the vivaldi browser

… is impressingly user-friendly.

Takes something extra to impress this old power-user, and for a number of years now the people behind the Vivaldi browser have been on track to de­liv­er just that little extra and then quite a bit more, of what I like to have in a web browser.

I leave to the Vivaldi Team to elabo­rate on the tech­nical, programmatic and philo­sop­hical sides of their pro­duct1 2, while I focus on my personal expe­ri­ences as user.

I may have special interests in how various browsers behave – espe­ci­ally how they render web pages, as figuring out their strengths and weak­nes­ses and what to do about it from a web deve­loper's per­spec­tives, have been impor­tant parts of my acti­vi­ties out here for decades3 4

familiarity

Familiarity counts when choosing browser, and the fol­low­ing exam­ple of rendering on a wide screen is right down my alley… … with minimal devia­tions from Vivaldi's own default appear­ance.

Vivaldi's set­tings are other­wise cover­ing just about any­thing most user may want and/​or need for cus­tomi­zation, and I have gone through all to set them to my per­sonal pre­fe­ren­ces and surfing habits.

This freedom to personalize is quite an important point, and reason, for my choice of web browser. I do not like to be told how to use neither soft­ware nor hard­ware when per­for­ming digi­tal acti­vi­ties, and Vivaldi does not push much of any­thing on me.

power-users' dream browser?

Vivaldi's minimalistic browser chrome provides neces­sary con­trol with­out un­neces­sarily taking up space. That I can zoom this inter­face is a definite pluss, as I often prefer smaller chrome-details and even more space for web pages.

Being used to Opera on Presto, I do not like being slowed down because too many tabs are in active use. Other browsers I've used since Opera switched engine years ago, slow down con­cider­ably as more tabs get opened. Vivaldi how­ever manages quite well with a huge number (in excess of 30) of tabs up for a long time.

How, or why, Vivaldi appears to manage so much better than other browsers built around the same ren­der­ing engine (Blink) in some areas, is for others to twist their minds about. I am just grate­ful that it works as well as it does, so I can get my jobs done more or less the way I like.

The lines from (old) Opera are historic5, and explain lots about Vivaldi's devel­op­ment strategy up to present time and into the future.

incidental promotion?

I usually do not feel like promoting, or brag­ging about if you like, a parti­cular piece of soft­ware over its com­pe­ti­tors. How­ever, some­times the “what browser” ques­tion is brought up by others, and when asked I do of cause tell which one I prefer, and, there are no­tice­a­ble dif­ferences.

Most browsers can handle most basic issues pretty much in the same or similar ways these days. It has however become more and more clear to me that some browsers can handle more issues better than others right out of the box – with­out ex­ten­sions, and simply work bet­ter both at work and for leisure.

I do not find it strange that many web-surfers have not heard about Vivaldi, but that their browsers can not deliver what I have grown ac­cus­tomed to, does sound strange some­times. Espe­ci­ally when it comes to (for me) impor­tant areas like secu­rity, pri­vacy, and “overall user-friend­li­ness”.

I do value security and privacy high – on and off line, and although one can hardly be alive and observe per­fect scores in these areas today, at least my pre­fer­red browser does some­thing right in that respect. I have pretty mixed ex­pe­ri­ences with other browsers…

nothing negative?

Yes, quite a few things, but so far less than for other browsers in areas I pri­ori­tize. I see that the deve­lop­ment of Vivaldi goes in direc­tions I can agree with, and see no reason to complain just because not every­thing is complete and perfect yet. Some more may be ready for release next week, and some may come next year.

I have done my bit of pro­gram­ming over the years – not related to browsers though, and know how pri­ori­ties and bugs affect the pro­ces­ses. Thus, no reason for me to bug those who are hard at work with crea­ting a browser that is more and more to my liking with every new major version release.
Just keep up the good work with Vivaldi, and I'll be happy.

whatever you like…

This is where I will make it perfectly clear that anyone can aim their browser pre­fe­ren­ces which­ever way they like, with­out hearing a negative word from me. It is well known that what lines up best with an indi­vid­ual's per­sonal pre­fe­ren­ces, tends to work best for that individual.
No different around here, and – for the time being at least – Vivaldi is closest…

sincerely 

Hageland 29.may.2020
last rev: 14.jun.2020