Technology

Yeah, it's a good Chromium browser. I used it for a few years before switching to Firefox browsers. If you have to use Chromium, I'd recommend it. If you can though Firefox has been far more enjoyable (I'm using Zen currently).

I'm on librewolf just now having used vivaldi for about three years as my daily. Great browser, I just fancied swapping the chromium problems for gecko problems for a while :D

And for people like me with a problem closing tabs, the memory management is excellent, killing off anything that hasn't been used in a while.

It's my secondary browser. Pretty much just for HDR on YouTube. Firefox still can't do it.

got rid of it after i realised its more work to disable every new feature that just gets in the way.

I’m the inverse. The amount of customization and power user features are what makes it my daily driver, though I agree the reliance on Google isn’t good. Also having their sync data stored e2e encrypted with my own private key is a nice touch. Though if a heavily customizable fork of Firefox with features like that was available I’d likely switch. I don’t have the time to maintain a highly customized userchrome.css that could break with every update, unfortunately

They have improved the UI quite a lot recently imo.

just as "most users" don't want ai baked into their browser, "most users" probably don't use any addons, or use only one--an adblocker. ad blocking (with configurable filter lists) is built into vivaldi already, no separate addon needed. works well-enough.

that said, the chromium base and its dependency on google to provide the 'addon store' is vivaldi's main detractor, because google has been putting the screws to anything that threatens their business as a data harvesting advertising company.

vivaldi does have some features not found in other browsers or other chromium browsers (excepting some in common with opera). the one i appreciate the most is the configurable toolbars, both items and their positions.. similar to how you can configure firefox's main toolbar.

i do occasionally need a chromium browser for specific tasks. vivaldi is the one i use. usually as a 'portable' installation that is easiest to trash when i'm done. it's also the one i use for a couple streaming sites because it does use chrome addons (but also is not chrome, either).

Hell, I'd use it if it wasn't Chromium.

The arrogance in this statement, lol. :)

I mean sure, I get it, but what I dont get is why a company would have paid engineers working on a product and give it away for free if that's their only income stream? How will they pay their engineers? Pay for office space? Make a profit?

It's funny that people expect free stuff but complain when their data is being sold to ad agencies. :)

Like, shit, why can't I sit here on my throne and have companies give me free stuff and maybe I will decide to use it from the kindness of my heart. :)

That's not hard to explain: it would require a ton of resources to maintain a fork with manifest v2, for a small usecase. Vivaldi is a small company compared to say Mozilla.

Plus the main usecase for v2, ad blockers, is already covered by their built in one.

Vivaldi is a proprietary Chromium reskin. Use Librewolf.