Firefox:
- Multi-account Containers extension is amazing. I only use it for a handful of accounts, but it is very simple to use. This is probably the feature I miss most in Vivaldi.
- The interface integrates better with my DE (Cinnamon), and overall feels less cluttered. Vivaldi has some kind of bar on each edge of the window. Toggle UI (Ctrl+F11) helps to hide this, but Vivaldi does take more space away from the webpage.
- I use uBlock Origin for adblock which seems to block more than Vivaldi by default. Vivaldi's built-in blocker is really great though, and I haven't felt the need to install an extension for adblock in Vivaldi.
Vivaldi:
- I love the recent addition of a second tab bar[0], though I was skeptical at first. I can quickly stack tabs by host to declutter, and then see all the tabs on a second row with full details when I select the stack.
- The experimental builtin RSS[1] and Email panels are wonderful. Still some rough edges, but it is nice to not rely on another tool or service for RSS, and it is my favorite RSS reader I have used so far because it is simple and stays out of my way.
- Many more tab management features. Saving tabs as a session, tiling, stacking, periodic reload, etc. Not all features I use daily, but handy when I need it.
Overall, I've settled on using both browsers now. Each has strengths and weaknesses and I will use whichever helps me best in the moment. I'd say give it a try, and don't think about it as a switch, rather as a new tool.
work stuff open on a specific work container..
facebook, twiter, youtube and fastmail each have their individual container.
there are even addons that allow you to have a individual container to be created for each site you visit..
- vertical tabs
- tabs tiling, stacking & 2nd tab-bar
- full page screenshots
- notes
- page actions (including a very useful CSS debugger, focus & hover highlighting, a freaking PAGE MINIMAP)
- sync
- mouse gestures
- all Chrome extensions work
- easily disable any Google services
- ad-block (i'm using it in addition to uBlock origin, uMatrix and Pi-Hole)
- no serious performance issues yet
I don't use Vivaldi for any Google services, except search sometimes, for that I keep a Chromium instance around instead.
Like you, I've used Vivaldi for years. I downloaded because of the email client. Opera's M2 was a great mail client. I'm probably in the minority of users who don't use the usual suspects for webmail, and having an integrated mail client is nice. M2, in particular did some nice things:
* Fast full-text search through mail
* No organization: automatic mailing list aggregation; easy contact management; easy email filter by contact or thread
* Keyboard navigable.
* Doesn't default to top-quoting.
* RSS integration.
The M3 client had to be rewritten, one presumes, as a Chrome extension. This had to be pretty awful, considering, and probably explains part of the reason that everything took so long. I've been driving M3 for awhile, and what I really miss is suitable keyboard shortcuts. For the most part I've been very happy with it, though.
However, some Thunderbird extensions have even become essential to me, most importantly Cardbook, which I use to manage Contacts across devices (shared via carddav on a selfhosted Nextcloud). Does M3 support carddav properly?
Also, can I add multiple mail accounts easily?
Are mails part of Vivaldi sync?
I might actually try it just to get a look at the current state. RSS client is nice, too.
No. This would actually be a pretty killer feature, and if they've implemented sync properly(?) maybe that's something they'll add in the future.
> Also, can I add multiple mail accounts easily?
Yes. I've had no issues here, although I've been using IMAP rather than POP3 for the interim while I decide how well it's going to work for me. (On the other hand, I haven't been back on M2 for several months, so maybe it's time for the switch?)
> Are mails part of Vivaldi sync?
No. Contacts make sense to me, but mail across sync would be basically implementing IMAP for sync purposes, right?
There are things still missing:
* mail import for those of us who still prefer POP to IMAP and have a ton of emails on our system
* highlight-to-quote
* more configurable keyboard shortcuts
* default bottom-quoting
* tighter calendar integration
But on the balance, it's a pretty decent client. I'll look forward to improvements as they have time to commit, but working it into Chromium has been a much more significant challenge than they originally anticipated. The devs/testers talked often about it not being ready for prime time, but I think that had much more to do with the extension development than it did with protocols (for example). I would also suspect that they're significantly understaffed compared to other teams.
And, to be honest, I doubt there's really even a big market for mail clients these days at all: we're mostly on Gmail or Outlook or some other web-based IMAP with integration across all devices. In-browser mail clients without some kind of super-sync feature ... just aren't likely to gain any traction.
It leaks memory for me on macOS. Not sure whether it's its own bug or if it's the Nvidia driver.
On the built-in ad blocker, I don't use that on my computer (uBlock Origin is way better) but I do use it on my phone. I don't use notes either, IMO there's no good reason this should be part of a web browser.
The tab grouping is a cool feature. The ability to screenshot the entire page is also a cool feature, but there's a bug that causes it to capture anything with border-radius without anti-aliasing, I reported that as VB-56521 on 26/08/2019 and it still isn't fixed.
Overall, there's this lack of attention to detail that permeates all their products and sometimes drives you crazy, but it's still way better than all other browsers that redesign their UIs every several years for no benefit to the user.
For me, Vivaldi's best feature is that it allows you to sideload extensions without kicking up a fuss about them with popups each time you start the browser. AFAIK no other Chromium-based browser apart from ungoogled-chromium allows that.
But on the other hand, it tries to do so many things altogether and shoves so many options and settings to the user it feels overwhelming. It feels bloated, and using it after you've been used to the minimal design on Chrome (and Firefox that has copied it), it just .. doesn't feel right.
The wikipedia page explains this well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivaldi_(web_browser)
But if the performance/resource usage isn't a problem for you and you don't mind using a close sourced browser it's top notch compared to Firefox.
Two main reasons:
- it is able to debug the web application I work on developing. (Trying to make it easier to debug under Firefox is on my todo list).
- it has mouse gestures, and they work everywhere (even on blank tabs).or open devtools, navigate to another domain and look at devtools address in the title
or open devtools, go to sources, pick main html, select some text and right click to Copy
its full of bad bugs