Vivaldi is another great web browser that should be part of the conversation about the move away from Google Chrome. Like Brave, the new Microsoft Edge, Opera, and other alternatives, it is built on the open-source Chromium project, but offers improved privacy and other advantages, key among its extensive customization capabilities.
And now, it’s getting a bit better.
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“Vivaldi 2.10 [is] our last desktop update of the decade,” Vivaldi’s Jon von Tetzchner explains in the announcement. “Ending on a high note, we address a very significant issue that will provide you with the best website compatibility while browsing. The new version also gives you an option to match and even schedule your browser themes to be in sync with your device’s operating system. In addition, there have been overall improvements across the board.”
The compatibility issue is perhaps the most interesting: Even though it is based on Chromium, Vivaldi has experienced compatibility issues or even blocking when it reveals its true name to certain websites. In fact, Vivaldi not-so-vaguely claims that Google, which makes Chromium and Chrome, is one of the companies blocking it.
“Vivaldi is often blocked by competitors, rivals and tech companies in positions of power,” von Tetzchner notes. “Blocking browsers has no technical merit in 2019, nor has it ever had.” An accompanying video makes it even clearer that Google is engaging in shenanigans.
To counter this illegal behavior, Vivaldi will no longer identify itself as Vivaldi to websites. Instead, Vivaldi will now appear much like Chrome does, eliminating fake compatibility issues. (This is a problem for the new Microsoft Edge, by the way, and I’m curious to see whether Microsoft ever addresses it.)
In addition to this change, Vivaldi is also improving how the browser can schedule its themes: Now, in addition to following its own schedule for theme switching, Vivaldi can simply change themes as your OS switches between its own Light and Dark themes. (This new option is available at Settings > Themes > Scheduled Themes > Use Operating System Theme.)
There are other changes in Vivaldi 2.10, too, including improvements in the Address Bar layout and some keyboard handling tweaks, improvements to the toggle to show or hide hidden extensions, and significant performance improvements to Quick Commands.
You can learn more and download the free Vivaldi web browser here. The Beta version for Android was also updated fairly recently; you can find that on the Google Play Store.
Stooks
<p>How does Vivaldi and Brave make money?</p><p><br></p><p>Using a Chromium based browser makes the most since these days from a compatibility perspective. I get NOT wanting to use Chrome and getting away from Google (I only use YouTube) but these smaller companies like Brave and Vivaldi…..will they be around in 3 years? </p><p><br></p><p>The New Edge seems to strike the perfect balance in terms of using Chromium for compatibility, being more privacy focused than Chrome and the backing of a big company. Microsoft makes 98% of its money on actual products they make vs Google that gets 85%+ of its revenue from targeted ad's….aka your data.</p>
willc
<blockquote><em><a href="#501914">In reply to Stooks:</a></em></blockquote><p>Your fear-mongering about Google is bad enough, but suggesting that Microsoft cares about privacy is nonsense. Not only does their advertising division provide big revenues, all of those "actual products" are infused on every level with telemetry and data-gathering technology. The only reason they switched to Chromium is because maintaining their own browser engine was too expensive. In fact, MS copying Google's work instead of innovating shows that they really <em>don't</em> care about privacy, security, or any of that PR BS. It's all about profits, subscriptions, monetization, data, and squeezing every last dollar out of the consumers naive enough to trust them. </p>