the vivaldi browser

… still my first choice.

A while since I started relying on Vivaldi for all my browsing needs, and so far I have not come up with any good reasons to change my mind about it in comparison with all the others.

Over the years I have performed some testing across browserland, and while my test-criterias may carry no weight to others, and also have changed slightly with time, the results clearly have changed as loads of browsers have dropped out of the race over the years.
Others have taken over, but given the time and resources needed to build browsers from scratch, all major browsers today are built around a small selection of core software packages developed and added to over decades. In short: all browsers on the market are old.

privacy, security, and flexibility

That “everything is an option” in Vivaldi, is most definitely more than a sales-pitch. And where makers of other browsers may pretend to deliver privacy and security, the Vivaldi crew is proven to deliver what they say all the way.

I may have sort of overloaded the two-level tab stack option a few times, and no browser works optimally on a memory-limited laptop when switching back and forth between 200+ tabs. That Vivaldi still works quite well when heavily loaded, is a sign that those behind it have organized it with users like myself in mind.

Apart from the tab stack occupying space, I want as little “visual disturbance” in/from the browser itself as possible. In that sense I'm a minimalist, and have Vivaldi set up that way.

work in progress…

While more “best browsers” are raining down on us in 2022, not much have changed but names over the last decade or so. Slightly better support for web standards, but otherwise the progress across browserland is not all that impressive.

Not often I trust businesses in our wonderful digitally interconnected world, but I have come to trust those behind the Vivaldi browser. As long as they keep on improving their product along the same lines, they will keep me as customer … it is that simple.

sincerely georg; signature

Hageland 12.apr.2022
last rev: 12.may.2022

side notes.

using the best browser…

While “shopping” for internet browser(s), one will find loads of sites/pages with sales-pitches and arguments for how and why this or that browser happens to be the best choice right now, or maybe that it was “best” in one or another fashion two, five, or maybe ten years ago.
Some interesting reading here and there, but unless one takes the time to test available browsers one will never know if any of them really fit ones wants and needs well enough to be a potential candidate.

Internet users do of course have very different wants and needs, which to some degree is reflected in their choice of browsers. Many choose browser based on what others in their circles use, and ignore that other and maybe better browsers exist. Some may stick to the one they have “always” used, regardless of how up to date or outdated it may be at present. Some use one for work and another for leisure, because they have to or just choose to.
What is an advantage to me, may be totally irrelevant to others. Some do not care about their online privacy, while others believe their browser – regardless of brand – is the safest there is in that respect.
There are of course also the nitpickers, who deem any browser that do not deliver everything in accordance with their homespun standards and/or wishlists to be totally useless. I am not sure how “the perfect browser” is supposed to work both inside and outside the limited framework of every user's personal preferences, as I have never seen such a piece of software in action. And one does not have to limit oneself to use only one browser anyway.

vivaldi translate

Hardly noticed that addition when it was introduced, even if it popped up quite often since my browser is set to “English” and I regularly visit pages in other languages. I am Norwegian, and do of course not need pages in my native language translated. Can find my way around in most Scandinavian and a few other European languages, but have to give up on most beyond that.

Then Putin started his “special military operation”, and I wanted to read some of what was written about it in Russian and other East European languages (which I do not speak). Thus, suddenly I had a reason to check out Vivaldi Translate, and have found it quite useful despite the not always fluid translations into English. It measures up well to Google Translate and others, and I'm used to reading asyntactic and awkward English – my own if nothing else.