Stop redirecting `chrome://` URLs to `vivaldi://`

Pathduck

This is an issue for advanced users, and especially for those of us on this forum trying to help others by pasting in URLs for them to check.

For example things like cookie exceptions, auto-fill, site settings, and other settings that are not yet in the Vivaldi Settings page. Sometimes these pages are still needed for users to visit for troubleshooting.

This is getting to be quite annoying, to have to remember that if pasted directly as they appear in the address bar, they won't work for a user.

Ayespy

@Pathduck They aren't redirected. Only the address bar is changed.

burnout426

I agree. It's annoying.

When chrome://settings/addresses loads, it loads the correct Chromium settings page, but the URL in the address field is changed to vivaldi://settings/addresses. If one then enters that URL in a new tab, they get taken to the vivaldi://settings page instead, but the URL still says vivaldi://settings/addresses.

That's a case for not changing the URL from chrome:// to vivaldi://. If that was fixed, things would be better. Then, if vivaldi://settings/addresses (or vivaldi://settings/anything_not_supported_on_the_vivaldi_custom_settings_page) is just going to load the vivaldi://settings page, the URL should be changed to just that and not remain at vivaldi://settings/addresses etc.

However, that could all just work better if Vivaldi's custom settings page used a different protocol than 'vivaldi'. Leave 'vivaldi' and 'chrome' protocols for the Chromium settings. Then, for Vivaldi's custom settings page, using 'vivaldi-settings'. For example, vivaldi-settings://general, vivaldi-settings://all etc.

A Former User

@burnout426 said:

However, that could all just work better if Vivaldi's custom settings page used a different protocol than 'vivaldi'. Leave 'vivaldi' and 'chrome' protocols for the Chromium settings. Then, for Vivaldi's custom settings page, using 'vivaldi-settings'. For example, vivaldi-settings://general, vivaldi-settings://all etc.

No, I don't want to type vivaldi-settings://general instead of the short version vivaldi:settings

burnout426

@potmeklecbohdan Okay. Just an example protocol name. It could be something shorter.

jumpsq

@Gwen-Dragon how about vivaldi:config?

A Former User

@jumpsq The URL is not important if it will be short and easy to remember.

debiedowner

This is extremely frustrating. It would be just an annoyance if Vivaldi was just cosmetically altering what is seen on the address bar, but it goes further and tries to modify links.

E.g. go ahead and try to bookmark chrome://settings/. As mentioned, when you are on that page, address by falsely shows vivaldi://settings/, so it bookmarks this URL instead. Annoying but perhaps expected. So I go to the bookmarks page to change it to chrome://settings/. But then I get an inconsistent result: The address field in the modification panel is indeed changed to chrome://settings/, but on the bookmarks list, the address column still shows vivaldi://settings/! If I change it to anything else, say achrome://settings/, there is no inconsistency, they both display the URL correctly, but change it back to chrome://settings/, and wrong again.

I thought maybe this was again just a cosmetic problem. But functionality is buggy as well.

If I click the item in the bookmark list, it correctly opens chrome://settings/.
If I type the nickname I assigned to this bookmark in the address bar, it opens vivaldi://settings/.
If I type the bookmarks name on the address bar and find it and click it, it opens vivaldi://settings/.
If I type the bookmarks name on Quick Commands and find it and click it, it opens chrome://settings/.
If I click the item in Menu -> Bookmarks, it opens chrome://settings/.
(Apparently speed dial also directs to the wrong URL vivaldi://settings/, according to this help thread from 10 days ago).

My preferred methods to navigate to a page are the second and the third, so this is frustrating.

Also, Vivaldi's shenanigans with the address bar don't just consist of replacing "chrome:" with "vivaldi:". What I was actually trying to do was to create a bookmark not to chrome settings, but a certain extension's settings. So I go to chrome://extensions/ (which is falsely shown as vivaldi://extensions/), I click on the Details button for that extension, let's say uBlock Origin. The address bar still claims that I am on vivaldi://extensions/, even though I changed to the extension's page. Anyway, I discovered that I can get the real URL by looking at the page source (Ctrl+U), and it's chrome://extensions/?id=cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm. Excellent, so I go an add it to Bookmarks manually, but a problem similar to above: the editing panel display the URL I entered, but the bookmarks list displays just vivaldi://extensions/. And when I navigate it, e.g. with the bookmark's nickname, same problem occurs. Of course, unlike settings, Vivaldi doesn't have its own extensions page, so I am sent to chrome://extensions/ claiming to be vivaldi://extensions/, instead of chrome://extensions/?id=cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm. The query string is inexplicably cut.

Although I strongly disagree with replacing "chrome:" with "vivaldi:", I can understand the motivation behind it: "What if users see a chrome:// URL and get confused; this is Vivaldi, not Chrome!", but this latter one is particularly incomprehensible. I couldn't see why Vivaldi would do such a user-hostile thing, so I assumed Chromium was doing it and it was some inherited behavior. I installed Chrome on a VM to check, opened the extensions page, clicked details for the first extension, and lo and behold, chrome://extensions/?id=ghbmnnjooekpmoecnnnilnnbdlolhkhi on the address bar! So this let's-dumb-everything-down-so-the-user-can't-see-anything browser correctly displayed the full URL, the power users' browser decided to actively hide it and cause buggy behavior.

It's a mess, and it's an entirely avoidable mess, just don't lie about the actual address I am on. I love it when Vivaldi adds new features and I need to go to ugly chrome:// pages less and less, but when I need to use the few remaining ones which don't have a vivaldi:// replacement, please be honest. I know that you didn't design that horrible full-of-whitespace chrome://downloads page, Chrome did, so don't say it's vivaldi://downloads. I am sure that when vivaldi://downloads is finally added, it will look good and have information density, unlike Chrome's. In the meanwhile, I am sure Vivaldi users are techy enough not to be confused by separate vivaldi: and chrome: URLs. And if they aren't, they wouldn't be visiting chrome: URLs; I think chrome://extensions/ is the only user-accessible one anyway, and even that is understandable without confusion; after all, they are Chrome extensions, and Vivaldi doesn't try to replace chrome-extension:// URLs either (so at least my actual extension settings bookmarks like chrome-extension://cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm/dashboard.html work without problem, thankfully).

debiedowner

@debiedowner said in Stop redirecting `chrome://` URLs to `vivaldi://`:

If I type the nickname I assigned to this bookmark in the address bar, it opens vivaldi://settings/.

It's even more inconsistent than I thought! I just discovered that if I type the nickname for chrome://settings/ (e.g. s) and hit enter quickly enough, it correctly opens the URL chrome://settings/. But if I am slower (say more than 500 ms) it goes to vivaldi://settings/. I guess this is because parts of the address field predictions load at different speeds; as someone with a large history, I often see that the address bar autocomplete changes 2-3 times in 1-2 seconds to different URLs before its final value, so I learned to no longer rely on consistent autotype like in Firefox where I just typed the first one or two letters and hit enter quickly without looking at the address bar. Normally this slowness and inconsistency is one of my biggest annoyances as I am finally moving from Firefox 56 to Vivaldi, but in this case, it helps circumvent a minor annoyance!

debiedowner

@debiedowner said in Stop redirecting `chrome://` URLs to `vivaldi://`:

if I type the nickname for chrome://settings/ (e.g. s) and hit enter quickly enough, it correctly opens the URL chrome://settings/

I can further report that this workaround only works if you have a large history. On a separate Vivaldi profile, where I copied bookmarks but not history, no matter how quickly I type the chrome://settings/ nickname s and hit enter, it goes to vivaldi://settings/. Not surprising; as I had said this workaround only works thanks to Vivaldi's address bar slowness; no history, no slowness.

Another difference between typing fast and slow: When the "type nickname fast" workaround works, when I hit enter on the address bar it opens chrome://settings/ (or whatever bookmark's nickname I typed) in a new tab. (I have "Open Bookmarks in New Tab" enabled in settings.) But when I type slowly such that the workaround doesn't work, vivaldi://settings/ (or whatever bookmark's nickname I typed) opens in current tab. Since I am typing on the address bar, I would expect the latter behavior to be the case; if I wanted the address to open in new tab, I would press Shift+Enter (or Alt+Enter depending on your setting). Anyway, not related to the topic, but Vivaldi clearly evaluates what is typed on the address very differently depending on the speed.

mackhax0r

This is definitely annoying. We know that Vivaldi is using Chromium, so why force "chrome" settings to vivaldi://? Seems like a waste of effort to force the URL to show vivaldi: instead of chrome:

Let me tweak Chromium by going to chrome:// and let me tweak vivaldi by going to vivaldi, which is only vivaldi-based settings.

luetage

@mackhax0r Settings just need to be combined, no point in changing anything about a setup that will not be the endproduct.

burnout426

@mackhax0r Amen to that. No need to hide that it's a Chromium-based browser by branding the protocol for configuration/flag URLs.

However, since all/most Chromium-based browsers insist on branding of the protocol, we probably won't get that. So, if there's got to be branding of the protocol, ideally, this should be built into Chromium where you just specify vendor_protocol_alias="vivaldi" in the build script and everything (the redirection/replacement of 'chrome' to the alias everywhere) is handled by Chromium where it's all tested in Chromium. As in, no hacks/overrides needed by the 3rd party. Then, if the 3rd-party vendor wants to have a separate settings page, they can use a different protocol for that. This would sort things out across all Chromium-based browsers.

One thing that bugs me is the chrome://flags page. While it gets redirected to the branded version, right-clicking a link on the page and choosing "copy link address" copies the non-branded version. It's inconsistent.

I loved it when Opera got rid of its settings page and switched to just using Chromium's where Opera-specific sections/settings are added to the Chromium settings. No need for a custom one im my opinion. (Opera has a few bugs in its redirection from "chrome" to "opera" URLs, so it's not perfect either. That's all the more reason to have this supported right in Chromium where it's backed by test cases etc.)

I think the best thing to do for now is to drop all redirection from chrome to vivaldi until the redirection can be done right. But, that's me.

LonM

This post is deleted!

NA0341

Use vivaldi:// vor Vivaldi's internal pages.
Use chrome:// for Chrome's internal pages.

Gradually replace all of the latter. (replace = integrate into the former)
Keep extension URL's as they are not Vivaldi Extensions. (But replace the page design by a Vivaldi one at some point.)

DO NOT automatically modify/replace URL parts!
That's similar to doing what's described here: https://modalzmodalzmodalz.com

PS: And please remove everything from Chromium which would create (redundant) data that isn't used in any way

Pathduck

Currently in Snapshot under Experiments
vivaldi://experiments