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Vivaldi Hits Its First Beta (vivaldi.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Following well over 50 developer snapshots and 4 technical previews (Alpha), the new browser upstart has hit its first Beta release today. Following almost a year of work on alpha, Vivaldi is coming out with many unique features such as tab stacking and tiling, notes, and quick commands for navigating and feature use. Other features are in the works, such as sync and built-in mail client that will be introduced when they hit a more stable state. It's a refreshing take on the browser: as many others are diverging to a common design template, Vivaldi is taking a more feature-rich and customization-heavy approach. (We linked to a hands-on report about Vivaldi earlier this year, too.)

28 of 140 comments (clear)

  1. The browser wars are over by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Nobody needs a new browser.

    1. Re:The browser wars are over by NotDrWho · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, but this browser is robust, and innovative, and refreshing, and exciting, and some other PR buzzwords that are supposed to make us give a flying fuck.

      --
      SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
    2. Re:The browser wars are over by nmb3000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Especially not one that looks like the UI was designed with MS Paint. Seriously... this is what passes for a modern and aesthetically pleasing application these days?

      The Notes feature sounds marginally useful, but that's already in Firefox via one of a dozen addons. Actually, all of their "killer features" exist already or could easily be implemented as addons for Firefox. Remind me again why I should change to an ugly Chromium clone without advertising or script blocking features?

      Don't get me wrong -- Firefox is going to hell too, but it seems to be running a slightly slower race than other browsers. I'm not going to switch to a front-runner.

      --
      "What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
      /)
    3. Re:The browser wars are over by sydbarrett74 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Some, maybe even most, of the Vivaldi developers' experiments will fail miserably. What counts is that they're shaking things up slightly, and that's a good thing. With Firefox and Chrome increasingly becoming a mutual admiration society and MS Edge looking like it'll end up just as shitty as its predecessor, another player in this horse-race might effect some positive changes.

      --
      'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
    4. Re:The browser wars are over by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 2

      >> Nobody needs a new browser.

      This project appears to specifically be after Opera users, whoever they are. From the "our story" page:
      "In 1994...Opera was born...Fast forward to 2015. The browser we once loved has changed its direction. Sadly....we came to a natural conclusion: we must make a new browser."

    5. Re:The browser wars are over by KGIII · · Score: 4, Informative

      Just load the unpacked Opera or Chrome/Chromium extensions of your choice. The extensions that I've tried have all worked.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    6. Re:The browser wars are over by dejitaru · · Score: 2

      "The browser wars are over, Nobody needs a new browser." I think people thought that too after IE dominated Netscape... and we were left with a stale IE6 until Firefox shook things up.

    7. Re:The browser wars are over by guestapoo · · Score: 2

      Addons could be obsoleted, and never be updated.
      Addons could be crashed, and not works each browser's update.
      Addons could make browser much slower.

      Not mention that somethings "easily be implemented as addons for Firefox" are not the same things (those) addons intend to be implemented.

      Example, I use Opera 12 (Presto), one function that sometime I need is "Cached images", which is disable displaying, completely/partially load/not load images in webpages. Firefox has an addons called "imgLikeOpera", which does not worked with current Firefox if not do some work-around, and not easier, be convenient as Opera 12.

      Opera 12 has function of selecting any text on pages, include the links, by holding the mouse's left-button while moving cursor like text editor. There is a work-around solution in Opera-Chrome but cause some unwanted side-effect. Firefox, does not have this.

    8. Re:The browser wars are over by Picass0 · · Score: 2

      Nobody needs a new browser.

      Mmmm. Good point. And the world only needs 4 or 5 different kinds on cars. No point to innovating or trying new things.

      You must be very valuable where you work.

  2. Huh? by jbmartin6 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "diverging to a common design template" does not compute

    --
    This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
    1. Re:Huh? by Noah+Haders · · Score: 2

      Agreed. I believe the phrase is "converging on a common design template".

      People want browsers that are fast, light, and get out of the way. All the focus should be on the content!

  3. ...many others are diverging to a common... by kamakazi · · Score: 2

    diverging:

    I do not think that word means what you think it means.

    --
    "Proximity to wonder has blunted our perception and appreciation of it" --Tim Hartnell in 'Exploring ARTIFICIAL INTELLI
  4. Would love a "simplified" browser project by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 3, Insightful

    >> Vivaldi is taking a more feature-rich and customization-heavy approach

    No thanks - we already have this from Firefox (yuck) and to a lesser extent Chrome. Give us the ability to shut off Flash animations and HTML5 video by default on our browser and you'll have millions of downloads.

  5. Re:Where are the trumpeting unicorns? by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 4, Informative

    Me too. My notes on Mac:
    - Bing is default search engine.
    - The colored bar at the top changes from red to orange to blue to ??? (who wrote this, the Melnorme?)
    - Videos loaded and ran automatically (Booooo!)
    - Asked to use my Chrome Keychain upon connect.
    - Integrates with Google Phishing/Malware and Safe Browsing interfaces
    - Do not track is off by default
    - There's some kind of "Vivaldi Mail" sidebar ("coming soon") - do not want
    - There's some kind of notetaking facility (independent of current page) built in - for what purpose I do not know
    - The bookmarks were prepopulated with US-based (and New York / San Francisco centric) items

  6. How about feature-poor? by tompaulco · · Score: 3, Insightful

    We have lots of browsers with too many features. At the moment, I am staring at my Firefox session using nearly 1 GB of memory. I usually shut it down when it hits 1.5 GB. There is really no excuse for a browser to be using that much memory. Including images, each tab is probably using less than 1 MB of space. I have maybe 20 tabs open, so 20 MB seems like a reasonable amount of memory to be using. A feature I WOULD like to see is a breakdown of memory and CPU usage by tab, so I can permanently block sites that use too much CPU or memory. Also, something which can tell me which tab is playing some audio, so I can permanently block any site that does that without being told to do that.

    --
    If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
    1. Re:How about feature-poor? by DanJ_UK · · Score: 2

      This page / tab is currently using 161mb for me at the moment.

      --
      - Dan
    2. Re:How about feature-poor? by erapert · · Score: 2

      Also, something which can tell me which tab is playing some audio,

      I've been using the Vivaldi nighltlies on Ubuntu for about a month now and it does show an audio icon when a tab is playing sound.

  7. Re:Privacy policy by NotDrWho · · Score: 2

    No privacy policy and no adblocker = No sale, chick.

    --
    SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
  8. Re:New from scratch Opera by Tran · · Score: 2

    replying to myself - not form scratch after all - uses chromium as the base...

    From the forum re memory usage/optimization:

    "Not to burst some bubbles, but I'm afraid that great optimizations will never happen.

    Chromium is the base of Vivaldi, and Chromium is resource hungry, period.

    Optimize Vivaldi would mean to fork and heavily patch its code base, that would be an effort impossible to sustain for a small company like Vivaldi.

    Surely some small optimizations would be possible on the Vivaldi specific code, but don't expect miracles.

    If you are on low end/old HW Vivaldi isn't the browser for you, better to look at Otter, Qupzilla, Fifth browser, in that case. "

    Oh well.

  9. Dear world ... by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Other features are in the works, such as sync and built-in mail client that will be introduced when they hit a more stable state

    Can we have a browser which is, you know, just a browser?

    We don't want social integrations, we don't want cross device linking, we don't need an emailclient, a chat client, something to manage our contacts, sidebars, or any of a dozen features we just turn off an ignore.

    We want a browser, small, lean, standards compliant, not a memory pig, and which respects our privacy.

    Stop trying to make some do-everything turd which wants to be the center of our freaking lives. We don't need another one of those.

    Do one thing, a web browser, that's it.

    kthanksbye

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    1. Re:Dear world ... by guestapoo · · Score: 2

      We don't need another one of those.

      Vivaldi is built for the ex-Opera-Presto users. They focus on this community.
      This browser is not for you, so move on.

  10. Cannot wait until this browser matures. by x_t0ken_407 · · Score: 2

    I've been following the snapshot diligently, and as a huge fan of Presto Opera, it's almost everything that I've been missing (still currently using Opera w/Blink). The one deal-breaker for me is the fact that a few of my absolutely extensions don't work properly.

  11. Vivaldi was Interesting - a year ago by CrashNBrn · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Now Though? It's taken over a year for any extension at all to be able to be used (from it's icon). Vivaldi is closed source like everything that Jon von Tetzchner is involved in. The whole "for our friends" and placating manner seems disingenuous.

    Personally, I can't stand their implementation of Tab-Stacks - it is less than useless, and just makes finding a given tab even more difficult than it already is when you have "too many" open.

    Then there's the whole censorship crap that goes on in the forums - just like it always was over at Opera HQ - though perhaps the mods aren't as completely off the hook over on Opera's side these days --- though it still is prevalent.
    I got banned from Vivaldi.net last week because it's auto-spam detector didn't like a forum post that did word|word|word|word. I had been a member since the beginning, had a post history over the last year+. At this point, well fuck you Vivaldi.

  12. Crap removal? by IMightB · · Score: 2

    Since it is chromium based, does it

    1) remove all the google phone home junk?
    2) block ads
    3) block js/flash
    4) remove all the google phone home junk?
    5) block all tracking?

    if it doesn't do any of the above, what is the reason to switch?

  13. Oblig. by MrKevvy · · Score: 2

    "Following almost a year of work on alpha..."

    So... Four Seasons of Vivaldi then?

    --
    -- Insert witty one-liner here. --
  14. Re:Where are the trumpeting unicorns? by war4peace · · Score: 4, Informative

    Adding the following:
    - Huge memory footprint, on par with Chrome. This is the #1 issue I have with most modern browsers and Chrome is by far the worst offender. I understand RAM is fairly cheap, but fuck, 2 GB RAM occupied with 4 tabs (GMail, Forge of Empires, Google.com main page and Slashdot) achieves full retard status.
    - Bookmark import works, but creates a sub-folder in the Bookmarks Bar / Imported Bookmarks rather than the expected behavior of asking whether prepopulated bookmarks should be replaced.
    - You can't move multiple bookmark folders to the bookmark bar although you can select multiple folders (it only moves them one by one).

    --
    ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
  15. Re:Vivaldi is Opera by almitydave · · Score: 2

    is vivaldi based on webkit or it's own engine?

    It uses Blink, which is itself derived from WebKit. Blink is used by Chrome and Opera Chromium.

    --
    my, your, his/her/its, our, your, their
    I'm, you're, he's/she's/it's, we're, you're, they're
  16. Re:Privacy policy by Tyrannosaur · · Score: 3, Informative

    Privacy policy? https://vivaldi.com/privacy... What exactly are you looking for?

    Adblocker? I am currently running Vivaldi with Adguard Adblocker, although many others are available. It runs chrome extensions, so.... yeah.