Vivaldi

sgunhouse

sgunhouse Moderator Volunteer

Since switching to the Blink engine, Opera has had a tough task. They need to do something to differentiate themselves from the exiting browsers. Speed improvements are nice, but only so much is possible in that area precisely because it is the same engine. Given their previous product their existing users had certain other expectations of how Opera would differentiate their browser from others; but Opera seems to have chosen a different route.

Now along comes Vivaldi, trying to do exactly what people expected Opera to do. If Opera continues to do what it has then most of the former Opera users will switch, pure and simple. But Opera/Blink has a higher market share than Presto was ever able to achieve, so I for one do not see the company going away any time soon. Not like Vivaldi will either of course.

The question is, will Vivaldi ever get past Presto's previous 1-2% market share? Not that being a niche browser is untenable from a business perspective, but I'm sure they would hope for more. And now that Opera will be somewhat freed of pressure to mimic Presto, which direction should they go?

christoph142

christoph142

Uuuh, Steve, you said "expect".
Now you have to fear @cozza's homily, too...

blackbird71

blackbird71

FWIW, Opera's words at the time followed along the line that the move away from Presto was "mainly just an under-the-hood change". That did indeed raise certain expectations among Opera's userbase that much of the user-side of Opera would be preserved. I cannot help wondering whether or not those initial words were the result of naivete at the time by those who issued them regarding the inherent architectural issues with Webkit/Blink. But to be fair, there were other words issued at that same time by Opera cautioning users that Opera was intentionally targeting a broader userbase, and that there was no guarantee that certain Opera features would be continued.

In any case, that's ALL in the rear-view mirror now. What I or others hoped for, expected, or simply dreamed would happen has unfolded in its own unique way. Blink Opera is now here for all to see and use. Vivaldi is now emerging for users to also see and use. Both browsers are likely to follow their own distinct paths into the future. Other browsers offer still other paths. The world is constantly changing, software as well. I'm just grateful for the choices still being offered, whether or not any one of them fully meet my hopes or expectations.

blackbird71

blackbird71

...
The question is, will Vivaldi ever get past Presto's previous 1-2% market share? Not that being a niche browser is untenable from a business perspective, but I'm sure they would hope for more. And now that Opera will be somewhat freed of pressure to mimic Presto, which direction should they go?

I believe the real question is how to truly grow market share without simply eating each other's lunch. If Vivaldi were to absorb "most of the former Opera users", then Opera's remaining market share stats won't look good at all. To truly grow, both browsers have to figure out ways to successfully move users away from Chrome, IE, and FF, since they own the vast share of the browser market. I'm frankly not yet convinced either Opera or Vivaldi really knows yet how to solve that problem. There's a major chasm between having neat, creative technical ideas and having (and promoting) sound, creative concepts that can come to dominate an existing marketplace.

A Former User

Opera's days are over now.

loxiw

loxiw

I do not like that flat design, apart from that it's really interesting and I'll consider swapping when the time arrives, that depends of Opera

georgesywf

georgesywf

According to the review of Vivaldi browser on a blog it say that

"Like turbo or off road mode which enables anyone to save data, Vivaldi doesn’t seem to have one "

What you guys think, does vivaldi have a data saving feature or not ?

If not can we expect it in future ?

sgunhouse

sgunhouse Moderator Volunteer

It does not currently. It is early yet.

blackbird71

blackbird71

+1 to what @sgunhouse just wrote. So far, this is just a Technical Preview version, akin to what Opera was releasing developmentally prior to v15. Jon has already noted Vivaldi plans approximately weekly update releases, starting shortly. So let's just see how it all unfolds before jumping to any conclusions about anything.

ozoratsubasa

ozoratsubasa

The interface is entirely written in HTML. That makes it incredibly flexible. You can basically do anything you want with it.

This is interesting

Vivaldi is a good browser for power users, but for beginners it is not. Sometimes a person just to browse on the web and don't need a software with a lot of features that does not need.

I think different: Vivaldi as the old Opera give a lot of options for browsing. The user will just use the necessary features for him. Even I being a "power user", neither all of old Opera I used (or used less).

UI is very sluggish.

Yeah, i hope they improve it soon

Otter is closer to old Opera than Vivaldi. Vivaldi is a better Chropera, but still Chropera.

Yeah, I am thinking now if the dev will keep the Otter, now the Vivaldi Browser came out. Anyone knows?

christoph142

christoph142

UI is very sluggish.

Yeah, i hope they improve it soon

A huge performance bug was fixed recently. So the next public developer build (soon! ;)) will be mostly fine for anybody not using very high screen resolutions.

Otter is closer to old Opera than Vivaldi. Vivaldi is a better Chropera, but still Chropera.

Yeah, I am thinking now if the dev will keep the Otter, now the Vivaldi Browser came out. Anyone knows?

Jon is in contact with him. Time will tell. :sherlock:

namal23

namal23

I don't like the name though...vivaldi..I wonder who and how they came up with that name

A Former User

I was thinking the same, weird name.

namal23

namal23

I was thinking the same, weird name.

Ok, I have done some thinking. Vivaldi was a componist and he wrote some operas

Deleted User

Deleted User

Jón von Tetzchner is a opera music fan. Thats why the company he had cofounded was named Vivaldi Technologies AS, and therfore the web browser is Vivaldi.

A Former User

Vivaldi now has a drop down button inside to reopen typed URLs. I requested this to opera several times and now Vivaldi brought it back.

Vivaldi

A Former User

If any of you are trying it out on Linux and you get the blackened menu options and right click menus then start it from the terminal.

vivaldi --disable-gpu-compositing

They don't have a GUI option to disable it. It's also throwing errors on a VM and on a live install and on a normal install with Ubuntu, Lubuntu, and Linux Mint. I've not tried anything else.

limboslam

limboslam

Vivaldi Beta is now out and ready for download!! See blog post here: https://vivaldi.net/en-US/teamblog/66-the-first-vivaldi-beta

A Former User

I've tried the Vivaldi Beta and it's impressive (don't like the simple ui though). Unfortunately at present, there are a few missing features which would stop me using it as a main browser. The Speed Dial is nowhere near as good as Opera's and it can't be set as the homepage. I'm sure they'll improve the features before stable release. Not sure I'd ever use it instead of Opera though.

A Former User

Don't you think, perhaps, they're trying to catch the yester day?
I imagine a browser like Opera (now) or Firefox, where I can put any needed extension to improve capacity/comfort/usability - and it'll most probably work. If it wouldn't, I'll dump this and try another, or something...
Like that home page, like my speed dial in Firefox - by extension...