It’s been interesting to see how all these Chromium-based browsers differentiate themselves. This has some interesting features… The dashboard and feed reader both look useful to me. But at this...
It’s been interesting to see how all these Chromium-based browsers differentiate themselves. This has some interesting features… The dashboard and feed reader both look useful to me. But at this point, my number one priority when it comes to browser choice is supporting engine diversity.
That means I’m stuck in Firefox’s camp, for better or worse. At least until a new alternative emerges, which is looking damn unlikely for the foreseeable future. Firefox is a good browser, thankfully. Occasionally rough around the edges but its benefits make up for that. I just wish I had more meaningful choices that didn’t bolster the Chromium hegemony.
Safari is also not based on Chromium, and integrates with the system keychain quite elegantly, though you obviously have to be a Mac user. I wish Apple hadn't discontinued Safari for Windows.
Safari is also not based on Chromium, and integrates with the system keychain quite elegantly, though you obviously have to be a Mac user. I wish Apple hadn't discontinued Safari for Windows.
On macOS there’s also Kagi’s Orion which is also WebKit-based and adds a bunch of power user features like vertical nested tabs and RSS feed detection.
On macOS there’s also Kagi’s Orion which is also WebKit-based and adds a bunch of power user features like vertical nested tabs and RSS feed detection.
Yep, been playing with the nightly builds on my non-Mac machines. The native vertical tabs aren’t bad but will probably take a couple of major releases to fully mature. My hope is that they let...
Yep, been playing with the nightly builds on my non-Mac machines. The native vertical tabs aren’t bad but will probably take a couple of major releases to fully mature.
My hope is that they let extensions build on top of the native vertical tabs, which will reduce the amount of code and complexity in Sidebery, TST, etc by a massive degree and make life easier for those devs.
Oh that's pretty great, I just tried it out and it's looking pretty slick. Two features it's missing that I need to keep Sideberry around for. Workspaces, with the ability to specify a specific...
Oh that's pretty great, I just tried it out and it's looking pretty slick.
Two features it's missing that I need to keep Sideberry around for.
Workspaces, with the ability to specify a specific container for each workspace to use. (Sideberry calls them "tab panels")
The ability to actually nest tabs in a tree view.
I'm loving what I see so far though, it already looks a lot more slick than Sideberry even with all my custom Sideberry CSS.
If we want to get really technical, the Chrome and Safari rendering engines can all trace their lineage back to KHTML. That's right, Konqueror actually did conquer the browser market.
If we want to get really technical, the Chrome and Safari rendering engines can all trace their lineage back to KHTML. That's right, Konqueror actually did conquer the browser market.
True, but one of the most important benefits of engine diversity, to me, is diversity of who controls the engines. So even if WebKit and Blink are similar technically, Apple controls WebKit and...
True, but one of the most important benefits of engine diversity, to me, is diversity of who controls the engines. So even if WebKit and Blink are similar technically, Apple controls WebKit and faces a very different set of incentives. This means it is valuable in terms of weakening Google's hegemony over the market.
Bear in mind that was eleven years ago. We've seen major developments in layout technologies like flex and grid, changes to CSS parsing rules, new functions, selectors, and modern APIs like...
Bear in mind that was eleven years ago. We've seen major developments in layout technologies like flex and grid, changes to CSS parsing rules, new functions, selectors, and modern APIs like Houdini. From a web design perspective, they're completely different layout engines nowadays.
The amount that’s shared is less all the time, though. It’s been over a decade since the fork (which itself was spurned by major, irreconcilable differences in opinion on architecture) and the two...
The amount that’s shared is less all the time, though. It’s been over a decade since the fork (which itself was spurned by major, irreconcilable differences in opinion on architecture) and the two have drifted away from each other to quite a significant degree.
The number one killer feature of Firefox is container tabs. Where I can cluster together groups of websites to isolate their cookies from each other. Like a persistent incognito mode. All my...
its benefits make up for that.
The number one killer feature of Firefox is container tabs. Where I can cluster together groups of websites to isolate their cookies from each other. Like a persistent incognito mode. All my Google stuff goes in a Google container. All my banking stuff goes in another. All the shopping stuff in a third. And when I'm at work and I need to troubleshoot things like login persistence....it's way easier to spin up a clean container tab and test various states and durations over time (persisting over system restarts for things like multi-day timeouts).
Yeah, I feel the same but still rely mainly on Chromium. Gotta rip the bandage and fully move to Firefox. If you wanna play with something different, there are more rough edges but Zen Browser...
Yeah, I feel the same but still rely mainly on Chromium. Gotta rip the bandage and fully move to Firefox.
If you wanna play with something different, there are more rough edges but Zen Browser looks promising and is Firefox-based.
Vivaldi is my favorite Chromium based browser, but Zen does look promising. My only concern with Zen is the small dev team and the potential for a less secure version of Firefox. I tend to...
Vivaldi is my favorite Chromium based browser, but Zen does look promising. My only concern with Zen is the small dev team and the potential for a less secure version of Firefox. I tend to prioritize security above all in my browsers. If Zen could both remain up to date on security patches and maintain the current layout, then I will certainly become a donator for the cause. I am hesitant to jump on the band wagon as of now due to the lack of longevity with the product and how Zen develops in the coming months.
Vivaldi is a great browser for power users, but for me the problem (back when I used it) was the lack of device sync. This has long been rectified I believe, but currently I'd rather stick with...
Vivaldi is a great browser for power users, but for me the problem (back when I used it) was the lack of device sync. This has long been rectified I believe, but currently I'd rather stick with Firefox. I'd give this a try if they'd pledge to switching to Blink Gecko, the Firefox browser engine, because it's clear that Google is going to wield Chromium like a weapon to get the job done on ad blockers, and the internet without an adblocker is not just barely usable, it's actively dangerous.
I don't even know if you can use Firefox's browser engine and build something on top of it that is completely different. I know that Firefox forks exist, but those always change only specific things and are more focused on customizing Firefox to some insane degree rather than doing their own thing. I'm certain it's not feasible for Vivaldi to switch browser engines, but I'm not sure if it's even possible.
Sync has been a thing for years now and did get a massive improvement in this update. Well, Vivaldi comes with a build in ad blocker. Which I currently don't yet use but is pretty serviceable from...
Sync has been a thing for years now and did get a massive improvement in this update.
Well, Vivaldi comes with a build in ad blocker. Which I currently don't yet use but is pretty serviceable from what I have heard.
Having said that, if Firefox works for you then by all means keep using Firefox.
There used to be an ecosystem of Gecko based browsers but over time they all switched to WebKit and then chromium as Gecko is too tied with Firefox for that to be a pleasant experience.
There used to be an ecosystem of Gecko based browsers but over time they all switched to WebKit and then chromium as Gecko is too tied with Firefox for that to be a pleasant experience.
To be precise, Gecko originally supported embedding which is what all the third party Gecko browsers used, and so when Mozilla decided to remove embedding support from Gecko all those browsers...
To be precise, Gecko originally supported embedding which is what all the third party Gecko browsers used, and so when Mozilla decided to remove embedding support from Gecko all those browsers were killed. RIP Camino.
Now the only way to build a Gecko browser is to fork Firefox, but Mozilla hasn’t made keeping forks up to speed with mainline Firefox easy to do, and so it’s easy for forks to go long periods without security fixes.
I wonder what it would take for Mozilla to separate Gecko from Firefox? Having the engine be as portable as Chromium would improve the diversity situation a ton.
I wonder what it would take for Mozilla to separate Gecko from Firefox? Having the engine be as portable as Chromium would improve the diversity situation a ton.
They actually did that, for mobile platforms. The entire rewrite of mobile firefox for android, among other things, was done in order to make the entire thing more modular. Which doesn't seem to...
They actually did that, for mobile platforms. The entire rewrite of mobile firefox for android, among other things, was done in order to make the entire thing more modular.
Which doesn't seem to have translated to the same modularity being implemented on desktop.
I’ll tinker with the new version when I’ve got a few spare moments, but I’m not sold on the “kitchen sink in your browser” sort of design that Netscape pioneered and is now being carried forward...
I’ll tinker with the new version when I’ve got a few spare moments, but I’m not sold on the “kitchen sink in your browser” sort of design that Netscape pioneered and is now being carried forward by Vivaldi. Not that I don’t think the included utilities are useful, but it’s a heck of a lot of extra weight to carry around for those who prefer separate programs for those things. Perhaps the best way to handle this to make mail, etc into modules that can be disabled entirely (vs. just hiding references to the feature) at the user’s discretion.
I mean, if you don't configure mail accounts, import feeds, etc there isn't much to be active ;) I haven't had any indication that turning things of just hides them instead of keeping them idle in...
I mean, if you don't configure mail accounts, import feeds, etc there isn't much to be active ;) I haven't had any indication that turning things of just hides them instead of keeping them idle in the background.
As far as resource usage goes, I did do an entirely unscientific test on my work laptop just now where I have also chrome available. It isn't entirely fair to Vivaldi as I have some extensions enabled and chrome is bare bones. But with the same website open chrome sits around 200mb of ram use and Vivaldi at 300mb so slightly more but not by a lot.
I think he's asking more about the actual install size. Like it's kind of annoying for a program to be 40 MB bigger because of a built in email client you never use. I have used Vivaldi myself for...
I think he's asking more about the actual install size. Like it's kind of annoying for a program to be 40 MB bigger because of a built in email client you never use.
I have used Vivaldi myself for the past few years and will probably never switch, workspaces are far too useful.
Disk usage is an aspect, but it’s also common for bits and pieces of features to get loaded into memory even if they’re never used, even if the features are “disabled”. True modularity is rare.
Disk usage is an aspect, but it’s also common for bits and pieces of features to get loaded into memory even if they’re never used, even if the features are “disabled”. True modularity is rare.
I have shilled for Vivaldi in the past, so figured I might as well post about this release ;) Overall, it really feels like a solid update. The UI does very response, much more than it did...
I have shilled for Vivaldi in the past, so figured I might as well post about this release ;)
Overall, it really feels like a solid update. The UI does very response, much more than it did previously. Instant sync also is a welcome addition, as previously it could take a while. They also fixed an obscure browser extension bug nobody besides me is going to care about :P
The dashboard concept reminds me of the old google days and similar products. I personally don't use the feeder and mail client of Vivaldi, but I can see it being a nice addition for those that do. As with everything it isn't forced in your face and there are enough options to either turn it off or tune it to your liking.
My one nitpick is that I am not the biggest fan of the new UI, although with the compact option it basically is back to how I like it. Just a few too many rounded corners, but like I said, that is nitpicking.
I, honestly, love Vivaldi, it a bit slow, sometime crashes (veery rarely in latest version), but the level of customization is just beautiful. Its very rare feeling that program do exactly what...
I, honestly, love Vivaldi, it a bit slow, sometime crashes (veery rarely in latest version), but the level of customization is just beautiful. Its very rare feeling that program do exactly what you want. I mean of course console utilites are working in that way, but apps with complex GUI practically never.
It’s been interesting to see how all these Chromium-based browsers differentiate themselves. This has some interesting features… The dashboard and feed reader both look useful to me. But at this point, my number one priority when it comes to browser choice is supporting engine diversity.
That means I’m stuck in Firefox’s camp, for better or worse. At least until a new alternative emerges, which is looking damn unlikely for the foreseeable future. Firefox is a good browser, thankfully. Occasionally rough around the edges but its benefits make up for that. I just wish I had more meaningful choices that didn’t bolster the Chromium hegemony.
Safari is also not based on Chromium, and integrates with the system keychain quite elegantly, though you obviously have to be a Mac user. I wish Apple hadn't discontinued Safari for Windows.
On macOS there’s also Kagi’s Orion which is also WebKit-based and adds a bunch of power user features like vertical nested tabs and RSS feed detection.
Firefox is getting a native vertical nested tabs feature that is already available in nightly builds.
In the meantime, Sideberry is decent
Yep, been playing with the nightly builds on my non-Mac machines. The native vertical tabs aren’t bad but will probably take a couple of major releases to fully mature.
My hope is that they let extensions build on top of the native vertical tabs, which will reduce the amount of code and complexity in Sidebery, TST, etc by a massive degree and make life easier for those devs.
It's been present in the stable release for weeks now. I've been using it. It's awesome.
Oh that's pretty great, I just tried it out and it's looking pretty slick.
Two features it's missing that I need to keep Sideberry around for.
Workspaces, with the ability to specify a specific container for each workspace to use. (Sideberry calls them "tab panels")
The ability to actually nest tabs in a tree view.
I'm loving what I see so far though, it already looks a lot more slick than Sideberry even with all my custom Sideberry CSS.
Well, I mean, technically. Google forked WebKit but a lot of the inner workings are the same in both.
If we want to get really technical, the Chrome and Safari rendering engines can all trace their lineage back to KHTML. That's right, Konqueror actually did conquer the browser market.
True, but one of the most important benefits of engine diversity, to me, is diversity of who controls the engines. So even if WebKit and Blink are similar technically, Apple controls WebKit and faces a very different set of incentives. This means it is valuable in terms of weakening Google's hegemony over the market.
Apple also often sides with Mozilla on issues regarding privacy and security, which helps strengthen Mozilla’s position.
That's a really good point!
Bear in mind that was eleven years ago. We've seen major developments in layout technologies like flex and grid, changes to CSS parsing rules, new functions, selectors, and modern APIs like Houdini. From a web design perspective, they're completely different layout engines nowadays.
The amount that’s shared is less all the time, though. It’s been over a decade since the fork (which itself was spurned by major, irreconcilable differences in opinion on architecture) and the two have drifted away from each other to quite a significant degree.
The number one killer feature of Firefox is container tabs. Where I can cluster together groups of websites to isolate their cookies from each other. Like a persistent incognito mode. All my Google stuff goes in a Google container. All my banking stuff goes in another. All the shopping stuff in a third. And when I'm at work and I need to troubleshoot things like login persistence....it's way easier to spin up a clean container tab and test various states and durations over time (persisting over system restarts for things like multi-day timeouts).
Yeah, I feel the same but still rely mainly on Chromium. Gotta rip the bandage and fully move to Firefox.
If you wanna play with something different, there are more rough edges but Zen Browser looks promising and is Firefox-based.
Vivaldi is my favorite Chromium based browser, but Zen does look promising. My only concern with Zen is the small dev team and the potential for a less secure version of Firefox. I tend to prioritize security above all in my browsers. If Zen could both remain up to date on security patches and maintain the current layout, then I will certainly become a donator for the cause. I am hesitant to jump on the band wagon as of now due to the lack of longevity with the product and how Zen develops in the coming months.
Vivaldi is a great browser for power users, but for me the problem (back when I used it) was the lack of device sync. This has long been rectified I believe, but currently I'd rather stick with Firefox. I'd give this a try if they'd pledge to switching to
BlinkGecko, the Firefox browser engine, because it's clear that Google is going to wield Chromium like a weapon to get the job done on ad blockers, and the internet without an adblocker is not just barely usable, it's actively dangerous.I don't even know if you can use Firefox's browser engine and build something on top of it that is completely different. I know that Firefox forks exist, but those always change only specific things and are more focused on customizing Firefox to some insane degree rather than doing their own thing. I'm certain it's not feasible for Vivaldi to switch browser engines, but I'm not sure if it's even possible.
Blink is the name Google gave to their Webkit fork, I believe Firefox is still using Gecko.
Yep, you are totally right.
Sync has been a thing for years now and did get a massive improvement in this update.
Well, Vivaldi comes with a build in ad blocker. Which I currently don't yet use but is pretty serviceable from what I have heard.
Having said that, if Firefox works for you then by all means keep using Firefox.
There used to be an ecosystem of Gecko based browsers but over time they all switched to WebKit and then chromium as Gecko is too tied with Firefox for that to be a pleasant experience.
To be precise, Gecko originally supported embedding which is what all the third party Gecko browsers used, and so when Mozilla decided to remove embedding support from Gecko all those browsers were killed. RIP Camino.
Now the only way to build a Gecko browser is to fork Firefox, but Mozilla hasn’t made keeping forks up to speed with mainline Firefox easy to do, and so it’s easy for forks to go long periods without security fixes.
I wonder what it would take for Mozilla to separate Gecko from Firefox? Having the engine be as portable as Chromium would improve the diversity situation a ton.
They actually did that, for mobile platforms. The entire rewrite of mobile firefox for android, among other things, was done in order to make the entire thing more modular.
Which doesn't seem to have translated to the same modularity being implemented on desktop.
I’ll tinker with the new version when I’ve got a few spare moments, but I’m not sold on the “kitchen sink in your browser” sort of design that Netscape pioneered and is now being carried forward by Vivaldi. Not that I don’t think the included utilities are useful, but it’s a heck of a lot of extra weight to carry around for those who prefer separate programs for those things. Perhaps the best way to handle this to make mail, etc into modules that can be disabled entirely (vs. just hiding references to the feature) at the user’s discretion.
One of the neat things is that you can disable all that on first start and have it just be a browser ;)
Does it actually disable them though, or just hide the buttons? The vast majority of feature disables I’ve seen just hide things.
I mean, if you don't configure mail accounts, import feeds, etc there isn't much to be active ;) I haven't had any indication that turning things of just hides them instead of keeping them idle in the background.
As far as resource usage goes, I did do an entirely unscientific test on my work laptop just now where I have also chrome available. It isn't entirely fair to Vivaldi as I have some extensions enabled and chrome is bare bones. But with the same website open chrome sits around 200mb of ram use and Vivaldi at 300mb so slightly more but not by a lot.
I think he's asking more about the actual install size. Like it's kind of annoying for a program to be 40 MB bigger because of a built in email client you never use.
I have used Vivaldi myself for the past few years and will probably never switch, workspaces are far too useful.
Disk usage is an aspect, but it’s also common for bits and pieces of features to get loaded into memory even if they’re never used, even if the features are “disabled”. True modularity is rare.
Is that actually an issue though? They will get swapped out to the page file as soon as the memory is needed and never swapped back.
That's one thing that in modern times I have really stopped caring about for the most part. So I can't really commend on disk usage like that.
Yeah I realize 40 MB doesn't mean anything, it's just the mild annoyance of having extra stuff that will never be used installed.
I have shilled for Vivaldi in the past, so figured I might as well post about this release ;)
Overall, it really feels like a solid update. The UI does very response, much more than it did previously. Instant sync also is a welcome addition, as previously it could take a while. They also fixed an obscure browser extension bug nobody besides me is going to care about :P
The dashboard concept reminds me of the old google days and similar products. I personally don't use the feeder and mail client of Vivaldi, but I can see it being a nice addition for those that do. As with everything it isn't forced in your face and there are enough options to either turn it off or tune it to your liking.
My one nitpick is that I am not the biggest fan of the new UI, although with the compact option it basically is back to how I like it. Just a few too many rounded corners, but like I said, that is nitpicking.
You can change "roundness" of corners in the theme settings.
Hah, there you go. Nitpick gone :D
I, honestly, love Vivaldi, it a bit slow, sometime crashes (veery rarely in latest version), but the level of customization is just beautiful. Its very rare feeling that program do exactly what you want. I mean of course console utilites are working in that way, but apps with complex GUI practically never.