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Vivaldi Browser 5.0

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Re: Vivaldi Browser 5.0

#61

Post by drcongo »

Vivaldi is the exact opposite of what I want from a browser. I want a rendering engine and some tabs, that's pretty much it. Vivaldi decided to encumber those two good things with a 1000 features and some horrific themes, making the entire application 1000 times slower than it could have been. Every time I've tried it it's just reminded me of that old screenshot of MS Word with all the toolbars switched on [0], a ton of unnecessary cognitive load that 0.1% of their users will find useful. Browser design by committee.

[0] https://blog.codinghorror.com/content/images/uploads/2006/02...

Re: Vivaldi Browser 5.0

#63

Post by pvinis »

skinkestek wrote: post #22
SwiftyBug wrote: post #8

I don't understand that obsession browser developers have with themes. To the point it's a highlight in a major version.

User configurable themes is fantastic! Look at Firefox now for an example of what happens when developers can introduce their "I know best" themes: I constantly get confused and think the active tab is next to the actually active tab. Irony is the idea behind removing actual themability seems to be to prevent people from seeing badly styled browsers, and yet this is the second most annoying one I am aware of. (Chrome…

color.firefox.com is great for that!

Re: Vivaldi Browser 5.0

#64

Post by RussianCow »

drcongo wrote: post #61

Vivaldi is the exact opposite of what I want from a browser. I want a rendering engine and some tabs, that's pretty much it. Vivaldi decided to encumber those two good things with a 1000 features and some horrific themes, making the entire application 1000 times slower than it could have been. Every time I've tried it it's just reminded me of that old screenshot of MS Word with all the toolbars switched on [0], a ton…

> a ton of unnecessary cognitive load that 0.1% of their users will find useful.

Maybe it's been designed specifically for that 0.1%? There's nothing wrong with not catering to the masses.

Re: Vivaldi Browser 5.0

#65

Post by malermeister »

throwaway123x2 wrote: post #31

With FireFox becoming more and more unusable, does anybody with experience know if Vivaldi or Brave are objectively better (or faster or more stable)?

What's your problem with FF specifically? I keep hearing people complain, but it seems like the same ol browser to me?

Re: Vivaldi Browser 5.0

#66

Post by kunagi7 »

drcongo wrote: post #61

Vivaldi is the exact opposite of what I want from a browser. I want a rendering engine and some tabs, that's pretty much it. Vivaldi decided to encumber those two good things with a 1000 features and some horrific themes, making the entire application 1000 times slower than it could have been. Every time I've tried it it's just reminded me of that old screenshot of MS Word with all the toolbars switched on [0], a ton…

There's a lot of browsers out there that already give the experience you want. Like Ungoogled Chromium (or regular Chromium).

I always see a lot of power users being enraged to other browsers when they remove features that the 1~5% of their users use so it's a bit weird to see protests against one of the few browsers that attempt to reverse the oversimplification trend.

Vivaldi's main deal is allowing the user to customize most of their browser. Themes, buttons, custom CSS, even side menu options. Even if they have improved it quite a bit there's still a performance hit.

Re: Vivaldi Browser 5.0

#67

Post by mthoms »

jadbox wrote: post #21
jernejzen wrote: post #18

So guess that if you want extensions you need to go through Google machinery.. and your back to their telemetry empire?

I don't follow- Doesn't Vivaldi support any chrome extension?

Yes, but you have to get them through the Chrome Web Store. It's the same with Brave.

Re: Vivaldi Browser 5.0

#68

Post by patall »

throwaway123x2 wrote: post #31

With FireFox becoming more and more unusable, does anybody with experience know if Vivaldi or Brave are objectively better (or faster or more stable)?

Honest question, how is FireFox becoming unusable for you? I am using it on both Linux and Windows and do not really have any problems with it. Sure, sometimes a web site does not load properly but more often than not is because some add-ons like ad-blocker and no-script are intervening for me. In other cases, its obvious that the website was never tested in anything but chrome. In those cases where I really need it, I have some chromium-based browser as backup on all my devices. But daily work on FireFox is just fine for me.

Your comment reminds me of how people were complaining for a long time that FireFox had become so slow, while I was browsing with multiple dozens of open tabs on my 8GB system all along. I do not want to say that this is not the case for you, but I honestly cannot reproduce it on three different laptops.

Re: Vivaldi Browser 5.0

#69

Post by drcongo »

kunagi7 wrote: post #66
drcongo wrote: post #61

Vivaldi is the exact opposite of what I want from a browser. I want a rendering engine and some tabs, that's pretty much it. Vivaldi decided to encumber those two good things with a 1000 features and some horrific themes, making the entire application 1000 times slower than it could have been. Every time I've tried it it's just reminded me of that old screenshot of MS Word with all the toolbars switched on [0], a ton…

There's a lot of browsers out there that already give the experience you want. Like Ungoogled Chromium (or regular Chromium). I always see a lot of power users being enraged to other browsers when they remove features that the 1~5% of their users use so it's a bit weird to see protests against one of the few browsers that attempt to reverse the oversimplification trend. Vivaldi's main deal is allowing the user to cus…

I use Safari for actual browsing because it's really unbeatable at it - very fast rendering, has tabs. I'd argue Chromium doesn't quite live up to that promise thanks to the horrible UI rendering and spectacular battery drain that it inherits from Chrome. Firefox I think does a nice compromise between being a good browser and having all that customisation stuff that the kids seem to like, but it does have a tiny hit on performance there too, ie: when opening a new tab the UI lag is as bad as Chrome. Vivaldi takes it to an extreme, and obviously gets the extreme UI lag that goes with that.

I'm probably in a minority, but for me anything that gets in the way of me opening a new tab and loading a webpage in it is just harm.

Re: Vivaldi Browser 5.0

#70

Post by drcongo »

RussianCow wrote: post #64
drcongo wrote: post #61

Vivaldi is the exact opposite of what I want from a browser. I want a rendering engine and some tabs, that's pretty much it. Vivaldi decided to encumber those two good things with a 1000 features and some horrific themes, making the entire application 1000 times slower than it could have been. Every time I've tried it it's just reminded me of that old screenshot of MS Word with all the toolbars switched on [0], a ton…

> a ton of unnecessary cognitive load that 0.1% of their users will find useful. Maybe it's been designed specifically for that 0.1%? There's nothing wrong with not catering to the masses.

Yeah, sorry, wasn't meaning to hate on Vivaldi. I'm sure it's great for those who want those features.
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