
Vivaldi 2.6 - jonmccull
https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-browser-blocks-abusive-ads-improves-profile-management-and-more/
======
onyva
This monetization of web content first as a business model for browsers is
pathetic when considering what are the stakes. I will pay for Firefox premium
(VPN and cloud) and will always block ads no matter what. I’m not interested
in content that’s only published to generate revenue. Vivaldi or Brave whom
ever... I don’t need a to streamline online advertisement, I want it to die
together with the industry that’s based on it.

~~~
blfr
I completely agree with you. I block ads on principle and will do so even if
they're unobtrusive and backed by blockchain-based profit sharing. Judging by
this being the top comment, many HN-ers agree with you as well.

The Internet population at large, however, doesn't. People would rather watch
ads than pay and until it changes there will be many businesses online relying
on ads.

~~~
stOneskull
i want neither ads or paying. i'd like to see everyone with their own website.
peer-to-peer can handle a lot like video, as well as a decentralized news
feed, and a new type of web-ring, adding each other's websites instead of
adding fb friends. it's easy to set up free hosting for someone's website, and
to supply a free domain, even if a subdomain off another person's site. there
are ways.

------
skrebbel
I really love Vivaldi's features and how they're designed/UX'ed.

But I've had to move away from it, back to Firefox, because it was simply too
sluggish and weird right where _it matters_.

Like, I'm never entirely sure whether a page is loading. Is my connection bad,
or is Vivaldi in a weird lockup state? I mean, the latter is totally
imaginable. I've had pages suddenly render entirely white, while stuff is
still clickable (i.e. the mouse becomes a hand icon when I move over where I
expected to see buttons). I had to copy the url into a new tab and all was
good again.

Quirks like these compared with the slight slowness of the UI make Vivaldi
feel like a pre-iphone smartphone. I wish they would address this.

I don't even think I'd need for the UI to be much _faster_ \- I'm ok with a
slightly less snappy UI in exchange for all the power user features (and the
speed with which Vivaldi has been adding them). But you have to improve the
visual feedback. Little loading spinners can get you a long way. Don't just
freeze stuff. When I click "stop", make the stop button become the reload
button immediately again. Show proper error pages when stuff goes wrong, I
don't mind, I can reload. Ditch the limbo states.

I truly wonder whether the Vivaldi team actually uses Vivaldi. Or maybe they
all use enormously powerful 32 core workstations on amazing internet? C'mon
guys, fix your browser. It's worth it.

~~~
bayesianbot
For me it's one of the snappiest (on Linux mint / i7 / 16GB). I changed to
Vivaldi about year ago and it's the first browser ever which isn't constantly
slowing down with time and I'm not constantly thinking should I change again.

~~~
skrebbel
Hm! Maybe it's all Windows specific then. That's a pretty polar opposite
experience you got there.

------
snvzz
On the topic of browsers, netsurf[0] (which implements its own engine, rather
than being yet another webkit/chrome/gecko frontend) is close[1] to making a
new release.

[0] [http://www.netsurf-browser.org/](http://www.netsurf-browser.org/)

[1] [https://listmaster.pepperfish.net/pipermail/netsurf-dev-
nets...](https://listmaster.pepperfish.net/pipermail/netsurf-dev-netsurf-
browser.org/2019-June/003988.html)

~~~
cantcomplain
Look I'm not asking for the most modern bloated web design, I like simplicity,
but that website looks pretty outdated an ugly for a modern web browser. As a
user if their website looks that outdated why should I trust their browser?

~~~
snvzz
While understandable, that's just one opinion.

I actually do like the classic design, and how the page doesn't require
downloading several megabytes of data to display.

------
GaurVimen
So, basically, it will pass more of your data to Google, not block tracking,
but remove a lot of the visual noise that reminds you you're being
tracked...all while raising the stakes for advertisers to circumvent current
and largely effective ad blocking methods.

~~~
jrvxo
>So, basically, it will pass more of your data to Google

Where exactly do you get this from?

------
frabert
The title is mildly confusing right now, I parsed it as "Abusive (Ad Blocker)"
instead of "(Abusive ad) blocker" and wondered why they would want to boast
that on their blog

~~~
latexr
I run uBlock Origin in hard mode[1]. It’s pretty close to an “Abusive (Ad
Blocker)”, and I like it. Most websites break on first visit, which makes me
more aware of all the extraneous crap.

[1]: [https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-
mode:-hard-m...](https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-hard-
mode)

------
as2019
I switched from Chrome to Vivaldi and back to FF for two reasons:

1) Vivaldi rendering performance is the worst I've ever seen in a browser. No
idea how they managed that using webkit, but some sites would make tabs crash
on a high end system.

2) The web developer tools are unusable due to bugs.

3) Fixing simple but impactful bugs takes too long.

I really like their useful and plenty settings for everything, but 1) and 2)
make it a no go for me.

~~~
Gustomaximus
Vivaldi using Webkit... Its Chromium isnt it?

~~~
as2019
They're using Webkit, yes, but I guess it's highly customized. The performance
is so much worse than Chrome and FF

It's even possible to create pages in a way that reproducibly freezes and
crashes Vivaldi. Their rendering process handles pages with many elements and
multimedia objects very poorly.

~~~
pseudalopex
Vivaldi uses Blink.[1]

[1] [https://help.vivaldi.com/article/user-agent-
spoofing/](https://help.vivaldi.com/article/user-agent-spoofing/)

------
askl
Oh, I first thought they added an ad blocker that is abusive.

------
saagarjha
The "abusive ads" text links to Google's guidelines for abusive ads: is this
what Vivaldi is using to determine what's "abusive"?

------
Hamuko
> We’ve got great feedback on our support for User Profiles and based on that
> we’ve added new ways to customise those for you.

Are user profiles the same kind of dumb shit that is in Chrome? As in, it's
completely forced upon you even on a single-user machine with every way to
disable it removed years ago.

~~~
brianpgordon
Yeah, what's the deal with that? There have to be at least 2 nines in the
percentage of end-user systems used by only a single person. The only
explanation I can think of is that they're angling for a Chrome-like cross-
device experience that _conveniently_ stores all of your browsing data on
their servers.

------
thunderbong
I'm seriously thinking of switching to Vivaldi as my default development
browser.

It has incredible keyboard support and feature wise closest to the old Opera
browser, which till date is the first browser I feel in love with

------
Nux
Bit of a letdown really, I've been waiting since forever for an Android
browser and now they come up with this "selected ads" thing.. I don't think
they are serious.

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arusahni
> [Tabs] Releasing middle mouse button on a tab closes it, even when the
> actual click was somewhere else VB-43962

I filed this bug two years ago. I guess there are fewer and fewer mouse-users.

------
sudeepj
How much of a payoff is there in browser business given that browser
development is not trivial at all and it has become a commodity?

~~~
oblio
Browser development can't both be non trivial and a commodity. Or I'm
misunderstanding you.

~~~
pitkali
Browser development is non-trivial, but browsers themselves are a commodity.
There is no money in browser itself as an app, or at the very least not enough
to support development.

------
ivanstegic
But how do you make money to pay your devs?

~~~
gmueckl
Thw only credible statement I found regarding that was that they sell the
spots on the default start page for money. However, I have no idea how much
these are worth in a browser with approximately 0 percemt marketshare.

