back to article Phone home: Indie Chromium browser Vivaldi goes mobile

The independent Chromium-based browser outfit Vivaldi has finally emitted a mobile client. The Android app has been a long, long time coming. CEO Jon von Tetzchner told us back in 2016 that something was in the works. The gang was still working on it last year, with Von Tetzchner admitting the first iteration would be " …

  1. Lee D Silver badge

    *cough* Promised mail client on desktop version? *cough*

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      I've given up on it ever arriving and am currently giving MailMate a go.

      1. Lee D Silver badge

        I have 20 years of email tied up in an SQLite database that, if I dare press "update" on the old Opera, will likely just disappear.

        They even released an unintentional Vivaldi preview with the functionality in it... nothing since.

        I see no reason to use Vivaldi while it's literally just Chromium in a fancy wrapper. I can get that anywhere... hell, that's basically what Edge will be very soon.

        Email clients are 10-a-penny. One that works and imports all my old email (from accounts that no longer physically exist) are not.

        There will come a time when I just script the whole damn thing out into Dovecot etc. mailboxes and never touch Opera or Vivaldi ever again, but I was silly enough to believe their years of initial announcements that it was going to come.

        They have literally zero USP over just using Chrome.

        1. LewisRage

          "They have literally zero USP over just using Chrome."

          Except they don't stream every aspect of your interaction and your data back to the google mothership.

          Arguably they have no USP over other browser makers (brave?), although the desktop version was highly configurable (i think?) which nerds like us like.

          Either way I'm happy to tick along in Firefox land on the desktop and Brave on the mobile.

        2. Terry 6 Silver badge

          Chromium browser on my phone, Meh. Got PaleMoon and Firefox

          Email client, Meh! Lots of choices out there

          Email client with a calendar* a la Outlook or Thunderbird+Lightning? That would be worth considering.

          I was stuck with Outlook on my desktop for years before Lightning integrated to TB better. There's lots of room for improvement. Filters more like Outlook's with sophisticated rule making (and organising) would be a starter.

          1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

            Opera's views (copied from BeMail) are so much better than filters.

    2. Lee T

      Here's hoping it releases before Mac OS 10.15 which is apparently dropping 32 bit app support (which will break Opera 12)

  2. Lee D Silver badge

    iOS does not allow anything browser-like that doesn't use the in-built HTML rendering engine (KHTML or something?).

    Even "Google Chrome" on iOS is just a wrapper around the same controls that Safari uses to render websites, because they're not allowed to do anything else.

  3. This post has been deleted by its author

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Javascript ?

    Since running NoScript, I have discovered that well over half the sites I visit simply will not work without javascript. Some I am happy to whitelist, the main site, but they insist on dragging in several other sites which I have to temporarily enable before they'll work.

    Taking a YouGov survey is interesting. Works OK with YouGov.com whitelisted until you get to the "And finally..." where you need to enable a whole shedload of sites or enjoy a blank screen.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Google do themselves a disservice

    With all the recent controversy over API changes, rather than explain and collaborate, they basically dug their heels in. They may be the gate keepers of Chrome, but that does mean they are the masters - that should be the contributors and end user.

    I held out with Chrome, but this put the nail on the coffin.. in my household I've got a dozen laptops, desktops and even more VM. A month ago, I ripped out Chrome and replaced it with Vivaldi.

    The last vestiges are on my family mobiles.. I imagine, that will also shortly be taking a back seat.

  6. K

    Might not be visible in Play App

    If you can't find it in the play store app, Google it, and find the link on the Vivaldi website, which will open it in the Play Store app for you.

    1. cantankerous swineherd

      Re: Might not be visible in Play App

      Google have managed to insert themselves then.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm sure it's a nice browser

    But I just do not understand why you would install a closed-source browser on your system when there are perfectly fine alternatives. Is it the rendering engine? Why not just use Chromium? Or use Firefox.

    1. ArrZarr Silver badge

      Re: I'm sure it's a nice browser

      I haven't used Chromium, but Vivaldi comes with a pretty decent speed dial system. If your work entails lots of different logins to the same tool, chrome profiles are a godsend, having independent versions of a single, mainstream browser on one install. The problem with having all sorts of different Chrome profiles is that having Chrome as your default browser means that any link you click will open into the last Chrome profile you were in. A non-Chrome browser with all sorts of configuration options as default sidesteps that problem neatly.

      As the place where I access the most sites, the Speed dial system on Vivaldi working well, out of the box without needing to faff around with extensions but that can sideload Chrome extensions if required makes Vivaldi a compelling choice

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