Topic: Browsers

[ren]

I've been using Vivaldi lately (https://vivaldi.com) and I'm a big fan. It's from the makers of Opera and has lots of wonderful features I now find it difficult to go without that don't exist in Firefox or Chrome.

Tab Stack, Page Tiling and side-bar web panels are all features that as far as I know, don't exist elsewhere.

It runs on Chromium so no compatability issues.

Try it out if you're looking for a change.

[Quemaqua]

Hmm. I've been using Opera for quite a while now, didn't know they had another browser. Why is it they've got a 2nd project, I wonder? And if it's Chromium-based, can it use Opera/Chrome plugins?

[MysterD]

Yep, I'm also using Vivaldi. It's great.

[ren]

Yah it can use chrome plugins.

I learned about Vivaldi on a reddit AMA by the founder. He explains why there is a 2nd project here: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4ebgom/iama_jon_von_tetzchner_cofounder_and_ceo_of/

The short version seems to be that he lost control of Opera and started again with a new browser. 

[Quemaqua]

I may well have to check that out, then. Though I'm fairly satisfied with the state of Opera right now.

[scottws]

Still a diehard Firefox user here.

[idolminds]

Still Firefox for me as well. There are several addons for it I just can't live without that have no Chrome alternative.

[scottws]

I only use the uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger add-ons.  I think both have Chrome versions.  For me it's about doing my part to keep up market share for a non WebKit (or WebKit-like) rendering engine.  I don't want to go back to an IE6-like situation where one browser (or rendering engine) dominates Internet clients because we've already seen what that Internet looks like.

[Quemaqua]

I'm with you in principle, scott, but Firefox just turned into a bloated thing that never worked right for me anymore. I had to jump ship on my last rig because the performance got so bad. Opera, however, ran like a dream by comparison. I used Firefox for a lot of years, I was sad to leave it.

[Pugnate]

I love Chrome. The only issue is that it is a memory hog. But other than that it's sweet. I wouldn't want to switch either.

What stuff does Firefox offer that Chrome doesn't?

[Quemaqua]

A privacy policy that doesn't read like a dystopian horror novel, for one.

Okay, I'm just being dumb. I don't really know how good or bad it currently is. It's gone up and down over the years, but the EFF hasn't been all that keen on it, and Google certainly has not always been a grand example of user privacy in the past, despite their own claims.

[scottws]

Well, what Que said is accurate.  Mozilla is extremely privacy focused and has a philosophy whereby they promote things like open web standards as well as fight against government surveillance (insofar as they can).

Besides that, Firefox has caught up with Chrome regarding performance.  They fixed that issue a long time ago.  They also still have the largest number of extensions.  They also do the same tab, bookmark, and history synchronization that Chrome does but Firefox goes a bit further and supports extension synchronization as well.

Where they are behind, though, is in overall security and process separation so that one tab with one JavaScript that is eating all of your CPU or RAM doesn't freeze the whole browser.  They are working on both.

Chrome is a good browser, other than the RAM issue.  I just like Mozilla's philosophy as well as its legacy.

[ren]

I never considered that but I could see myself getting behind it. When the novelty of Vivaldi wears off I'll download Firefox again and see what's up.

[Quemaqua]

Well, I'll say this. Firefox couldn't have had its performance issues fixed that long ago, as I've only had my new rig for 6-10 months or something, and my last rig couldn't handle Firefox AT ALL (even after a fresh install), where Opera ran like a dream.

I could give it another go at this point, though, now that I have a new machine. There were a lot of things I liked about Firefox.

[scottws]

Firefox doesn't run very well on my 2010 MacBook Pro, but nothing really does.  It's pretty old and underpowered at this point (Core 2 Duo).  Seems to depend on JavaScript.  Sites like Google Inbox are really horrible.

Fx runs fine on my work 2013 Dell XPS.

I'm not much of an evangelist, but I do like to make sure everyone has accurate information.  To each their own.  If you like Vivaldi and it suits your needs, I don't know if there is any reason to look elsewhere.

[Cobra951]

I use the straight-HTML version of gmail.  Microsoft took that away from Outlook mail not long ago, and it really hurts here.  I click on the page to get it started, and go browse other tabs for about a minute, slowly.