The year is 2008 and I had been using Mozilla Firefox for two years after my painful but inevitable breakup with Internet Explorer. But, out of school and professional necessity, I had to make the swi
Most of them are just forks of Chromium that make superficial changes though. Firefox and Safari are the only alternative engines comparable to Chromium at the moment.
While they do make some good/fun changes to Chromium, they are still just forks of the same base. If all browsers just become based on Chromium, we still lose out from a code base point of view. Just like we already see with all iOS browsers. I worry that we are seeing a new IE situation, just with the ability to put different skins and some additional features. Even if those features are well done and honestly bring some good functions (I am a fan of Vivaldi’s built-in gesture and visual customizations and Brave’s attempts to try something different with ads and crypto). But a major exploit in Chromium creates a situation where all other browsers based on it will also be exploitable. Even today I still run into moments where something goes wrong with something a site has changed breaks all my Chromium browsers, but Firefox works without issue. Obviously a random thing with limited situations. I was happy to see Chrome and Chromium join IE, Firefox, and Safari in the browser competition and aiding in the push to make web standards be respected. As we already saw how much IE’s disregard for following standards lead to it being the literal only option for fake reasons. We also have seen how Apple’s Safari is trying to do the same thing in a very large amount of the mobile/tablet space.
I would, and I do not believe these forks would be able to maintain momentum on their own in case Google made significant changes to Chromium that negatively affected user experience.
Vivaldi isn’t a simple fork of Chromium, it’s Chromium where the devs have removed a lot of Google crap, leaving only the essential at the choice of the user in the privacy settings to permit the compatibility with the Google services which they may use. Vivaldi isn’t even compatible with the Chrome Store, if you remove all APIs in the settings. The team of Vivaldi is small, but very good in what they do.
Until now, all intents of Google to track the users in the Chromiums, Idle.API, FLOC, etc, in Vivaldi don’t work.
Sure, but Vivaldi has not changed the core rendering engine. That’s the most complex part of the browser. If Google ever takes this in a direction that’s hostile to the users, I do not believe that keeping up with Google independently will be practical for Vivaldi.
There are only three engines out there, Gecko from Firefox, Blink in Chromium and WebKit in Safari. Google can’t block it, because this will cause of a head-on confrontation against several large companies, including Microsoft and therefore would be equivalent to commercial suicide for Google, Chromium is FOSS and even Google can change this.
Naturally it will continue to try to add different tracking APIs to Chromium, which are also regularly retired by companies that rely on the privacy of their browser, as Vivaldi has been doing for years.
Google also managed to damage many Chromium forks, by removing Google Sync, but this had no effect on Vivaldi either, by using its own server for this function, this one that many other chromiums now lack, including Brave.
Chromium along with its derivatives controls vast majority of the market, and Microsoft is already using Blink as their engine for Edge. Any user hostile features Google introduces will likely be seen as a positive by other corporations like Microsoft, so not really seeing them complaining.
As I said, changes like trackers and the store are superficial. The real meat is in the rendering engine, and if that gets significant changes to prevent stuff like ad blockers that are hard to work around then browsers like Vivaldi will have a problem because at that point they would have to start maintaining their own version of the engine.
Incidentally, this is why we have WebKit and Blink. Google and Apple disagreed on how the rendering engine should work and Google forked it. Now these have diverged significantly. Google was able to do this because they have effectively unlimited resources, I don’t see how a small company would be able to do the same.
The engine in Chromium IS Blink, used by all Chromium forks, not only by Edge. All current engines are directly or indirectly controlled by Google, also Gecko, all of these needs certain GoogleAPIs for no loosing the compatibility of most webpages. F.Exmple, without using the Google Crypto Token API, you can’t acces to any Google services, which a lot of people and companies use. This API is permantently active in all browsers, only in Vivaldi you can desactivate it in the settings when you don’t use any Google services.
As I say, Google can’t block the Chromium nor revoce the FOSS status, but he don’t need to do this, because he controlled the webpages wich include all type of tracking systems frm Google, not only the Google analytics and tracking APIs from Alphabet and NEST, (Googles advertising companies, also Mozilla do this, but not Vivaldi, this is the difference, not only because it’s a European cooperative, not a US company like others. You can only opt out of this tracking, requesting it directly in Alphabet, with your personal data.
No Google here, same for Brave, but which I don’t trust so much, because of strange crypto mining behavior and redirects to sponsor sites in the past.
Ok, Firefox is obviously an excellent browser, but not as private as it is always claimed, it protects you well against third-party trackers, but not so much against the data that it sends itself to Google, because Mozillas incomings are by Google advertising companies.
Vivaldi’s business model is different, by default include links and search engines from sponsores and only recive incommings if the user use these, but he’s free to delete these if he don’t. Apart of Donations (only after the massive request of the user and a Store with merchandising.
Maybe also som comissions by Renault, to include Vivaldi in it’s navigation system, and from Pole Staras default Browser in it’s Navigator, the first browser optimized for these uses in the market, not bad for a small team. As in the past also the first which accept vertical text for asiatic users.
Don’t forget your sync password, even Vivaldi don’t have access to it and your data, there is no recovering mail, if you forget your password, you lose your synced data. The price of privacy.
Vivaldi has a own Password manager, but yes, you can use also Keepass instead. But at least I don’t use Keepass, because Vivaldi sync not only my passwords, it sync all settings, themes, extensions, notes, bookmarks, reader list, history and autocomplete data of the websites. Very usefull, not only to sync with other PCs, also as Backup, if your PC break and you have to buy another one, there yo can install Vivaldi and log in your account, all this datas are restored in few seconds, having the same Vivaldi as you had ost in the old PC.
If you creat an account in the community, you also get access to your own mail with 5Gb (xxxxx@vivaldi.com) and a free blog for your private use.
If you had read the reasons, you know why the UI script has copyright, but 100% of the Vivaldi script is auditable, and even the UI part is moddeable by the user, it’s only prohibet to fork it to use it in another browser. Proprietary, yes, but not the same as in Chrome or Edge, with a big proprietary part over Chromium, but completly closed source not auditable, where nobody knows for what they are good for.
Thanks. I understand your effort to promote Vivaldi, and I too loved Opera and its UI. but, sadly, Vivaldi is proprietary software and uses a bunch of google services and dependencies, it even is based on google’s blink rendering engine, so it is not only far from being a privacy/ethical browser, it is walking in the wrong direction, helping google incrrase its monopoly and not letting people use their freedoms with software. If you don’t work within Vivaldi yourself, I suggest you check browsers like Librewolf, which I recommend for tech savy people. For most people I just recommend Firefox.
Which Google services do you mean? A engine from 20 years ago isn’t the thing that import of the Google monopoly. Vivaldi helps in nothing to increas the incomming of Google )at least if you don’t use the Google search). You help more to Google using Mozilla products, which are sponsored by Google, using it’s advertising companies NEST and Alphabet.inc.
Vivaldi’s base is a partially degoogled Chromium, leaving the rest of Google APIs as option in the privacy settings.
The engine has noyhing to do, even if it wasmade by Google and several other companies, IBM, Samsung, and some others, like WebKit based in KHTML made by the German KDE.
For similar reasons you can say, that you never use TOR, because it was made by the CIA and the US army, same as the Onion.
Yes, Vivaldi us proprietary, because 5% of the script, only respect the UI, has copyright, the rest is FOSS . All is auditable 100%.
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Most of them are just forks of Chromium that make superficial changes though. Firefox and Safari are the only alternative engines comparable to Chromium at the moment.
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While they do make some good/fun changes to Chromium, they are still just forks of the same base. If all browsers just become based on Chromium, we still lose out from a code base point of view. Just like we already see with all iOS browsers. I worry that we are seeing a new IE situation, just with the ability to put different skins and some additional features. Even if those features are well done and honestly bring some good functions (I am a fan of Vivaldi’s built-in gesture and visual customizations and Brave’s attempts to try something different with ads and crypto). But a major exploit in Chromium creates a situation where all other browsers based on it will also be exploitable. Even today I still run into moments where something goes wrong with something a site has changed breaks all my Chromium browsers, but Firefox works without issue. Obviously a random thing with limited situations. I was happy to see Chrome and Chromium join IE, Firefox, and Safari in the browser competition and aiding in the push to make web standards be respected. As we already saw how much IE’s disregard for following standards lead to it being the literal only option for fake reasons. We also have seen how Apple’s Safari is trying to do the same thing in a very large amount of the mobile/tablet space.
I would, and I do not believe these forks would be able to maintain momentum on their own in case Google made significant changes to Chromium that negatively affected user experience.
Vivaldi isn’t a simple fork of Chromium, it’s Chromium where the devs have removed a lot of Google crap, leaving only the essential at the choice of the user in the privacy settings to permit the compatibility with the Google services which they may use. Vivaldi isn’t even compatible with the Chrome Store, if you remove all APIs in the settings. The team of Vivaldi is small, but very good in what they do. Until now, all intents of Google to track the users in the Chromiums, Idle.API, FLOC, etc, in Vivaldi don’t work.
Sure, but Vivaldi has not changed the core rendering engine. That’s the most complex part of the browser. If Google ever takes this in a direction that’s hostile to the users, I do not believe that keeping up with Google independently will be practical for Vivaldi.
There are only three engines out there, Gecko from Firefox, Blink in Chromium and WebKit in Safari. Google can’t block it, because this will cause of a head-on confrontation against several large companies, including Microsoft and therefore would be equivalent to commercial suicide for Google, Chromium is FOSS and even Google can change this.
Naturally it will continue to try to add different tracking APIs to Chromium, which are also regularly retired by companies that rely on the privacy of their browser, as Vivaldi has been doing for years. Google also managed to damage many Chromium forks, by removing Google Sync, but this had no effect on Vivaldi either, by using its own server for this function, this one that many other chromiums now lack, including Brave.
Chromium along with its derivatives controls vast majority of the market, and Microsoft is already using Blink as their engine for Edge. Any user hostile features Google introduces will likely be seen as a positive by other corporations like Microsoft, so not really seeing them complaining.
As I said, changes like trackers and the store are superficial. The real meat is in the rendering engine, and if that gets significant changes to prevent stuff like ad blockers that are hard to work around then browsers like Vivaldi will have a problem because at that point they would have to start maintaining their own version of the engine.
Incidentally, this is why we have WebKit and Blink. Google and Apple disagreed on how the rendering engine should work and Google forked it. Now these have diverged significantly. Google was able to do this because they have effectively unlimited resources, I don’t see how a small company would be able to do the same.
The engine in Chromium IS Blink, used by all Chromium forks, not only by Edge. All current engines are directly or indirectly controlled by Google, also Gecko, all of these needs certain GoogleAPIs for no loosing the compatibility of most webpages. F.Exmple, without using the Google Crypto Token API, you can’t acces to any Google services, which a lot of people and companies use. This API is permantently active in all browsers, only in Vivaldi you can desactivate it in the settings when you don’t use any Google services. As I say, Google can’t block the Chromium nor revoce the FOSS status, but he don’t need to do this, because he controlled the webpages wich include all type of tracking systems frm Google, not only the Google analytics and tracking APIs from Alphabet and NEST, (Googles advertising companies, also Mozilla do this, but not Vivaldi, this is the difference, not only because it’s a European cooperative, not a US company like others. You can only opt out of this tracking, requesting it directly in Alphabet, with your personal data.
Ok, Firefox is obviously an excellent browser, but not as private as it is always claimed, it protects you well against third-party trackers, but not so much against the data that it sends itself to Google, because Mozillas incomings are by Google advertising companies. Vivaldi’s business model is different, by default include links and search engines from sponsores and only recive incommings if the user use these, but he’s free to delete these if he don’t. Apart of Donations (only after the massive request of the user and a Store with merchandising. Maybe also som comissions by Renault, to include Vivaldi in it’s navigation system, and from Pole Staras default Browser in it’s Navigator, the first browser optimized for these uses in the market, not bad for a small team. As in the past also the first which accept vertical text for asiatic users.
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Don’t forget your sync password, even Vivaldi don’t have access to it and your data, there is no recovering mail, if you forget your password, you lose your synced data. The price of privacy.
deleted by creator
Vivaldi has a own Password manager, but yes, you can use also Keepass instead. But at least I don’t use Keepass, because Vivaldi sync not only my passwords, it sync all settings, themes, extensions, notes, bookmarks, reader list, history and autocomplete data of the websites. Very usefull, not only to sync with other PCs, also as Backup, if your PC break and you have to buy another one, there yo can install Vivaldi and log in your account, all this datas are restored in few seconds, having the same Vivaldi as you had ost in the old PC. If you creat an account in the community, you also get access to your own mail with 5Gb (
xxxxx@vivaldi.com) and a free blog for your private use.Vivaldi is proprietaty software… why trust it over libre software?
If you had read the reasons, you know why the UI script has copyright, but 100% of the Vivaldi script is auditable, and even the UI part is moddeable by the user, it’s only prohibet to fork it to use it in another browser. Proprietary, yes, but not the same as in Chrome or Edge, with a big proprietary part over Chromium, but completly closed source not auditable, where nobody knows for what they are good for.
Thanks. I understand your effort to promote Vivaldi, and I too loved Opera and its UI. but, sadly, Vivaldi is proprietary software and uses a bunch of google services and dependencies, it even is based on google’s blink rendering engine, so it is not only far from being a privacy/ethical browser, it is walking in the wrong direction, helping google incrrase its monopoly and not letting people use their freedoms with software. If you don’t work within Vivaldi yourself, I suggest you check browsers like Librewolf, which I recommend for tech savy people. For most people I just recommend Firefox.
Which Google services do you mean? A engine from 20 years ago isn’t the thing that import of the Google monopoly. Vivaldi helps in nothing to increas the incomming of Google )at least if you don’t use the Google search). You help more to Google using Mozilla products, which are sponsored by Google, using it’s advertising companies NEST and Alphabet.inc. Vivaldi’s base is a partially degoogled Chromium, leaving the rest of Google APIs as option in the privacy settings. The engine has noyhing to do, even if it wasmade by Google and several other companies, IBM, Samsung, and some others, like WebKit based in KHTML made by the German KDE. For similar reasons you can say, that you never use TOR, because it was made by the CIA and the US army, same as the Onion. Yes, Vivaldi us proprietary, because 5% of the script, only respect the UI, has copyright, the rest is FOSS . All is auditable 100%.