A 2-week review by a browser shopper
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[code]TL;DR 1. Need better performance 2. Need consistency in element options 3. WTF no private browsing?[/code] I was drawn to Vivaldi because of it being marketed as "An advanced browser made with the power user in mind". Being someone who spends most of his day in a browser, both at work and at home, this is appealing to me. I don't know if this product is still young enough to care about user feedback, but nonetheless I'll try to provide some. Test machine: mid-2014 15” Macbook Pro Retina. 2.5GHz i7, 16GB DDR3 RAM, 1TB SSD, NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 2GB, OS X 10.11. Vivaldi Version: 1.0.219.53 [b]The Good[/b] Clean. Visual design and UI is great. The tab graveyard is a great addition. “Trashcan” or “recent history” or whatever it is called. An all around well functioning browser. My 2 week test run has been enjoyable for the most part, so thanks for a great piece of software. [b]The Bad[/b] Performance. Scenario: I have 3 tabs open. Gmail, google calendar, and reddit. I middle-mouse click a link to open it in a new tab. The new tab takes 3+ seconds to open and the browser is basically frozen during this time. The only extension I’m running is uBlock origin. This is especially annoying if, after ‘locking up’ I execute a few keyboard shortcuts, which then seemingly get queued and execute after the browser unlocks. Neither Firefox or Chrome experience this ‘lock up’ under the same scenario. They fluidly execute the requested operation while processing of other tasks seems to carry on, uninterrupted. Sidebar state inconsistent between browser sessions. If I hide it, then close and re-open the browser, it comes back. This is undesired behavior. Tab ordering. I was able to toggle the order in which tab cycling happens (thanks for that, the default is…all but pointless). However, when closing tabs, the browser defaults to some strange scheme where it selects either the first tab or an arbitrary tab, or the previous tab. It should follow the tab order scheme, and, in my case, switch to the next tab. I’ve run into a lot of ‘This plugin is not supported’ and ‘Browser not supported’ when trying to play videos on different websites. Especially .gifv files on some sites, but they work on others. This isn’t a big deal. Just annoying. [b]The Ugly[/b] Hitting cmd+t to open a new tab experiences a 1-2 second delay before a new tab opens. What is the reason for this not being nearly instantaneous? If that delay is the cost of loading the speed dial page, let me disable the speed dial page. Lack of privacy/incognito/whatever mode. How? Just how? This is a staple of modern web browsers. As a developer it’s common for me to fire up a cookie-less window to test websites and systems. [b]Conclusion [/b] As a power user these types of inconsistencies in my workflow, and delays of a few seconds, aren’t really acceptable. As this browser is touted as the ‘browser for power users’, these are the kinds of details that will set Vivaldi apart from the pack. "Power Users" are the type of users that need keyboard shortcuts, such as new tab, to happen instantly. Overall, I like Vivaldi, but until most or all of these things are improved it will not be a candidate to replace my primary browser(s).
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It's almost a shame you went to so much effort to review such an obsolete version of the browser.
Vivaldi is going balls-out at the moment to get a Beta ready for release, and the current build is 1.0.303.48, being characterized as a "Beta Candidate." Perhaps you would like to take a look at it.
It can be found at https://vivaldi.net/
Happy browsing!
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It's almost a shame you went to so much effort to review such an obsolete version of the browser.
Vivaldi is going balls-out at the moment to get a Beta ready for release, and the current build is 1.0.303.48, being characterized as a "Beta Candidate." Perhaps you would like to take a look at it.
It can be found at https://vivaldi.net/
Happy browsing!
That's good to know. Does this update specifically address any of the issues I cited? All I see is mention of tab stacking fixes.
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This is, if I'm counting right, about the twenty-third snapshot build since 1.0.219. I have used each one of them as my default browser, and updated to each as it came out. Numerous changes have been implemented, including the addition of private browsing (under the vivaldi/file menu), memory performance enhancements like lazy tab loading, UI speed in every respect, including typing in the UI itself, video codecs have been added, etc.
You may not like everything, and some things you may like more. The experience in my opinion is far superior to TP4, which you tested. It's worth a try.
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Thanks for recommending that latest snapshot build. It is MUCH snappier than the old TP4 build.
I still get some limited 'browser lock-up' when processing new pages, but overall responsiveness is greatly improved.
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Thanks for recommending that latest snapshot build. It is MUCH snappier than the old TP4 build.
I still get some limited 'browser lock-up' when processing new pages, but overall responsiveness is greatly improved.
My pleasure.
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