Vivaldi integrates Mastodon in its desktop browser
vivaldi.com
vivaldi.com
Please don't use Vivaldi. It is a closed source browser [1], and as such we have no way of validating they have not put backdoors, spyware, telemetrics to send private details such as your bank details, website logins, Google account, etc.
Stick with open source browsers, who's code is verifiable, especially for something as important as a web browser.
[1] https://vivaldi.com/blog/technology/why-isnt-vivaldi-browser...
I don't use Vivaldi, and have no interest in the Mastodon for now, but they were smart enough to change their use agent in order to have further compatibility, that actually triggered a market share loss on paper.
https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-2-10-no-strings-attached-2/
Would be interested to hear if anyone uses Vivaldi and how it is.
Anyhow, it's just chrome with extra stuff you can disable (email client? rss reader?) and extra stuff I cannot imagine living without (side panels).
https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/panels/web-panels/
I do not understand why no other browser has the ability to keep a predefined list of pages always open to the side, especially for real-time communication.
It seems like this would almost perfectly act as a "predefined list of pages always open to the side, especially for real-time communication" or did I miss something? It won't be next to the page, but always visible at the top-left and kept between restarts.
The point of having slack/mattermost/discord/whatever always on the side is that one does not have to switch away from the main tab just to see what's going on.
But there are some very functional settings I use that I just miss in every other browser. Most notable for me are:
- extremely (at least relative to Chrome or Firefox) configurable keyboard shortcuts
- easily editable search engines (you have to enable this with an about:config parameter that isn't default -- not that it's turned off by default, but that it's a parameter you have to know about beforehand and add yourself to the list)
And it's Chromium, so you get Chromium extensions such as uBlock Origin, which is why I stuck with it over qutebrowser (which also has configurable keyboard shortcuts) even though it's closed source.
I loved Vivaldi. It has the spirit of Opera, where it's all about giving power users options instead of streamlining them away for UX (which is still an option you can have with Vivaldi!). I use Firefox now -- Manifest v3 was the last straw -- but I lament the loss of configurability in some areas.
1. It has tree tabs and I can't find any other Chrome based browser with Tree tabs
2. Google Meet is 2nd class citizen on Firefox and lacks many features.
The source they publish there are the changes they made to allow the "extension, but more privileged" clause above.
The React app is closed source.
(i, myself, use firefox and will never use something else as long as firefox is being updated).
I also have Chrome installed if it becomes needed, but it really is quite rare that I have to ask it to lumber to life.
Twenty years ago if you said "don't run closed source operating systems" people would've popped out of the woodwork and said the same thing. Twenty years later, a huge chunk of the world runs on an open source OS.
<< Most of the planet is using some form of closed source web browser the top 3 being Chrome, Safari, or Edge.
Sadly, I personally believe popularity is a bad reason to advocate for technology. I kinda buy your argument that 'closed source' is not inherently bad ( edit: but it does require trust hence my first paragraph ).
A nit-pick, but not entirely true. The set of events was: founder stepped aside from the board due to disagreements on direction, eventually resigned from the company, then (a good while later) the board opted to sell the company.
Perhaps the big mistake was the founder not taking as much of a bdfl approach to management as many do. Maybe. Who's to say.
> I avoid it. And Vivaldi still has miles to go before it can even barely touch the innovations that happened at Opera.
It's a long way off, and I swore I'd never trust closed-source again after the Presto project was lost. But given the current landscape (& growing misgivings[0] with Firefox management), Vivaldi is looking more and more tempting by the day.
It's a pity that Vivaldi doesn't see the business potential in building another new browser engine. With Mozilla making Firefox an adware crap, I think Vivaldi may even be able to get half a million dollar in online funding for the promise of another open source browser engine. Projects like Netsurf and SerenityOS browser already have done half the work and just need an experienced and talented leadership to give them momentum and Vivaldi can certainly provide that ... Even Webkit is quite decent and just needs a multi-platform push.
> the fact that all businessmen, especially new one, also make honest mistakes
But yes, absolutely this. The repeated decision to forgo open-sourcing is (imo) a fatal mistake - it's the number 1 cited reason for people not switching to Vivaldi & also the real tragedy of Presto's shutdown: no possibility of a community fork - for what was an engine that always outperformed all competitors efficiency-wise (Webkit was faster when coupled with new hw & a brick tonne of RAM, but still knocks out even the fanciest setups today when you open more than a tab or three).
At least for testing, I use Firefox as my daily driver.
(yes there are a few vertical tab extensions for Chrome, but they are all incredibly lame as they do it by injecting an iframe into each webpage (!!))
(written on DuckDuckGo browser)
Everything old is new again...
Constant refreshing of half a dozen sites was replaced by occassionally looking into one program. Literally all the sites I read had an RSS feed, even if they didn't advertise it (maybe they don't even realise it). And a while ago I added an RSS feed for replies to my comments here[1], which I thought I might implement myself, but of course somebody already did (thanks!).
In addition, it helps keeping up with blogs I do read, but I don't read immediately, e.g. ACOUP.
It also solved the problem of Firefox Android's atrocious tab handling ([2], basically because I took Firefox out of the equation).
I don’t even think your list of events is a successive, connected one. Browsers once had RSS readers so now it’s full circle that Vivaldi adds to its kitchen sink for a social network barely anybody uses?
I want to like Vivaldi, but how do these things pass QA?