Ungoogled Chromium TriChrome (it's a build mechanism for Android 10 and above to have a shared library package, as well as a WebView and browser package separately for Android). Ungoogled Chromium is great because it accomplishes all that Vivaldi does, except syncing, all the while keeping the nice UI of Chrome. I'm not a fan of syncing, so that doesn't matter to me. I used to use Firefox on desktop (prior to and after the Quantum update) but WebGPU was just way to slow for me and I switched to a Chromium-based application. [1] - https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium [2] - https://www.bromite.org https://www.bromite.org
- kodah 6y ago
  Linking to Servo: https://servo.org/ https://servo.org/ Their blog posts are an interesting read too.
- strogonoff 6y ago
  Do you find having to audit Ungoogled Chromium’s patches or trust its contributors (and whoever provides the binaries) a worthy tradeoff compared to having your browser communicate with Google servers? I don’t know whether Eloston is a notable figure in the community, but their GitHub profile links to a parked domain. Honest question. I am thinking of switching browsers and nothing looks appealing.
- dralley 6y ago
  I guess you need to qualify it with how complete the engine is. Servo definitely qualifies as a new engine but it's not really anywhere close to being "complete" and unfortunately now that the team was laid off from Mozilla development has really slowed down. You can donate to the project here: https://crowdfunding.lfx.linuxfoundation.org/projects/servo https://crowdfunding.lfx.linuxfoundation.org/projects/servo
kodah 6y ago
After reading various criticisms of Vivaldi and Firefox here I'm surprised no one has mentioned Brave. I use Brave and I've been enjoying it thoroughly. It's fast, it seems to take an earnest shot at security, and all my Chrome extensions work.
- fsflover 6y ago
  Nobody trusts Brave after they did this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23442027 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23442027
  - kodah 6y ago
    Ah, that makes sense! Sounds like they'll have to make up a lot of trust to users, assuming they have since changed their model or become more transparent.
skynet-9000 6y ago
It's great that we have all these choices for privacy-focused browsers. How does https://iridiumbrowser.de/ https://iridiumbrowser.de/ compare to https://brave.com https://brave.com and https://vivaldi.com https://vivaldi.com ? It seems like Iridium can install any Chrome plugins and is available in the normal repos for Debian/Ubuntu, FreeBSD, etc (as well as Windows/Mac), but it's not backed by a company (and the company's marketing dollars), so it might be even more privacy-focused. (I do see a lot more crashes with Iridium than Brave on a systemd-removed Debian-based system, however.)
- strogonoff 6y ago
  Iridium seems to be backed by a consulting business. I suppose your point is that it is not developed by an ad-driven company, which is fair.
ColinHayhurst 6y ago
Vivaldi certainly is a very different experience; the customisation options are very interesting and powerful. Since I like, and have, to use multiple broswers (mostly Vivaldi, Firefox and Brave) the customisation is a bit overwhelming. Were it my only browser I doubt that would be an issue. The "zero tracking" aspect aligns with our own values, as a search engine company. We are not a "partner" so this comment is not coloured by that. Vivaldi allows our search users to set up Mojeek and other search engines/services in fair way using codes; a bit like !bangs; shown here for Vivaldi search partners and Mojeek. https://blog.mojeek.com/2020/11/popping-your-filter-bubble-with-search.html https://blog.mojeek.com/2020/11/popping-your-filter-bubble-w...
branon 6y ago
Sorry, Vivaldi is not meaningfully open-source[0], so this makes it very difficult for me to care about any purported benefits it has to offer. Which is a shame because is seems like it has some nice features, but without checking this very important prerequisite box, I unfortunately will not even consider it. [0] https://vivaldi.com/source/ https://vivaldi.com/source/ exists but only releasing tarballs is pretty lame, there's no source repository where I can browse/fork, no public bug tracker where I can contribute to issue reports. A conventional, permissive, free-software license is not in use, as far as I can tell. Vivaldi wouldn't behave like any of the other software that runs on my computer. That's not good. I understand and appreciate that Vivaldi is different from Chrom(e|ium). That just doesn't make a difference to me.
overton 6y ago
I wish Firefox would consider adopting some of Vivaldi's best UX improvements instead of fiddling with the size of the ultramegabar and dropping TV show promos into updates. Vertical tabs is the one that most comes to mind. For people with many tabs open, tabs at the top is a completely broken experience. Tree style tabs is OK but it doesn't remove the redundant tabs at the top, cluttering the screen. Edit: If you want to compete for market share with chrome, this is a great way to do it! =)
novok 6y ago
I tried vivaldi, but found its slowness and the bugs in making it show a blank tab for new windows and tabs not worth it. Especially when its missing firefox’s container tabs
dzonga 6y ago
vivaldi is my daily driver both on windows n ubuntu. but damn, it can be slow at times. but in terms of ux it is unmatched.
Djon 6y ago
FIDO2 user ? 1. Downloaded browser 2. Login in Coinbase with FIDO2 compatible hardware key 3. Vivaldi doesn't recognize 4. Deleted browser All what you need to know
- Djon 6y ago
  UPD: Issue with FIDO, browsers working as expected
richajak 6y ago
Anyone has experience in running WPE as your daily driver in W10 laptop or Debian desktop or raspberry or Android phone? I want a further optimized webkit/chromium engine browser that uses less memory, more responsive, less ui clutter, no tracking, no extra features. I just want a simple browser. WPE claims to focus on embedded and low-consumption computer. Where can I get a nice optimized precompiled binary for the common platforms? I tried luakit in raspberry, very slow, even slower than default chromium. https://webkit.org/wpe/ https://webkit.org/wpe/

163 points by philonoist 6y ago

Why does most of the chromium based browser so ungrateful to them. Vivaldi doesn't mention Chromium in the homepage even once but has "Chrome vs Vivaldi" comparison in the homepage. At least they should mention it, and better contribute back to it, if the 99.9% of your product is based on open source project.

merlinscholz 6y ago

I've tried multiple times. Basically, you get an absolutely bloated interface (or should I say OS-replacement?), containing a word processor and minigames. All things work, but none of them work good. Also, absolutely no tracking protection by default, I've found nothing about how their sync protocol works (is it e2ee?), so I take their argument of "vivaldy is better for your privacy than Chrome" with a grain of salt.

alpaca128 6y ago
Same here. I've tried it at least once a year and it still has the same issues it had on day one. The UI is incredibly slow and has an input delay on most mouse inputs. I gave up on it when they introduced Philips Hue remote controls instead of fixing the overall user experience or adding features like bookmark & settings sync(Light controls don't have a place in a web browser, ever, unless it's an opt-in addon). The vast number of settings and features is great, but that's meaningless if the everyday browsing feels like using a bloated website on a Raspberry Pi.
- merlinscholz 6y ago
  I've read in another comment that they introduced mail and calendar tools and already was dumbfounded. But Philips Hue integration? At some point you just probably can replace gnome/kde/... With this "browser"
  - alpaca128 6y ago
    Yes, Vivaldi has this feature where the window borders change color based on the active website's color scheme. Then one day they decided to let the browser also connect to Hue lights so they can also change color in sync with the browser window. Now of course the devs can do what they want, but if they aim to compete with other browsers they have astounding priorities.
matthiaswh 6y ago
I've been using it as a daily driver for two years and don't understand what you're talking about. > bloated interface It looks almost exactly like Chrome to me. I have them side by side and the difference is barely noticeable. > word processor I assume you mean its note feature, which I know exists but has never once been used by me nor has it ever gotten in my way. > minigames If there are minigames I had no idea they existed. I'm fairly certain Chrome has some though. > All things work, but none of them work good. This isn't clear enough to be worth arguing against, but the only thing I'll point out that doesn't "work good" for me is the tab switching interface is sometimes slow and gets "caught" on the tab switching screen. Everything else is business as usual. > absolutely no tracking protection by default I'm not sure if they have ever claimed this, nor do I recall if it is enabled by default, but Vivaldi has a built in ad blocker, and you can still install Chrome extensions for additional protection. > I've found nothing about how their sync protocol works A quick search for "Vivaldi sync" turned up this: "You also need to pick an encryption password that is used for encrypting your data. Your encryption password is used locally on your computer for encrypting the data you’re about to send to our servers and to decrypt the received data. Your encryption password is never sent to us or any other third party, which ensures that we cannot decrypt your data." [0] (Also linked from the article you're commenting on.) Maybe that isn't the technical detail you're looking for but it's not "nothing." [0] https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/tools/sync/ https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/tools/sync/
- Daho0n 6y ago
  Calender, mail and notes does not belong in a browser by default. It's bloat and attack vectors.
  - notatrumper 6y ago
    It doesn't have calendar or mail at the moment. Note taking is probably very simple. I am not sure if it lets you take notes per web site, or just in general. I'm not fully sold on "doesn't belong in browser" - arguably, it the browser is almost like an OS, it is not far fetched to ask for such features. I guess that is also what ChromeOS does.
  - 6y ago
lucideer 6y ago
> you get an absolutely bloated interface (or should I say OS-replacement?) This is basically the old Opera approach. Vivaldi was created by the Opera founders, is made up of ex-Opera staff, and has the goal of recreating an Opera 12-esque browser experience on top of the Chromium engine. If you liked Opera 12, you'll like their "bloated / OS-replacement" (also highly customisable, almost everything is removable) UI approach. If you didn't like Opera 12, you likely won't. If you haven't tried the latest snapshots you're in for a treat: the UI now bundles a full calendar and mail client :D I use Firefox as my daily driver today, but I was an Opera 12 user: the UI was bloated-by-default out of the box but the two important caveats were: (1) 100% customisability allowing you to streamline it easily, and (2) bloat never impacted performance at all (in fact Opera was the most performant browser back then for heavy tab use, even while the integrated mail client was indexing hundreds of incoming mails). I can see perf. being a bigger challenge for Vivaldi though since they have less control over the Chromium foundations... Curious to see how they get on with this. > I've found nothing about how their sync protocol works As far as I've seen they haven't released the source of their sync server[0] or protocol, but the mechanism seems similar enough to Chrome that they've likely stuck to using a similar protocol, just with their own server endpoint(s). It prompts me to use macOS keychain for sync encryption, as Chrome does, so this seems to strongly imply e2e. The internals UI[1] also gives some nice data for the curious. It shows e2e as being enabled for me, but it looks like it isn't always (possibly only newer versions of Vivaldi support e2e and they need some kind of backward compat.) [0] https://bifrost.vivaldi.com/ https://bifrost.vivaldi.com/ [1] vivaldi://sync-internals
- mobilio 6y ago
  I still love Opera12
  - samoa42 6y ago
    same same "it's never quite the same as the first time you fall in love"
- 32gbsd 6y ago
  Opera 12 is pretty good
wnnzl 6y ago
In one of my projects we used Google Hangouts as our main tool for video calls. I was using Vivaldi back then, it used to freeze whole browser once or twice a week, which was unacepptable when I was doing ie. demo of new version. Such freeze took few minutes to recover from, and the whole call was 30 min of length. After switching back to Safari problem was gone. So for me Vivaldi is big NO.
veidr 6y ago
My take on this is there are two common meanings of 'bloated'. One means 'too many features' (without impact on performance of other features). Maybe it makes things harder to figure out (though not necessarily). But it doesn't impact speed of execution, away from the bloat. The other is like a fat bloated human who just got finished eating way too much. Their belly distended, they find it hard to run or lift something heavy. They are slowed down. Vivaldi seems bloated in the first way, sure. It's like, a "wall of features". But it doesn't seem to me to be slow as a result. It seems faster than Chrome, Safari, or Firefox on my (macOS) main computer. True, I don't need most of the features. (But I love a few of them, such as the OmniWeb-style thumbnail tabs.) But I am not disadvantaged by them at all. I generally have 5-6 browsers open, and Vivaldi recently is usually among them. If it had in-built tracking protection (like Safari), or no-effort ad blocking (like Brave), it would probably be one of my "main" browsers.

krbzsq 6y ago

I actually tried Vivaldi the other day for the first time in a while, and every so often the browser frame/chrome just completely freezes on macOS. Tabs will not close, I couldn't open any new tabs etc. So it was a non-starter for me, hopefully this is an isolated issue. A bit of a shame because purely from a browser frame UI perspective I found it refreshing (however I do dislike the left/bottom bars). But one thing that irritated me is the right-click menu doesn't appear until you release the mouse rather than just when pressed. I do however acknowledge that's an entirely pedantic issue of personal preference.

ryankrage77 6y ago
> one thing that irritated me is the right-click menu doesn't appear until you release the mouse rather than just when pressed Firefox on Windows has the same behavior for me. Actually, Windows as a whole does this.
- krbzsq 6y ago
  I haven't used Windows in any real capacity since the early days of Windows 7. As I say this is definitely a personal preference thing that i've likely picked up in recent years. It's just mildly annoying to me that every other browser I use has it on mouse press rather than release
- TonyTrapp 6y ago
  This is how it should be - mouse actions trigger on releasing the button, not when pushing it. It allows the user to correct a mistake if they accidentally pressed the button, because they can move the mouse away from the clicked object and the action will not trigger. Many modern self-cooked UI systems seem to forget about this, it's just sad.
  - albertgoeswoof 6y ago
    Right click is different though, it shouldn't trigger an action in most cases, instead it should bring up a menu. The faster that comes up the better.

awicz 6y ago

I've been using Brave. I like it because it's not Google, but cannot comment on what's under the hood.

easytiger 6y ago
It's Chromium
cheph 6y ago
> I've been using Brave. I like it because it's not Google, but cannot comment on what's under the hood. It is just as much Google as Vivaldi is google because both uses Chromium.
- dsissitka 6y ago
  It isn’t. For example, Brave has committed to supporting the web request API after Manifest V3 is released. Vivaldi is abandoning it.
  - fsflover 6y ago
    At some point supporting everything Google abandoned becomes too expensive. I wonder what happens with Brave then.
  - square_usual 6y ago
    Cynically speaking, it won't matter if Brave continues to support the web request API, since all the other chromium variants aren't going to be. Once the market for extensions is 99% unable to support an API, it won't matter if the remaining 1% still does; developers simply won't target it.
  - Ndymium 6y ago
    What's your source on Vivaldi abandoning it? Last I heard they hadn't chosen yet. If they go full Manifest V3 then I'll have to abandon my thoughts of returning to Vivaldi (on Firefox now but there are some annoyances).

TonyTrapp 6y ago

Firefox is my main browser, but I have Vivaldi installed for when I need to check if something works properly in Chromium. Having a vertical tab bar out of the box is my main motivation for that.

samoa42 6y ago
totally the same here. i cannot grasp why browsers abandoned the vertical-tab ui. is there something difficult about it?

mysterydip 6y ago

I was on a search for a good browser for an older machine that was lighter on resources. I tried vivaldi but ended up with SlimBrowser and have been happy so far with the experience.

netsharc 6y ago

One feature Vivaldi has that I can't live without is the tabs on the side, as the image shows: https://vivaldi.com/blog/tab-management-tricks-vivaldi/#1_View_titles_of_tabs_by_positioning_tabs_vertically https://vivaldi.com/blog/tab-management-tricks-vivaldi/#1_Vi... which makes a lot of sense since we mostly have widescreens and tab titles need to be readable - the alternative is to go for minimalism and not be a tab hoarder. Vivaldi also has a tab management panel where you can select multiple tabs and close them (it also lists the closed tabs if you want to reopen any), or bookmark all of them, etc. Edit to add: ah, #2 in link above is also another great feature: Hit F2 and get a Spotlight-esque search. If you have 100 tabs open in 4 windows and want to jump to a particular tab, you can hit F2 and type in part of the title, e.g. "Wikipedia", and it will suggest your open tabs which has "Wikipedia" as part of the title, as well as recently closed tabs.

agotterer 6y ago
I second the tabs on the side. This was the main reason I even gave Vivaldi a try. I’ve been using it daily for over two and a half years now. In addition to a lot of awesome features (one of my other favorites is side by side tabs), it’s a browser which treats me like an adult and gives me control over how it works. The configuration section can be overwhelming at times, but they provide a lot of knobs and switches to customize the browser how I want. I definitely recommend giving it a spin!
- sanitycheck 6y ago
  Totally - vertical tab list, tiled tabs, "hibernate background tabs" and even a little note taking app with markdown and screenshot capability built in. My personal computers are also my work computers, so it's very handy to use Vivaldi for everything work-related. Chromium for testing, Firefox for personal (containers, noscript, and I trust Mozilla more).
- gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
  > it’s a browser which treats me like an adult this is how I feel about Vivaldi too, and coincidentally about KDE as well

anhner 6y ago

No iOS version means a no go for me, since I like to use the same browser for mobile and desktop. There's a guy in their forums saying two years ago that "iPhone usage will drop to mac level usage (~8%)"[1], which is laughable. [1] https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/31772/mobile-vivaldi-for-ios?_=1610711668372&lang=en-US https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/31772/mobile-vivaldi-for-ios...

someperson 6y ago
Globally, Android has 85% market share, with iOS around 15% market share [1]. There are still billions users without smartphones in the world (especially in Africa and India), and most of them will be getting Android devices. [1] https://www.idc.com/promo/smartphone-market-share/os https://www.idc.com/promo/smartphone-market-share/os
- marxplank0 6y ago
  >(especially in Africa and India) 77% of Indians use a smartphone, won't say billions
  - jefftk 6y ago
    The claim is that there are billions of users total without smartphones, not billions in each of Africa and India
- anhner 6y ago
  I see different market share on statcounter[1], but both in their data and the one you provided, iOS usage has grown these past years [1] https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/mobile/worldwide/#monthly-201701-202012 https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/mobile/worldw...
literallycancer 6y ago
Apple only allows Safari reskins, doesn't it?

bennyp101 6y ago

I keep wanting to give it a good go, but I'm hooked on containers in Firefox (with cookie auto delete) which is a shame because FF just seems to be getting slower for me, and the dev tools have fallen behind Chrome IMO But I just feel happier having certain things always open in their own container, and not sharing cookies or anything with other ones - all my news sites are in one, banking in another etc I know they've said it's hard to do, and I don't doubt them, but until someone else implements containers I can't/won't move.

cheph 6y ago
> FF just seems to be getting slower It is a real pity, containers are awesome, one of the best new features in a browser for some time, but damn firefox is frustratingly slow.
- bayindirh 6y ago
  I think the magic word is seems. My experience with Firefox got much faster after I installed a local DNSMasq server. Things got noticeably faster after that point. For details, see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21877330 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21877330 This comment was when I first installed DNSMasq on a very low powered OrangePi Zero (512MB) on home network. I worked a lot of kinks and this situation holds truer when compared to that time.
  - 2Gkashmiri 6y ago
    where does pihole fit with this dnsmasq? i am running a pihole on a pi zero wh and that has just worked. can a pihole do this?
    - bayindirh 6y ago
      I don't know which DNS server PiHole uses or whether it's configured to cache normal DNS queries too. The aim here is to minimize the DNS query turnaround time and reduce the latencies while opening a connection. When the network is working smoother, Firefox's performance goes up in a disproportional fashion. I didn't notice the same amount of improvement in other network bound stuff but, Firefox went from "meh" to "youjustdidwhat!?" after DNSMasq installation and modem change. Same thing also happened when I changed my modem 7-8 years ago after my venerable Alcatel Speedtouch died. So, in retrospect, modem chipset really plays a central role in your home network performance.

ReptileMan 6y ago

It's slow and hangs up/freezes quite a bit due to the exotic decision for the ui to be rendered on a common thread.

paulcarroty 6y ago

Closed source browser, skip it. Open source Brave still being a thing.

lebaux 6y ago
I love how people get their panties in the bunch over FOSS, yet they are completely fine with tomfoolery like their browser hijacking links and inserting their affiliate codes into them. I am talking about Brave. Skip it. https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2020/06/06/the-brave-web-browser-is-hijacking-links-and-inserting-affiliate-codes/ https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2020/06/06/the-brave-we...
- paulcarroty 6y ago
  it was the bug, fixed same day.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Yizahi 6y ago

The question which need to be asked about Chrome clones and mods is not what additional features they have added or removed. That is still "addons" territory. The question which needs be asked - did you (developer) made any different decision at all about Google made decision. E.g. Google decides to abandon some protocol, or add support of some protocol, or whey decided to abandon some core option which adblockers depend on etc. Did you (developer) made a different decision at that point, forked code and maintain your decision independently from Google. Until that happens all the Chrome mods are just that - slightly lagging behind Chrome versions with addons.

32gbsd 6y ago
This is the best explanation I have read so far. These people are offering candy flavours that will give us bad teeth.
bitexploder 6y ago
Chrome is a privacy nightmare. They push you hard to use a Google account and suck up your searches and private data. It’s an avoidable browser for privacy and a free Internet because if that alone.
- literallycancer 6y ago
  You are supposed to use chromium
  - dvdgsng 6y ago
    As if ... take a look outside of your bubble, nobody besides us uses it.
lebaux 6y ago
> Google decides to abandon some protocol, or add support of some protocol, or whey decided to abandon some core option which adblockers depend on etc. They said if this scenario becomes reality, they will try to maintain the cut functions if they are indeed good for users. It is a tall order, but I worked/talked with couple of people from different departments and the company seems to maintain the user-centric spirit. I do not love the HN mentality - I do not like it = it is crap, because I am HN user and I know the best, but I never actually did more than skin deep inspection of the product, or googled my concerns... But I am most definitely capable of judging.

arendtio 6y ago

I like how they mention KHTML and Gecko/Quantum as it gives a good perspective, but I feel like the reasoning behind 'chromium' is the defacto internet standard is pretty weak. I mean, having one dominating browser engine is a sickness (it weakens the standards) and not something internet companies should embrace. But I understand their reasoning about resources.

samoa42 6y ago

A: it supports vertical tab-bar out of the box thou wish they'd put more effort into tab-grouping, the tabkit ff-plugin pushed this to perfection some time ago.

32gbsd 6y ago

I dont use anything chrome based out of principle. I am not a skin deep person. Fts. Too big to fork. Too big to even call it open source.

pcthrowaway 6y ago

Does Vivaldi have the option to always block all requests to a blacklist of domains? That would be a killer feature for me, which Chrome doesn't have.

asdernr 6y ago
Ehm hosts file?
- samoa42 6y ago
  until chrome starts doing in-app doh by default and everyone else will be be drowned in captchas :-D

papito 6y ago

As much as I wanted to love Vivaldi, I had to go back to Opera. It's the Chrome engine wrapped into what I exactly want a browser to be.

browserthrow 6y ago

I interned at a company which makes Chromium mods tailored for a specific market (not Vivaldi), so AMA. In short what we did is pretty much the same thing as other Chromium mods: take the Chromium source and add a bunch of features on top of it. Some features that I could remember: * English dictionary / translator (our market's native language is not English) * Video downloader (includes Youtube) * Torrent client * Multithreaded downloading * Facebook unblocker. The company operates a bunch of proxy servers, and the browser can be remotely configured to proxy certain sites through those servers. Handy when the government decides to block Facebook/Medium/... * PIP video before Chrome has one * Sidebar

lullibrulli2 6y ago
Cool, I've used torch for quite some time ;) Was (probably is) a nice tool for downloading videos without youtube_dl.
- browserthrow 6y ago
  Not Torch, but from their website we do share some features.

Fiveplus 6y ago

I was using Vivaldi when something needed to be done using Chromium. After MS updated Edge, it got an outstanding built-in text-to-speech engine, I couldn't find any more merit towards moving back to Vivaldi (since I love using that feature, it was a deal-maker). note: I'm already using a windows machine and am not much of a privacy evangelist. But, Vivaldi is an excellent browser with a neat feature set and I totally see its appeal to power users.

traveler01 6y ago
Tried it again and damn, they really improved it.

jccalhoun 6y ago

Am I the only one that has multiple browsers that you use regularly? Firefox is my main personal browser Chrome is on the second monitor with twitch and social networking sites Edge is my work browser Vivaldi is for my part time job I also keep Waterfox installed for the old version of video download helper which works on some videos the new version doesn't work on.

bitexploder 6y ago
Containers in Firefox make it so I don’t need other browsers to separate activities.
tmslnz 6y ago
You are not. Choosy OSX as the main browser. This is just a proxy to launch browsers depending on urls, not an actual browser. Chrome for Google Drive, Apps, whatever they call it today Firefox for Whatsapp + Facebook and for websites where I need multiple identities via containers (e.g. company & personal Amazon) Safari for everything else. There some overlap, but the main goal is to not be logged onto Google or Facebook in my main browser. I like to think my countermeasures work, but I am under no illusion that no one out there someone has a big fat fingerprint of mine. I also use Next DNS and often route my connection to a Wireguard VPS. Phew! Life's hard on the modern internet.
- novaRom 6y ago
  All your countermeasures may not work unfortunately if your device can be fingerprinted uniquely despite your browsers choice, VPN, etc.
qwerty456127 6y ago
The most common reason to use multiple browsers is account isolation (to make tracking harder or to use multiple accounts, e.g. personal+work). At work I just use Firefox as it has handy containers feature built-in. My home laptop is too old and slow to run Firefox comfortably so I use Chrome and Chromium (with different visual styles configured - for easier visual distinction) as 2 separate "containers". I probably am going to start using Vivaldi when I need one more.

hobo_mark 6y ago

Just tried it and I quite like the ability to keep dedicated "web panels" open on the side, is there any way to do the same in Chrome?

literallycancer 6y ago

I got the impression that their developers mainly use Windows when I tried it on Linux. It wasn't possible to resize tab title font and the interface was nowhere near the responsiveness I remembered from Opera.

foolinaround 6y ago

Vivaldi should have explained what their business model is, and how that drove their architecture, choices, etc.

chris_f 6y ago
Agree. I went and looked how they monetize after reading the article [0] . Revenue comes from the below: 1. Search engine partners 2. Affiliate links on 'Start Page' [0] https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-business-model/ https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-business-model/
ivanche 6y ago
Already there https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-business-model/ https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-business-model/

_wka6 6y ago

Personally moved from using Firefox for the last 15yrs over to Brave after the Mozilla CEO called for further internet censorship this week. Sad.

zapt02 6y ago
This is a wild exaggeration, I suggest people read the post in question before parroting on disinformation: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2021/01/08/we-need-more-than-deplatforming/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2021/01/08/we-need-more-than-d...
- richardARPANET 6y ago
  You sound like the parrot. "We need more than deplatforming" "Changing these dangerous dynamics requires more than just the temporary silencing or permanent removal of bad actors from social media platforms." Right from your link. Wake up.
- valvar 6y ago
  Exactly how is it an exaggeration? I cannot fathom how anyone can not interpret that as a call for more censorship.
  - lucideer 6y ago
    There's 4 bullet points in that link. None of them are related to censorship. I can 100% understand how some people can conflate "deplatforming" with censorship (there is an argument to be made that they're the same thing), but this isn't calling for deplatforming. It specifically states: deplatforming has been done, but what we actually really need is these 4 extra (non-censorship-related) things. I'm curious to hear an explanation of how either of the following 4 things are censorship: 1. advertising transparency 2. selection algorithm transparency 3. algorithmic boosting of fact-checked sources 4. funding academic research into the impact of online platforms
    - infamia 6y ago

kevincox 6y ago

> Moreover, Chromium was becoming the de facto web standard meaning that if we wanted web pages to not break, we’d have to fork Chromium. This is why we need more users on non-Chrome browsers. I'm sad that Microsoft ditched Edge, and a major reason that I use Firefox is to keep Google from 100% control of the web (well I guess 95% of non-iPhone users). Vivaldi noted that this is a problem, but instead of helping they made it worse. "Not in my backyard" at its finest.

majjgepolja 6y ago
Sadly no one realizes such things that do not have an immediate effect, especially if it does not harm status quo. The only thing that can unseat chrome is competition from another well funded corporation, not some fringe activist MBAs who cannot keep engineering talent.

mixedCase 6y ago

Well it's closed source, so that makes it a non-starter as a platform to drive most of my Internet usage.

TonyTrapp 6y ago
While it doesn't have an OSI-approved license, its source seems to be available as snapshots: https://vivaldi.com/source/ https://vivaldi.com/source/
lebaux 6y ago
This was addressed https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-browser-open-source/ https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-browser-open-source/ TLDR: They are a business, and lot of FOSS projects get forked or raped by likes of Amazon. I love FOSS, but I understand they want to run a business. Big part of the product is open, but some parts are not deliberately. It might not be for you, and that is cool, pick what you want.

EwanToo 6y ago

For me, Vivaldi has the best vertical tabs implementation in a Chromium-based browser. I look forward to seeing how Edge tackles the same task. The user interface isn't perfect, but the tabs work well, the keyboard short-cuts work well, and you can install any of the Chrome extensions you want to ad-blocking, etc

BoppreH 6y ago

I've recently switched from Firefox to Vivaldi, for one reason: Firefox extensions must use javascript injection to capture keyboard shortcuts and mouse gestures. This basically kills all shortcuts+gestures that quickly change tabs, which is how I navigate 95% of the time. I was a big fan of Opera, so I decided to try Vivaldi, which has built-in features for this. After a few months I'm probably switching back again due to two problems: - Vivaldi runs a lot of stuff on the main UI thread, leading to unresponsive interfaces (try the History Panel with a large history, it takes several seconds to type each character in the search bar, and just having the panel open slows down every other tab). - The Android browser doesn't support extensions, and the ad-blocking is not as good as Firefox Mobile + uBlock Origin. If not for those two problems, I would keep it. It's a great browser and I admire its passion for its own power users.

idoubtit 6y ago
- My Vivaldi interface is responsive, YMMV. I just opened my History Panel, checked that several thousands of entries were present, then searched for various characters, then navigated in several tabs. Everything was instant. - Vivaldi Android has its own ad-blocking system. IIRC, it can load external lists. Though it has less features than uBlock Origin, it's enough for me. I prefer the desktop Vivaldi to other web browsers because of its features: - Vertical tab list - Mouse gestures (click-right-left to go back, down-up to duplicate a tab...) - Sane download manager (compared to Firefox) - The features above are native. No need for shady extensions (or clean extension that could become shady on a future upgrade). - More customization than most browsers (not counting the undocumented config of FF)
- BoppreH 6y ago
  My history has hundreds of entries per day for two years (imported from Firefox). Opening the History Panel takes 6 seconds and the whole browser is completely unresponsive in the meantime. Your list of features is the same reason why I started using Vivaldi. I have a lot of respect for the team, and I'm glad to be using a tool that explicitly caters to power users too.
jjordan 6y ago

quicksilver03 6y ago

It has a proper menu bar, that alone makes it a thousands times better than Chrome for me.

sim_card_map 6y ago

Can't trust a closed source browser.

MaxBarraclough 6y ago

> If you look closely, you’ll notice that no-one has built a new engine from scratch in 20 years. This seems a little dismissive of the Servo project.

jefftk 6y ago
And Flow: https://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2020/01/new_browser_on.html https://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2020/01/new_browser...
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  Good point. Pity it's proprietary.
idoubtit 6y ago
> This seems a little dismissive of the Servo project. I disagree. The servo project has not (yet) "built a new engine from scratch". In fact it is very far from being a complete engine, if you look at their "Remainig Work" Page[^1]. BTW, last year, they focused on Virtual Reality, which isn't helpful to build a basic web engine. According to their roadmap[^2], they're not even sure of what their long-term target is: a new web browser or an embedable lib. [^1]: https://github.com/servo/servo/wiki/Remaining-work https://github.com/servo/servo/wiki/Remaining-work [^2] https://github.com/servo/servo/wiki/Roadmap https://github.com/servo/servo/wiki/Roadmap

kakalot 6y ago

What we can do in Vivaldi that I love - Quick commands popup (imagine Sublime Text/Visual Code Ctrl Shift P) - Keyboard shortcuts to do anything, especially to hide and show tab bar, hide and show address bar and even hide title bar - Ublock Origin works (compared to Safari) What stopped me using after a week - Energy consumption is toooo high (compared to using Firefox/Safari) that kept me close to the electric outlet.

loufe 6y ago

I used Vivaldi for almost two years before switching back to Firefox. I loved the amount of customization you are able to do through the GUI. I miss that a bit in Firefox but after Firefox and their great leap forward in speed won me back a couple years ago, I haven't looked back. I really wish Gecko / Quantum was an accessible and interesting alternative to Chromium.

ppeetteerr 6y ago

I didn't know much about Vivaldi prior to this post. Was happy to find a page on their blog explaining how they make their money: https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-business-model/ https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-business-model/

lazerl0rd 6y ago

> If you look closely, you’ll notice that no-one has built a new engine from scratch in 20 years. That's not true. Servo is new, which is where Mozilla are picking their changes to Gecko/Quantum from. These false blanket statements aren't convincing me to use Vivaldi at all. Sure it has it's fair share of issues, but it "works" to a degree and maybe it'll chug along enough to finally be used by 2022. Currently I'm using Ungoogled Chromium [1] on Windows and Bromite [2] on Android, but the latter will eventually be replaced with the former when I end up building Ungoogled Chromium TriChrome (it's a build mechanism for Android 10 and above to have a shared library package, as well as a WebView and browser package separately for Android). Ungoogled Chromium is great because it accomplishes all that Vivaldi does, except syncing, all the while keeping the nice UI of Chrome. I'm not a fan of syncing, so that doesn't matter to me. I used to use Firefox on desktop (prior to and after the Quantum update) but WebGPU was just way to slow for me and I switched to a Chromium-based application. [1] - https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium [2] - https://www.bromite.org https://www.bromite.org

kodah 6y ago
Linking to Servo: https://servo.org/ https://servo.org/ Their blog posts are an interesting read too.
strogonoff 6y ago
Do you find having to audit Ungoogled Chromium’s patches or trust its contributors (and whoever provides the binaries) a worthy tradeoff compared to having your browser communicate with Google servers? I don’t know whether Eloston is a notable figure in the community, but their GitHub profile links to a parked domain. Honest question. I am thinking of switching browsers and nothing looks appealing.
dralley 6y ago
I guess you need to qualify it with how complete the engine is. Servo definitely qualifies as a new engine but it's not really anywhere close to being "complete" and unfortunately now that the team was laid off from Mozilla development has really slowed down. You can donate to the project here: https://crowdfunding.lfx.linuxfoundation.org/projects/servo https://crowdfunding.lfx.linuxfoundation.org/projects/servo

kodah 6y ago

After reading various criticisms of Vivaldi and Firefox here I'm surprised no one has mentioned Brave. I use Brave and I've been enjoying it thoroughly. It's fast, it seems to take an earnest shot at security, and all my Chrome extensions work.

fsflover 6y ago
Nobody trusts Brave after they did this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23442027 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23442027
- kodah 6y ago
  Ah, that makes sense! Sounds like they'll have to make up a lot of trust to users, assuming they have since changed their model or become more transparent.

skynet-9000 6y ago

It's great that we have all these choices for privacy-focused browsers. How does https://iridiumbrowser.de/ https://iridiumbrowser.de/ compare to https://brave.com https://brave.com and https://vivaldi.com https://vivaldi.com ? It seems like Iridium can install any Chrome plugins and is available in the normal repos for Debian/Ubuntu, FreeBSD, etc (as well as Windows/Mac), but it's not backed by a company (and the company's marketing dollars), so it might be even more privacy-focused. (I do see a lot more crashes with Iridium than Brave on a systemd-removed Debian-based system, however.)

strogonoff 6y ago
Iridium seems to be backed by a consulting business. I suppose your point is that it is not developed by an ad-driven company, which is fair.

ColinHayhurst 6y ago

Vivaldi certainly is a very different experience; the customisation options are very interesting and powerful. Since I like, and have, to use multiple broswers (mostly Vivaldi, Firefox and Brave) the customisation is a bit overwhelming. Were it my only browser I doubt that would be an issue. The "zero tracking" aspect aligns with our own values, as a search engine company. We are not a "partner" so this comment is not coloured by that. Vivaldi allows our search users to set up Mojeek and other search engines/services in fair way using codes; a bit like !bangs; shown here for Vivaldi search partners and Mojeek. https://blog.mojeek.com/2020/11/popping-your-filter-bubble-with-search.html https://blog.mojeek.com/2020/11/popping-your-filter-bubble-w...

branon 6y ago

Sorry, Vivaldi is not meaningfully open-source[0], so this makes it very difficult for me to care about any purported benefits it has to offer. Which is a shame because is seems like it has some nice features, but without checking this very important prerequisite box, I unfortunately will not even consider it. [0] https://vivaldi.com/source/ https://vivaldi.com/source/ exists but only releasing tarballs is pretty lame, there's no source repository where I can browse/fork, no public bug tracker where I can contribute to issue reports. A conventional, permissive, free-software license is not in use, as far as I can tell. Vivaldi wouldn't behave like any of the other software that runs on my computer. That's not good. I understand and appreciate that Vivaldi is different from Chrom(e|ium). That just doesn't make a difference to me.

overton 6y ago

I wish Firefox would consider adopting some of Vivaldi's best UX improvements instead of fiddling with the size of the ultramegabar and dropping TV show promos into updates. Vertical tabs is the one that most comes to mind. For people with many tabs open, tabs at the top is a completely broken experience. Tree style tabs is OK but it doesn't remove the redundant tabs at the top, cluttering the screen. Edit: If you want to compete for market share with chrome, this is a great way to do it! =)

novok 6y ago

I tried vivaldi, but found its slowness and the bugs in making it show a blank tab for new windows and tabs not worth it. Especially when its missing firefox’s container tabs

dzonga 6y ago

vivaldi is my daily driver both on windows n ubuntu. but damn, it can be slow at times. but in terms of ux it is unmatched.

Djon 6y ago

FIDO2 user ? 1. Downloaded browser 2. Login in Coinbase with FIDO2 compatible hardware key 3. Vivaldi doesn't recognize 4. Deleted browser All what you need to know

Djon 6y ago
UPD: Issue with FIDO, browsers working as expected

richajak 6y ago

Anyone has experience in running WPE as your daily driver in W10 laptop or Debian desktop or raspberry or Android phone? I want a further optimized webkit/chromium engine browser that uses less memory, more responsive, less ui clutter, no tracking, no extra features. I just want a simple browser. WPE claims to focus on embedded and low-consumption computer. Where can I get a nice optimized precompiled binary for the common platforms? I tried luakit in raspberry, very slow, even slower than default chromium. https://webkit.org/wpe/ https://webkit.org/wpe/