Mastodawn

Jon S. von Tetzchner

32 years ago I started working on my first browser, Opera. I left Opera in 2011, but two years later I co-founded Vivaldi. Thus I have been making browsers now for 32 years, with a short break there between 2011 and 2013.

I have always felt that this work is important and no less today than before as more and more of you see the importance of alternatives to Big Tech.

Vivaldi is a European company with headquarters in Norway, servers in Iceland and team in Norway, Iceland, across Europe, Japan and a couple in the US.

We try our best to adapt to your needs. We build powerful browsers, with a lot of flexibility.

I welcome you to try us out and share with your friends!

#Windows #Macos #Linux #Android #iOS #TEchnology #EU #Europa #Norway #Iceland #Browser #Vivaldi #BigTech

https://vivaldi.com

Vivaldi Browser | Powerful, Personal and Private web browser

It’s a web browser. But fun. It comes with a bunch of clever features built-in. It’s super flexible and does not track you. Get the Vivaldi browser for desktop, mobile, and your car!

Vivaldi Browser

Jon S. von Tetzchner Apr 16

There is no better feeling than the satisfaction of seeing happy users of Vivaldi. There is a reason why I and the rest of the Vivaldi team continue to work hard on building a better browser for all of you!

It is not always easy. Building a browser across platforms and devices is not trivial to do. Connecting them all together through sync s not trivial either. Making it work well on small and large screens, using different input methods takes a lot of work as well. Having unlimited flexibility is hard as well. This is the reason why others tend not to do it. It is a lot easier to just say that the way you design it is the right way and the user is wrong.

I know there are then things that some of you would like us to do, that we have not done yet. Generally we have it on our list.
Running on a different code base is not on our list, though. It is too much work for too little gain. It is better for us to spend resources on improving the one code base we have. The more resources we have, the more we can do. When you tell your friends about Vivaldi, you help us grow and you help us be able to do more.

Thanks!
Jon.

@jon You are awesome. Keep it up.

Netscape Navigator Apr 16

You may get some hate for it, because it is impossible to please everyone, and those who try often end up pleasing no one.

That said, stay with Chromium / Blink.

At the moment, today, Apple's WebKit has more of a market share than Mozilla's Gecko, which continues to lose ground. And whether people like it or not, Chromium / Blink is the current world stanard.

It is what people picked, and continue to use, and rely upon. It works, and it works well.

Yes, Google is an evil company. You've point that fact out, and everyone who will object will happily point that out too. But people made Chromium / Blink the majority. And until that changes, sticking around with what works makes sense.

Jon S. von Tetzchner Apr 16

@NetscapeNavigator , yes, I think we can make more positive change by influencing Chromium at this time. The more resources we have, the more we can influence. We are already influencing most other browsers as they look our way for ideas.

exitcode Apr 16

@jon have you looked at Servo as the possible engine Vivaldi could run on?

@jon thank you and the vivaldi team for making and maintaining my favorite browser.

any chance you have anyone working on anti-fingerprinting?

@jon I'm convincing my mates to switch to Vivaldi , everyone I meet

@jon You’re doing a fantastic job - your contribution to the web is invaluable.

The only thing I’m missing is more merch that more clearly promotes the browser itself. “Big Tech Big No,” “Browser Veteran,” or even something like “I Like Tabs” might not be very clear to someone unfamiliar with browsers.
But that’s just my opinion.

@jon
> I have been making browsers now for 32 years

Congratulations! And thank you.

On congrats occasion: please improve the testing procedures ;)). Especially for the built-in email client, which has had a few too many glitches lately.

Leo Schuldiner🤘🏼Apr 16

@jon I got it 2 months ago and I like it a lot. It is my main browser and has lots of unique features quite clever and useful! You should just try it!!

Jane the Motherfucker Apr 16

@jon Is it free software yet?

Adam Wysokiński Apr 16

@jon My browser of choice for the last 12 months. It's excellent!

Drew has moved to ieji.de Apr 16

@jon Thank you for building a great browser. As a webdev I have to have both Firefox-based and Chromium-based browsers on hand for testing as well as daily driving; I chose Waterfox and Vivaldi and I'm happy with both.

@jon all right, you convinced me:) - downloading, trying 🙏

Stephen Farrugia Apr 16

@jon are you keeping an eye on the servo project?

@jon 32..64..128..256..512..1024 years

@jon
Love @Vivaldi …
deep bow of thanks 🙏!…

El Duvelle Apr 16

@jon I moved to #Vivaldi several months ago now - when #Firefox stated changing my selected search engine for a genAI one - and I have not looked back! I really like it, thank you so much for improving our lives by making it!
I guess I should go donate now :)

mcSlibinas Apr 16

@jon Opera Mini for android has the best ever UI, no browser even close get to that greatness.
Thank you!

chris actual Apr 16

@jon Integrated masto client is a nice touch. Been dipping my toes in for a couple years but am now using Vivaldi as my main browser. Thanks for your commitment to web browsers :)

Mitex Leo Apr 16

@jon Vivaldi is my primary browser on all platforms ❤️

Mags at Large Apr 16

@jon Happy Vivaldi user here. I switched over two years ago. Not looking back.

@jon
That's the journey!
And I may say I've been using then Opera and now Vivaldi for about 2/3 of that time, for a lot of reasons. Thus, I personally want to say thank you.

AnyWorker Apr 16

I have both #Safari and #Vivaldi on my mobiles, but my #default #browser is Safari.

I don't need a #screenreader all the time, so I don't run #VoiceOver.

Safari will #readaloud to me if I choose to listen, so opening a link from wherever is how I use Safari.

When I know where I'm going, I mostly use Vivaldi. And if I think I'll want to remember a #website or #access it on my #computer, I'll paste the link into Vivaldi because they're synced.

@jon I switched to Vivaldi lately and I’m very happy with it. It’s part of a migration plan away from big tech. Thank you for your precious work!

@jon I wish Vivaldi had its own extensions store just like Opera still has and not depend on dictatorship of Google.

With own store you can still host ManifestV2 extensions like uBlock Origin, something you can't when using Google's extension store.

For starter it could only offer alternative extensions that are restricted on Google's own, but maybe later expand to be entirely own thing.

Daniel Artfors Apr 16

@jon There is just one thing that's bartering me, and that's that I can't incorporate Vivaldi in gnome's design language. It hurts my eyes. 😩

Chris Real Apr 16

After I installed Vivaldi on my phone, I installed it on my computer.

UNinstalled Firefox, but left Chrome, for the Download links (I download some pages, so I can digest them without constant Refresh issues).

So far, so good. I appreciate your efforts.

@jon Isn't Chromium dependency a liability in terms of digital sovereignty? I am trying to understand those who argue that Mozilla, by maintaining Gecko, is the last stand against Google's technological monopoly.

Mark Stosberg Apr 16

@marcin_kras @jon Because Chromium is open, if there are parts of it that don’t meet Vivaldi’s needs, it can be changed.

Dudley of Yesterzine

@marcin_kras my one experience of Vivaldi was installing it, discovering they’d obediently banned unlock origin because google did and uninstalling Vivaldi, so yes basically.

Paul J Wege Apr 16

@jon That’s why I’m such a big fan of the Fediverse: honest people do honest things and talk about them—not just with their investors, but above all with their users.
Many thanks for the work all if you are doing. 💚

#Vivaldi is my favorite Chromium browser. Some of the features, like the ability to strip tracking info from links, is really helpful. I think it has one of the nicest looking reader modes that I've come across. The ability to hide specific UI elements until the mouse is moved over them has really helped with screen real estate on my small laptop screen.

But I wish it had a way to pin tabs across workspaces the way #ZenBrowser does.

Or how in Gecko-based browsers, when you take a screen capture, it will highlight different items on the web page automatically, instead of dragging a box to capture specific parts of a page.

If I could cobble together my ideal web browser from existing projects, I'd definitely take a lot from Vivaldi.

FlenseAusten Apr 16

@jon the only reason i dont try it, is because it is Chromium.

@jon I uninstalled it yesterday. I got fed of the daily nag to upgrade to latest version. On firefox, I gnore them because I prefer too go for the update of *.1 *.2, etc as fewer bugs.

Ross Wintle Apr 16

@jon Recent Vivaldi adopter here. Thanks for all that you do. Took me a while to get going but I’m in and enjoying it now.

your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦Apr 16

@jon i tried it and once i upgrade my linux desktops, it’ll definitely become my default browser but i cant on android, which i use way more these days thanks to my tablet.

i tried vivaldi-andoid but i can’t use extensions? is there a hidden, developer feature to add extensions?

i need my obsidian extension and a few other extensions as part of my normal browsing. it’s both a usability and workflow issue.

the firefox redesign ―which nobody asked for― messed up my usability setup.

ZenHeathen 🇨🇦🏳️‍🌈Apr 16

@jon Too many pestering emails immediately followed installing Vivaldi. It irritated me multiple times a day for a week. I'd barely begun to even look at the damn thing. I uninstalled it and blocked the emails.

@jon I'm still sad about #Opera and #Presto. I do SO DAMN FAAAST

Alaknár Apr 16

@jon Are you guys ever thinking of writing your own engine, to get away from the monopoly of Chromium?

@alaknar @jon or switch to Gecko, the backend of #Firefox... Just to get away from Google...

Amorpheus Apr 16

@LupinoArts @alaknar @jon Anything not under EULA would be nice.

Catweazle Apr 16

@LupinoArts @alaknar @jon, don't confuse it, Mozilla without Google would not longer exist, independent that it isn't possible to switch the engine without to develope the browser from scratch, less for a small team like Vivaldi.

All 3 current engines are from big US tech companies, apart of some irrelevant forks. The engine is by far the most complex part of an browser, reason because there isn't any new engine since more than 20 years. Ther is one, Ladybird, which try to release a browser with an independent engine since several years now, until today not even an alpha version, they will end between, IMHO, the list of >70 already abandoned and discontinued browsers.

The only possibility is that an european company fork and maintane the Chromium engine, maybe KDE? At least Blink/Chromium is a fork of their KHTML.

@Catweazle as i understand, google pays Mozilla to be their default search engine, and that is how they fund development of their render engine. But the engine itself is independent from google's code, while Chromium is developed by Google directly. My point is that Gecko could exist without Google (if Mozilla found another source of income), while Chromium does not. @alaknar @jon

Catweazle Apr 18

@LupinoArts @alaknar @jon, it's way more complicated, eg. it use googleanalytics, google-tagmanager, APIs from Amazon and some others. Google don't pay an half Billion Dollar to an browser with 4,5% market share only to be the default search engine.

https://archive.is/20230513101253/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-05/google-chrome-dominance-has-mozilla-firefox-searching-for-answers

@jon I have had those two as my main browsers the past decades, so I really appreciate your work - every single day. :-)

@jon been using Vivaldi for a year now and I absolutely love it. Your ad and tracking blocker is the best I’ve tried and I love that it has a browser level VPN so I don’t have to have all my internet traffic go through VPN.
Keep up the good work!
#NotSponsored

Gary 🇨🇦 🇺🇦 🇪🇺Apr 16

@jon I'm quite happy with Vivaldi and I use it on the laptop and my 'phone. Thanks for all you do.

For years now, Vivaldi has been my backup browser - the one I use when a site or service works better (or at all) with a Blink-based browser rather than Firefox.

Firefox's continuing slide into slop, surveillance, and advertising may mean Vivaldi becomes my primary - or only - browser.

But you know what would speed that up? If Vivaldi launched an experimental version of its browser using Servo as the rendering engine, rather than Blink.

Anyways... Vivaldi's great, everyone should use it over the other Blink / WebKit browsers.

#Vivaldi #Blink #Servo #browser

I have been using Vivaldi for a number of months now and I think it’s great! Thanks for creating such a good tool for us all to use.

Barry Cook 🇨🇦Apr 16

@jon - I have Vivaldi as my secondary browser after Waterfox (a fork of Firefox) on my Mac.
I like it - though I know I've only tried a fraction of the features on it. So why am I still on Waterfox? No efforts at AI, and I really do like the 'multi-account containers' feature on Waterfox / Firefox - limiting where websites can follow you. Not sure Vivaldi has that.

@jon I love using Vivaldi and is my preferred browser across my devices. Thank you!!

@jon I find it difficult to explain to people that the real Opera Browser is now the Vivaldi Browser. I recommend your browser to people who are stuck on Chrome and other variants.

Jon S. von Tetzchner Apr 16

@lisp_1 , that is understood. You kind of have to know the history to understand that.Opera went into a very different direction after I left and that is really the reason I felt Vivaldi was needed. After the fact, there have been very many reasons why are needed and it seems like the need is increasing each day.

EliJ quilting cataloguer Apr 17

@jon Thank you for your work. Vivaldi is my preferred browser 😍

Jernej Simončič �Apr 17

@jon I switched from Opera 12 directly to Vivaldi, because unlike ChrOpera the mouse gestures worked.

Unfortunately, the address bar has been badly broken for the past year, sending random pasted addresses to search instead (VB-121860).

@jon I used Opera in the 2000s, then abandoned it when Opera ASA became "something else." Vivaldi was a discovery a few years ago, an extraordinary one. Of course, these are no longer the days of Webkit and extreme adherence to Web standards, but all the features, shortcuts, and gestures of Opera are in the Vivaldi philosophy. My default browser without any if, any but :)

@jon move away from Chrome and I'll try. The only reason to support a browser is to support diversity in the web and avoid a(nother) Google monopoly. As it is now, you're just another flavour of a Google drink.

Rigo Wenning Apr 17

@jon but the Presto engine 🥹🥲! Nah, not really. But Servo is worth looking at because you may be able to secure NGI funding for it. Or tap into all the sovereignty movements in the EU.

@jon I used Opera since 2.0 up to Opera 12 - the last true Opera. I was so happy when Vivaldi emerged bringing the legacy of Opera 12. It's a fantastic browser and so innovative. Thank you so much for this marvel