Vivaldi New Rubbish
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@elbmek I'm on most current snapshot & haven't shared your experience. Maybe a new download / install?
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I must say that the 4.0 thing where it demands you to pick from 3 un-explained configurations after a regular update was poorly thought-out.
It looked like it was going to clear all your settings and create a new profile or something. I had to study about it quite some time before I felt confident enough to make a choice. (Which was a PITA because I was just trying to look at a page real quick and the whole thing had to wait while I tried to figure out what the heck they were doing)
Looks to me like the OP picked the "enable everything" choice and that was part of the confusion with all these extra things added and changing default view.
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@imaginaryfreedom In truth you can just ignore the page and close it. Even as a new user you don’t have to choose anything. All of the options presented can be toggled later, like in the versions before 4.0.
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@luetage said in Vivaldi New Rubbish:
@imaginaryfreedom In truth you can just ignore the page and close it. Even as a new user you don’t have to choose anything. All of the options presented can be toggled later, like in the versions before 4.0.
Perhaps you can "just ignore and close it". But that was not apparent, the way that was designed.
When I see things that take over my entire application UI and demand an answer that LOOKS like it's a brand-new install or something like what Firefox used to ask you to do to "clean up your profile" (in the process potentially losing valuable data) then I don't take them lightly.
I repeat: that was poorly thought-out.
It also spammed my start page with links to sites I have no interest in, no doubt because they get referral revenue from them.
Kind of sneaky, tbh.
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@imaginaryfreedom That’s Vivaldi’s business model. How do you think the browser makes money? There’s nothing sneaky about it, in fact Vivaldi lays it all bare ☛ https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-business-model/
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@luetage said in Vivaldi New Rubbish:
@imaginaryfreedom That’s Vivaldi’s business model. How do you think the browser makes money? There’s nothing sneaky about it, in fact Vivaldi lays it all bare ☛ https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-business-model/
25 years ago I was a very early Opera user (Jon von Tetzchner's original public browser project) and when they decided that they needed revenue to keep things going I became a voluntary paying user. I have NO problem funding products that are useful to me. I would do the same if such an option were offered with Vivaldi. (Opera eventually discontinued the option to buy an Opera license, probably because most people wouldn't give them a dime)
But being sneaky about these revenue sources and hijacking already user-customized settings to add more unwanted links without warning is still being sneaky and it undermines the organization's credibility and user trust. For many companies it's just a tiny step from that to really snooping on user data and doing all sorts of nefarious **ap like what Brave and some other browser projects do. One of the top reasons I use Vivaldi today is that von Tetzchner earned my trust many years ago. I really hope that he and the rest of the project management don't go destroy that now. The world is full of sleazy tech companies these days.
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@imaginaryfreedom Again, nothing sneaky about it. Vivaldi comes preinstalled with search engines and bookmarks. You can delete all of these before you start using the browser. Then head over to Contribute and donate instead ^^
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@luetage said in Vivaldi New Rubbish:
@imaginaryfreedom Again, nothing sneaky about it. Vivaldi comes preinstalled with search engines and bookmarks. You can delete all of these before you start using the browser. Then head over to Contribute and donate instead ^^
Yes, I already deleted the ones that I had no interest in when I started using the browser.
The problem is that they seem to keep adding more of them now, under the pretense of "kewl new features, here - pick a new theme -ooh, lookie there, it comes with new revenue-generating links too.."
And these are only the things that I notice. What is most insidious about such things is that it leads you to wonder and worry if they are doing even more things "under the hood" to monetize your activities. I'm no fan of "surveillance capitalism", especially when those who are trying to turn me into the product are not open about how they are actually doing this.
The great irony is that I would gladly pay them money to get rid of all the sneaky revenue-generating things that clutter up my personal browser with tacky links to sites I will never visit (and thus Vivaldi will therefore never get a penny/pence/peso of revenue from), but not only that, the amount of money I'd be willing to offer to get rid of those things would probably exceed the maximum revenue they would ever generate from start page links for a single user by many orders of magnitude.
Thanks for the donate link - wasn't aware of that - but I'd prefer that it also freed me from these unexpected revenue-generating "add-ons" thrust on me without notice, and if this is a developing pattern, continue to increase in both type and frequency.
But I'm not really addressing you at this point because it's clear you aren't listening to me.
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@imaginaryfreedom Likewise, it’s clear you are ignoring everything I say too. Instead of writing the same things over and over again you should take the time and get to know Vivaldi better. The team isn’t out to get you. Take care.
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@imaginaryfreedom said in Vivaldi New Rubbish:
The problem is that they seem to keep adding more of them now, under the pretense of "kewl new features, here - pick a new theme -ooh, lookie there, it comes with new revenue-generating links too.."
They should have added a hint how to cancel that. Nobody likes their setup be busted, and I'm pretty sure Vivaldi didn't want that.
What is most insidious about such things is that it leads you to wonder and worry if they are doing even more things "under the hood" to monetize your activities
When you said 'you', did you actually mean 'me', which is to say, you? Because it certainly did not make me wonder and worry.
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@imaginaryfreedom said in Vivaldi New Rubbish:
I'm not really addressing you at this point because it's clear you aren't listening to me.
It takes two to tango. Are you listening to others when they say there is nothing sneaky about these links?
I use Ecosia as my default search engine. Maybe that gains them a few cents. However, I spend many hours of my free time here helping to support the community. If you want to help Vivaldi, reflect on the effect of your comments on this community. Think about how you could promote Vivaldi on blogs, Twitter, etc.
The Team really does work hard to protect your privacy from the likes of Google, and to enrich your browsing experience.
Blog • Vivaldi Review • Server Status
Win 10 64-bit build 19045.2486 • Snapshot 7.4.3671.3 (64-bit) -
@luetage I think you're missing Freedom's point:
Yes, Vivaldi comes preinstalled with search engines and bookmarks. That is not the problem (or at least, I don't think that's a problem)! Because you can delete any bookmark or search-engine you don't want.
The problem is: After an update, you might find a new bookmark on your speed dial. Or a screen like the one that came with the 4.0 update.
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@eggcorn One has nothing to do with the other. Don’t mix things up, it’s a slippery slope. And yes, partner bookmarks and search engines can reappear from time to time. It’s happening since 2015. It takes a grand 5 seconds to deal with every 10 to 15 months. Why it happens no idea, ask a developer.
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@luetage said in Vivaldi New Rubbish:
One has nothing to do with the other.
What has nothing to do with what?
And yes, partner bookmarks and search engines can reappear from time to time.
I've heard about a bug like that, but I don't think that's what I'm talking about. My understanding is that (at least sometimes): When Vivaldi gets a new partner bookmark, that bookmark will be added to your speed-diel during an update. By design, not by bug.
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@pesala said in Vivaldi New Rubbish:
does work hard to protect your privacy from the likes of Google
Hence Google SafeSearch and DNS built-in. At least they have a privacy focused translator (oh wait, they did that because they weren’t allowed to use G translate).
@imaginaryfreedom said in Vivaldi New Rubbish:
The great irony is that I would gladly pay them money to get rid of all the sneaky revenue-generating things
Would you? And even if you would, most people wouldn’t.
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@eggcorn said in Vivaldi New Rubbish:
My understanding is that (at least sometimes): When Vivaldi gets a new partner bookmark, that bookmark will be added to your speed-diel during an update. By design, not by bug.
Is this a thing that only happens in Stable? I have neither seen the new welcome screen nor had any sponsored bookmarks appear for the last couple of years IIRC.
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@code3 said in Vivaldi New Rubbish:
Hence Google SafeSearch and DNS built-in. At least they have a privacy focused translator (oh wait, they did that because they weren’t allowed to use G translate).
"Google Phishing and malware protection" never receives the URLs you are navigating to, so there are no information leaks there (other than IP, of course, unless Vivaldi routes all requests through a proxy).
"Google DNS" will obviously receive the URLs so it can resolve them, and your IP, but presumably nothing else. So it's a bit more of a privacy issue.
"Google Translate" would receive all website content when you translate. The DNS service could technically do this for public URLs and content and thus get the same information. But for private content? Google Translate would see everything. That is a massive privacy issue and reason enough to not use Google Translate. On top of that, Google Translate might just have been too expensive compared to the alternatives.
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@komposten Could be, I've pretty-much only used stable.
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@komposten Unfortunately, you are wrong. The way G SafeBrowsing works is a bit complicated, but if G wants to see if you are visiting a certain URL or domain they can do that easily. So, yes, URLs do get sent to Google.
Google Safe Browsing "conducts client-side checks. If a website looks suspicious, it sends a subset of likely phishing and social engineering terms found on the page to Google to obtain additional information available from Google's servers on whether the website should be considered malicious". Logs, "including an IP address and one or more cookies" are kept for two weeks. They are "tied to the other Safe Browsing requests made from the same device."
https://blog.trailofbits.com/2019/10/30/how-safe-browsing-fails-to-protect-user-privacy/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Safe_Browsing
https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/privacy/whitepaper.html
Google DNS would only need the domains, not full URLs, but is still an issue.
Google translate sends the most data, but on the other hand, it is only triggered manually and not sent behind the scenes. I am glad V did not pay for G translate, but based on their use of Google services, I would not be surprised if Vivaldi would have integrated G translate had it been free.
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@code3 said in Vivaldi New Rubbish:
The way G SafeBrowsing works is a bit complicated, but if G wants to see if you are visiting a certain URL or domain they can do that easily.
You might be interested in this post from @yngve: https://forum.vivaldi.net/post/177280
