My God, it's full of tabs: Vivaldi's coolest new features shine on phones and cars There are plenty of Chromium-based browsers out there, but few of them fit in as many new features as Vivaldi manages to, or run on as many devices… including cars. As a power user's tool rather than a populist one, Vivaldi's release schedule is slightly more measured than many rival browsers. The latest release of the company …
You don't _need_ one but it's handy, because the car ui is designed for when you have one hand on the wheel.
Maps.
Parking apps.
Route finders.
Media player.
Internet only radio.
Audiobook websites.
Phone integration, contact and number finding.
etc ad nauseum
"There an app for that", replaced there's a website for that for many people because Apple have a shit browser, but the rest of the word kept making websites with useful functionality that does not require a desktop.
For the same reason you need a barbecue, or a sauna - because you can.
This is the insane mentality of people who just can't leave well alone. A car is a tool to get you from one place to another, not an office or entertainment system replacement. No, I do not want a high-end audio system with a 96" flatscreen to watch films in my car. It's nonsense because the sound of the tires on the road are going to spoil any other experience you care to try. Besides, you're supposed to be driving in a car. You have a bloody smartphone to surf the web with.
Stop putting stuff everwhere you can jack it in just because. A hammer does not need to be "smart".
"This is the insane mentality of people who just can't leave well alone."
Especially touch screens. In cars.
NO.
I want tactical feedback and fixed functions to allow eyes-on-the-road operation, not a video game where I need to devote way too much of my attention just to change the cabin temperature.
"touch screens. In cars.
NO."
You mean touch screens ONLY? Sure, that's a problem but, I'd love to have a touchscreen for music. For a stereo, even in the "old days" where you had buttons, the buttons were never really enough. A nice 12x9 4:3 touchscreen for a jukebox style interface would be pretty sweet. That said, the software to run such a jukebox thingy I have in my imagination doesn't exist so, a touchscreen is _currently_ useless for me :-/ ( I still have hope).
Also, I want a car stereo that NEVER babysits me by tell me that "Listening to loud music may..." and I want it INSTANT ON without bootup bullshit causing delay... I want to be truly startled when I turn the key and the volume is maxed out, like back in the days of tape.
Many cars do function as a mobile office within the lifestyle of owner.
When you have many physical sites to visit, and odd bits of downtime that's where you take your breaks, that's where you do all your other work.
The less extra devices tacked up to vent holders and suction cups the better.
Purely personal opinion:
Brave has done a number of things that, each on their own, would have condemned it for me.
* The CEO is anti-gay-marriage:
https://www.theregister.com/2014/04/03/mozilla_brendan_eich_ceo_quits/
* They're into cryptocurrencies, and it has its own, the Basic Attention Token (BAT).
* The browser rewrites referrer URLs to pocket the commission:
https://blog.desdelinux.net/en/brave-esta-en-aprietos-por-modificar-urls-y-colocar-enlaces-de-referencia/
* Adding its own referral codes to hand-typed URLs:
https://www.linuxadictos.com/en/controversia-el-navegador-brave-anade-codigos-de-referidos-a-urls-escritas.html
Any of those would be enough for me to drop it. Any two, and I wouldn't allow it near my machine.
All of them? No. Hard no. No way, not ever, not going to change my mind on that.
Me, personally, I run a telemetry-free Firefox fork, but Vivaldi is one of the best Chromium-engined ones out there. (Oddly enough, Edge comes in second for me. Vertical tabs FTW.)
-> The latest release of the company's eponymous browser is version 5.7, while both Firefox and Chrome are somewhere around version 110.
When Firefox went down this route it showed how boneheaded it had become. In terms of features, it is about version 7 or 8. Now if somebody farts at Firefox and adds an even more complicated way to hide some settings, that's a new version number. A(nother) thing which annoys me about Firefox is how it makes connections to IPs which have no DNS entries. This is traffic from Firefox, initiated by Firefox. It has not come from me browsing somewhere. Here's some of the latest examples: 34.110.220.139, 172.217.16.227, 54.201.143.187, 172.217.169.78. Has nobody at Firefox heard of DNS? How about putting in some hostnames so I know where this browser is connecting to. It could be part of the update process. It could be anything. Sure, I can waste my time looking these up. But thanks for the lack of user friendliness.
I have tried Vivaldi. It has some good features. I always liked the integration of Netscape Communicator back in the day, with its small toolbar of icons for each program in the suite. Vivaldi doesn't have that, but it does have integrated web, email, and calendar. The left side toolbar is a bit confusing. In comparison Firefox has become a horror show. "It burns", as somebody said to Quatermass. Also, the ability to sync cross platform such things as bookmarks, settings, and notes with encryption is a good thing.
I am a bit surprised that Vivaldi is not more popular than Firefox. It deserves to be.
[Author here]
> I was a bit shocked when I saw this yesterday.
I've written about this more than once.
https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/18/foxstuck_firefox_browser_bug_boots/
This is what I recommend instead:
https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/04/waterfox_firefox_fork/
I tend to use Vivaldi on the desktop when I can, despite my employer's instance on Edge (Ah, the joys of being in charge of the company macOS deployment system and therefore requiring admin rights over my own machine). I also use it at home when I can.
I use Safari on iOS, because it's easy. It's quite functional, and generally works ok. I don't dislike it, but I think if Vivaldi had a decent version on iOS, I'd use that.
Ok, the basic level is free, and that's clear from the article.
The Vivaldi website makes the tiers and extra functionality clear.
But nowhere does it talk about how much the extra tiers cost, or if the tier upgrades are device locked or are portable.
Still a great review. When I tried Vivaldi years ago, I was not impressed. The new version looks like it may get me to move over if the pricing and device portability was easier to find.
[Author here]
> The Vivaldi website makes the tiers and extra functionality clear.
It does? Where, please? I can't find the word "tiers" on their site.
The browsers etc. are free of charge. They are not open source, although many components, such as Chromium, are. A lot of it is in Javascript, which is minified, the company admits that, but people modify it and customise it anyway, and the company not only permits but encourages that.
It's freeware. Gratuit, for nothing.
They are clear about their business model:
https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-business-model/
They accept donations because people asked for them. You can buy merchandise.
https://vivaldi.com/contribute/
But it's free and there is no paid tier I am aware of. Please correct me if I am wrong!
Vivaldi has no ability to access and use a carddav source which prevents the email component from being actually useful.
Caldav? Fine, hooked up in seconds.
IMAP/SMTP, yes, no problem, multiple accounts are easy, and even supports aliases and full format signatures.
Carddav .. wait, WTF? Where? Oh no, it ain't there. &%$#@
That's like building a car with no tyres on the rims. It'll work, but not that well.
Why isn't Vivaldi on Android the same as on any other platform? Why can't I press the F12 key and see the developer tools? (I have a manufacturer supplied keyboard attached to my Android tablet, so it's not because I can't press F12.) Why doesn't the Android version of Vivaldi implement the F4 sidebar functionality of the desktop version?
I use it as my daily driver, because for me it's the best, but that's a very low bar. Why are *ALL* the browsers on Android crippled in these ways? Even just viewing page source-code requires arcane knowledge.
It just so happens that I've recently been in conversation with a web site concerning just how badly their experience sucks on an Android tablet. Had the standard dev tools been available, it would have been massively easier for me to explain what's going wrong.
-A.
[Author here]
> Why can't I press the F12 key and see the developer tools?
That's a legitimate question.
I mean, you answer your own question: because 99% of Android devices don't _have_ a keyboard. My Gemini does, but it has no F-keys. But some do, as you say, and you can connect one.
Have you raised this with them? I suggest doing so.
I salute you for still using a Gemini. My wife still does, but only because the Cosmo had so many issues.
She's waiting for the Astro to arrive. Planet have missed the mark by several miles with software support, it's a disaster; they sell devices they haven't updated for years! I doubt the Astro will be different, but she demands the real keyboard...
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
