Solved Support Extensions

tverye

Extension support is really lacking. For example, the implementation of a translator for Vivaldi, as I understand it, has certain difficulties, since Vivaldi, as an official company, need to buy access to the api of translation providers. Unlike amateur extensions, which simply use indirect access to translators.

I would also like to see functions similar to the clearurls extension in the browser, without which any talk about surfing privacy is meaningless, even if you use dozens of filter lists for adblock. Meaning? If every second click on links from a search or on a social network has tracking right in the url address that you use to go. And here, too, implementation difficulties arise, since in order to maintain the functionality at the desired level, you need to maintain a list of current rules, which the Vivaldi team is unlikely to do on its own, unlike the clearurls volunteers. (Although it would not be so difficult to implement basic link cleaning from redirects from major social networks, search engines and ad tags from major ad networks. Maybe someone will create a topic with this suggestion?)

In general, it will be quite difficult to implement quite a lot of useful things in the browser on your own, at the same time, extensions have all this for a long time. Unfortunately, now only Yandex and Kiwi support the chrome extensions, but the first is inherently spyware, and the second has not been fully supported for a year now (updates come purely as automatic builds).

Hadden89

@tverye said in Support Extensions:

the implementation of a translator for Vivaldi

Upvotes the one(s) you think is closer.

functions similar to the clearurls extension

Maybe someone will create a topic with this suggestion?

Do a request here but I think is better to inherit this via extension support as it would an additional layer which could slow down the browser.

only Yandex and Kiwi support the chrome extensions

And Firefox, which use chromium-like extensions.

tverye

@Hadden89 said in Support Extensions:

And Firefox, which use chromium-like extensions.

For some reason, Mozilla is in no hurry to unblock a larger set of extensions, although I recently read about a small fork with disabled telemetry and unblocking the installation of any extensions from the Firefox catalog, but I'm not sure that even some of them will be able to work correctly. Therefore, I did not mention Firefox, as it is more accurate to say that it supports 9-11 extensions out of the box than to say that it supports extensions in general.

Hadden89

@tverye True, newer FF has limited support.
Probably other forks - like palemoon/waterfox - are using legacy fox code which still support most of them.
The issue is these extensions won't get (frequent) updates as the "main" browser don't support them anymore.

ahmetulusoy

@m-e you can try adding filters from adguard filters site, it performs well like ublock origin.

jesus2099

If you disabled auto updates and kept Firefox 68, you can still install all add-ons.

TianlanSha

@BoneTone Kiwi browser has already implemented it. Yandex browser and Samsung Internet have also partially implemented it. Now the only ones left in the dust are Vivaldi and Brave.

Zalex108

@TianlanSha

Hi,
would be testing New Original Features within Extensions Support implementation.

--

One of the reasons about the "delay" would be this.

--
"Off Topic Tip"
Follow the Signature's Backup | Reset link.
Take the opportunity to start a Backup plan and even create a Template Profile.

Windows 7 (x64)
Vivaldi Backup | Reset

BoneTone

@TianlanSha Kiwi browser's ability to keep current with Chromium updates has been, shall we say, less than stellar. For the better part of a year there were no updates because it couldn't work with the later Chromium releases. I have qualms about installing Yandex, it's privacy protection is questionable to me, and others. I certainly won't be switching. The are, of course, other extensions I want to use, and eagerly await the support of extensions -- it's my to priority for Vivaldi Android. But the native ad & tracker blocker is a great stop gap and alleviated my number 1 pain point from the beta release. That it was included in Vivaldi Android's first official release of a testament to their user focus.

ahmetulusoy

@BoneTone But these days kiwi began to release more updates , do you think it is still unreliable or we can begin to trust kiwi? Last update was especially on security issue with chromium based browsers.

BoneTone

@ahmetulusoy said in Support Extensions:

do you think it is still unreliable or we can begin to trust kiwi

That's up to you. Everyone has their own cost/benefit analysis, and are risk adverse to different levels. The original author had also open sourced the entire project, which seemed like his attempt at an exit from maintaining the project. That's when there was finally an update, and I honestly haven't kept up with it since because it doesn't offer me enough benefit to consider switching to it. Previous results being something of an indicator of future performance, it would take more time for me to have faith the project is going to see the kind development activity we see from Vivaldi. But any longer discussion of other browsers should be in a different thread, it's not really on-topic here.

Hadden89

@ahmetulusoy
I've Kiwi on my mobile and the version page says chromium 77 / Detected as chromium 86.
I don't think is a bad browser, maybe just a bit slow, but the fact it relies on such older chromium version is quite concerning.

Davy49

Hi All,
Essentially kiwi is a different browser now since it's open source, the original developer still tries to help the other developer's when he can but he's not the sole developer an longer. I used to use kiwi but haven't for quite a while now.
David

tverye

I found another interesting option for advanced users. You can install f-droid and add the ungoogled-chromium-android repository in it: https://www.droidware.info/fdroid/repo?fingerprint=2144449AB1DD270EC31B6087409B5D0EA39A75A9F290DA62AC1B238A0EAAF851 (i took it here https://forum.f-droid.org/t/known-repositories/721 )

There is an application ungoogled chromium extensions - this version supports extensions. I have checked at least ublock.

Important:

In order for the extensions to begin to be installed, it was necessary to set the Handling of extension mime type requests flag to Always promt for instal in chrome://flags
To open the Google extension store, you need to check the box to open the PC version
Use chrome://extensions to access to extension settings

You can also install ungoogled webview to replace in the system settings of the webview from google.

BoneTone

@tverye said in Support Extensions:

I have checked at least ublock.

If you're going to use ungoogled-chromium, don't use uBlock, use uBlock Origin instead. Fortunately, users can add all the same filter lists they use in any of the ABP-filter syntax blockers to Vivaldi's native blocker on Android, and still maintain the benefits of using Vivaldi. While extension support remains my top request for Vivaldi Android, with the native blocking functionality it's no longer reason enough for me to give up all the other benefits of Vivaldi to use something else.

tverye

@BoneTone When I wrote Ublock I mean of course Ublock Origin, sorry if I misled you. So far, I find the advantages of mobile Vivaldi only in cloud tabs, and the built-in filter, as it seems to me, is still not fully compatible with ublock filters, if we talk about complex rules using JS, but I have not tested it on purpose. And my privacy paranoia really wants the cleraurls, localcdn and fingerprint defender extensions. $=\$

BoneTone

Sure, I've got lots of extensions I want as well. Most of those uBlock Origin specific filters are just the filters on EasyList that have been optimized for uBO, making the extension more efficient. UBO has extended the ABP filter syntax, but very few of the third-party filters make use of those extensions -- they want their lists to be compatible with blockers that support ABP filter syntax. It'll mostly be any custom filters that users have created that will use the uBO specific extensions to the syntax.

I would of course love to install uMatrix, but I'm not about to give up sync for it, or any of the other extensions that I would be able to use.

@tverye said in Support Extensions:

fingerprint defender

I'm not familiar with this extension, but if it's a spoofing extension I would recommend against it. Spoofing has been shown to be of limited use, even detrimental in some cases. Rather, I'd just use a default deny configuration in my blockers to prevent connecting to trackers in the first place.

But of course every user has their own risk analysis, and can choose whatever tools they want to use and conveniences their unwilling to give up for stronger protection.

BoneTone

@otakujap95 There is a lot more to extensions than just filter-based blocking, password management, and speed dial start pages. As I discussed in another thread, I try to keep the number of extensions I have to a minimum, but on my workstation I've got 18 installed of which 12-13 are typically enabled, the others are just enabled on an as needed basis. You may not use other extensions, but certainly many Vivaldi users do.

BoneTone

@otakujap95 The product's name is Vivaldi Android, and Android works on myriad devices, not just tiny phones. Furthermore, on my phone, I've already used more extensions than the ones you've brushed off as unnecessary for your needs; in other browsers of course, before Vivaldi Android Beta was released and I quickly adopted it as my primary on my phone.

Regardless of my personal or your personal usage patterns and desires, this is the most highly voted feature request for Android; it has more than double the votes of the next highest voted feature request, and is equal to the next 4 highest voted requests combined. Put another way, of the top 5 feature requests, this one accounts for half the votes. The community's desire for extension support is crystal clear -- it's what the community wants most, by far, of the features not yet implemented in Vivaldi Android.

BoneTone

@otakujap95 No need to apologize. I spend a fair bit of time on this forum recently, especially since the pandemic began. So I've seen a lot of similar conversations in the past, and can find different stats rather quickly. Discussion is always welcome, we all learn from it. I knew this was the number 1 request from previous research, but learned about the other top requests from my last post, for example. We're all here to help & learn from each other while improving Vivaldi through our shared interest in it.

Happy Surfing!