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Comment by bambax | Hacker News Reader

But... what could possibly be the point of using a chromium based browser that is not Chrome, if not for MV2 support?

In case of Vivaldi, it's features like vertical tabs, and extreme customizability for the built-in stuff (for tabs alone the options dialog is like 3 pages of checkboxes for all the various aspects of how they behave).

Also for those who use cloud bookmark/history/tab sync, people might just not want Google specifically to have that data; Vivaldi does its own sync.

I use both Vivaldi, Brave and Firefox, all have their own strenghts. Brave now has built in vertical tabs as well: https://brave.com/blog/vertical-tabs/

MS Edge, Arc, and Sidekick have features Chrome doesn't such as split screen, side panels, and vertical tabs. Likewise for Firefox forks such as Zen.

None of those things are anything close to killer features much less reasons to switch. Verticle tabs, seriously?

Sorry that your personal use case doesn't match my use case and workflow. You keep using your tools and I'll keep using the ones I like.

Sorry, but I mean objectively it is not. Its a gimmick, not a UI defining feature. You are using the exact same tools I am: chromium.

Chromium but with more invasion of privacy.

What makes you an expert on what makes a feature a gimmick? You have no idea of how other people use and optimize their productivity workflows around the use of this "gimmick". Your opinion is far from "objective" .

neither is yours but okay

Split screen done well would be a killer feature for me. Last time I looked Edge support was ok, but not great. But what kills Edge for me as a daily driver is the basic usability in managing bookmarks and tabs. It's stop and go for every basic operation like dragging objects while Firefox is simply a continuous flow. Firefox is invisible, Edge just gets in the way all the time.

Otherwise Edge is not bad at all. Chrome without MV2 is dead to me.

People spend a lot of time in the web browser. So yes, they want to have a comfortable experience with it. And those features are deal breakers for a lot of people. So stating that they are not killing features is just unreasonable at best and ignorant at worst.

Okay but counterpoint: it doesnt actually make any difference whatsoever. The fact that you dont make an actual argument proves it.

It does makes the difference to people who use browsers for something more than reading HN or Reddit. That's the point. What arguments do you expect? Specific use cases for every feature each browser has? That's a different discussion completely.

> Verticle tabs, seriously

Yes, I use Edge due to its vertical tabs

Same. And I only finally switched away when Zen had Vertical tabs. So I'm now on Zen because it jas vertical tabs.

Zen doesn't have tab groups yet, but vertical tabs are a far more important feature for me.

cool I also like to send msft extra telemetry

It is all a gimmick but as long as people are switching to a chromium based browser and not Firefox I'm happy. With that said, I don't know how anyone would trust a small team to build them a secure and safe browser. Chrome is so battle tested at this point and Google puts a lot of resources in maintaining it, they stand to lose a lot more given their scale.

And so you throw in your lot with the strongest warlord on the block, and then they turn your shelter into a prison.

sir, its a browser

Customization. There are a lot of bad designs in the original Chrome that can be fixed in a fork

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