Congratulations on 1 Year of Browser Development!
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@ D0J0P:
Right, well, given that you're so involved in the browser's development, even though it's not in a professional manner, I can understand your need for certain aspects of it to be addressed as soon as possible. I think it has to do with one's level of enthusiasm for something, and I'm under the impression that yours is pretty high, which I certainly applaud.
So, yes, I agree that there are quite a number of things that would preferably be included/taken care of before the first final arrives. Because, even though, right now, my involvement is somewhat less than yours is, I'm also really enthusiastic about this great browser. I therefore have up-voted most of your comments on the blogs thus far, and will of course continue to do so, as I normally do with anyone's comments that I agree with, especially when they contain good suggestions for features, options, alterations, improvements, and so on.
As for memory usage, yes, there's certainly room for improvement in that area, as is also the case with CPU usage, and, you're quite right, UI performance and smoothness. All important things that are in need of some serious love and attention from the devs, I must admit.
That's an interesting product range that they've got on that WiseClean website, btw. Thanks for that suggestion, I'll take a closer look at it, soon.
Finally, you mention Vivaldi crashing on you a couple times a day, but, that is something that has so far rarely happened to me with any of the builds I installed, even though I've got nearly 30 extensions running (some just for testing) and have sometimes more than 40 tabs open at once, including some with video. But, i guess determining the cause for those crashes also involves taking into account one's setup, as well as the way one uses their system and the browser, of course. So, I find that that remains a bit of a hard thing to figure out, most of the time.
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Of course, they were working on it for some time prior to that … only Jon would really know. He's said he looked at new Opera and didn't like it, but that could have been any time from July 2013 (release date on 15 stable). I was asked to help test the early versions in November of 2014, no idea how long they were working on it before that.
Sure thing, I realized this already when I was composing my opening post, but thought it a bit silly to name it "Congratulations on 1 Year of Browser Releases," and so I opted for the word "development" instead. But I do acknowledge the fact that they'd started development way before the end of January, 2015, already. Maybe someone ought to ask Jon about the exact date on his upcoming Twitter Q&A, this Thursday…
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Thanks for the warm message! And I like it when there are more people like you commenting regularly. Sometimes I look at the forums for a new interesting thread or comment, and just wish it was more exciting. Maybe once we have 30 million users instead of 3 million, then we'll see more action in the forums!
And for the crashes, they used to happen a lot. I have MacType installed because I wont better font rendering(Opera 12 with MacType is amazing), and I used to have some extensions in Vivaldi like Font Rendering Enhancer to further improve it(with Directwrite disabled), and uBlock Origin, but disabled that once I get Web Boost extension, plus H264ify. Vivaldi was freezing on me many times a day, like 5-7 times a day, so I uninstalled it and reinstalled it. That fixed a lot of problems for me, and it only freezes 1-2 times a day(sorry, I meant freeze instead of crash), and I have no extensions installed and no vivaldi:flags settings activated.
I'm wondering what I should do, because a few months ago, I tried reinstalling Windows 10 by USB key, and ever since I do that, the HP logo on my computer has always gone through a different routine than before. The loading circle used to animate normally, and now it still does, for like a few seconds, but then it flashes and the circle loading animation starts lagging for a few seconds, and then it finally boots up, but slower than it did before the last reinstall.
So now I'm wondering if I should reinstall Windows 10. I installed a new copy on a USB, and I figure I should probably do it before June or July, whenever they expire their free Windows 10 upgrade deal.
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Thanks for the warm message! And I like it when there are more people like you commenting regularly. Sometimes I look at the forums for a new interesting thread or comment, and just wish it was more exciting. Maybe once we have 30 million users instead of 3 million, then we'll see more action in the forums!
Why thank you!
Yes, a tenfold increase in users is likely to have that effect, I'm sure, aside from various other effects, as well, but that's beside the point.
And for the crashes, they used to happen a lot. I have MacType installed because I wont better font rendering(Opera 12 with MacType is amazing), and I used to have some extensions in Vivaldi like Font Rendering Enhancer to further improve it(with Directwrite disabled), and uBlock Origin, but disabled that once I get Web Boost extension, plus H264ify. Vivaldi was freezing on me many times a day, like 5-7 times a day, so I uninstalled it and reinstalled it. That fixed a lot of problems for me, and it only freezes 1-2 times a day(sorry, I meant freeze instead of crash), and I have no extensions installed and no vivaldi:flags settings activated.
First, thank you for mentioning those extensions, there, because some of those I hadn't heard of before and now that I've tried them out, I'm really rather pleased with them. So, thanks again.
A couple of freezes a day might not be all that uncommon, depending on how much time you spend using the browser and how much you stress it. Because, even though crashes, like I said before, have been rare so far, freezes on the other hand occur quite often, but that doesn't worry me all that much while the browser's still in beta stage. So, it's a little hard to tell whether or not you're actually dealing with a problem that needs sorting, or that it's really to be expected in relation to the way you test and use Vivaldi on a daily basis.
I'm wondering what I should do, because a few months ago, I tried reinstalling Windows 10 by USB key, and ever since I do that, the HP logo on my computer has always gone through a different routine than before. The loading circle used to animate normally, and now it still does, for like a few seconds, but then it flashes and the circle loading animation starts lagging for a few seconds, and then it finally boots up, but slower than it did before the last reinstall.
So now I'm wondering if I should reinstall Windows 10. I installed a new copy on a USB, and I figure I should probably do it before June or July, whenever they expire their free Windows 10 upgrade deal.
Reinstalling it once again couldn't hurt, I guess. Give it a try and see what changes regarding your boot-up sequence. The lagging might indicate that the OS is looking for one or more drivers, which it can't find or fails to load…
As for Windows 10, well, I never managed to get very excited about any Windows version after 7, so, good luck with that...
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Win10 is faster and thriftier with resources than Win7. So there's that. And that is really all I care about. Win10 rescued two of my old laptops from the scrap heap.
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Sure, but those are two properties that I find don't make up for several others that I'm not so thrilled about, like, for instance, many of its design features, its privacy issues, and the fact that Win10 is really pushing you hard toward creating a Microsoft account. So, there's that, too.
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Yeah. I turned off all of the privacy-invading and Microsoft account crap, including Cortana and all of that. I log in with a local profile, and I put Classic Shell on it. So were it not for the improved performance, you'd never know I left Win7.
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Edit: By the way, any more features needed or expected before the final release?
I feel a bit frustrated by the lack of improvement in important areas like Mouse Gestures. A few more basic commands like GestureDown to go the bottom of a page, and GestureUp to go to the top would help, but ideally, of course, we want to be able to customise Mouse Gestures, concatenating commands as we can in Opera 12.17
Open link in background page | Go to end | New page
or
Set alignment, "personalbar inline", 6 & Delay, 5000 & Set alignment, "personalbar inline", 0
I have no need of a mobile version or synch, and think these should wait a little longer until Vivaldi is a bit more mature and stable. Like the email client, though important to many users, these could do serious damage to Vivaldi's reputation if they are released prematurely in the final version, and lose user's data. I am sure old users remember the many threads we had on My Opera about lost data due to synch being confusing for users. It might just be feasible to thoroughly test the mail client so that it's safe to release by the end of March, but from what I hear it doesn't seem to be ready for release even in Snapshots yet.
I have been using Opera since ver 5.0 and one tends to forget how slow the development process was. I think it took about 11-12 years to get from ver 5 to ver 12. I am still happy to use Opera 12.17 for my email and daily browsing. It's easy to open a tab in Vivaldi or Firefox if a site is broken in old Opera.
Elsewhere, I have suggested that the Zoom Slider could be made easier to use and several users agree with me.
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Yeah. I turned off all of the privacy-invading and Microsoft account crap, including Cortana and all of that. I log in with a local profile, and I put Classic Shell on it. So were it not for the improved performance, you'd never know I left Win7.
Or you do that, of course. I mean, yeah, I can see how taking all those measures could reduce many of my biggest objections to upgrading to Win10, but, I'm not so sure yet. So, for now, I'll just stick with Win7 and, who knows, maybe one of these days I'll wake up feeling adventurous and slap the stuff onto my box, anyway. :lol:
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–- post appeared twice and proved impossible to delete, for that would delete the original one, too ---
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On the 28th, while perusing the Opera Developer blog, I noted a comment from a user concerning how the new Vivaldi browser had been started by Jon and would have email built in, and I said "Hey? Who? Wha-?" and went immediately to the site and downloaded it. The rest is history, as they say…
Indeed. Not that he needs it, but just saying fyi – i backup Ayespy here. I read the same Opera post, had the same reaction, took the same action, fell in love with it [LOTS of giggling & delighted whooping ensued at my pc that day]. Primary difference was that i was a comparative latecomer… my V-day was not until 7 Feb 2015.
V devs -- thank you thank you thank you.
Steffie, you're quite right, Ayespy doesn't need any backup in this case, simply because in my responses to him, I've already admitted that he's right concerning the release date of Technical Preview 1. Like I said before, I have a feeling that my misinterpretation of the release date might very well have been a result of editing of the blog post in question.
Alright, aside from these technicalities, I'm glad to hear that you're in such high spirits about Vivaldi Browser, as am I, btw. Oh, and my V-day (nice wordplay, I like that) was on Apr 4, 2015.
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@Sajadi:
In such a rather short time so much progress.. Let's hope much more years of Vivaldi updates are upcoming
Agreed. Long live Vivaldi! :cheer:
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In rescue, we don't know when most of the dogs we save were born. We guess at their ages by the state of their eyes, teeth, etc.
Many of the adopters celebrate a "gotcha day," being the day they took the dog home, rather than the dog's birthday.
We can, each of us, celebrate our own V-Day - the day we adopted Vivaldi! My celebration is simple yet elegant. With a flourish (and possibly some confetti) I press the "check for update" button, close my eyes, and make wishes for the future.
:lol: :silly: :lol:
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LOL
Wow, so true, and spoken so wonderfully; I sense a talent for storytelling there! Very nice, Ayespy, very nice indeed.
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Well, for me, the strength of my demand for, and pleasure in acquiring, a fully workable browser, is doubtless tied to the fact that it's my office/work platform/production machine/tool of the trade - and I spend most of my waking life in front of it so as to be able to feed my family and keep a roof over my head.
I already love what I do, and I'm really good at it, and it is only fitting that my morale should be enhanced, rather than dampened, by the means through which I pursue my livelihood. When I was using Opera from '98 or so up until Opera 12 was abandoned, I just kind of took for granted the fact that I had a tool I could completely fashion to my own preferences, for maximum comfort and operating efficiency. But "you don't know what you got til it's gone" as the song goes, and when I lost that tool I was bereft.
Hence, when I beheld the promise of a worthy replacement, I was (cautiously) ecstatic. With the advent of email and the option to position the bookmarks bar vertically, I will once again be in clover. God forbid Vivaldi do to us again, what Opera did once. My constitution would collapse under the shock. Or something.
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I think the joy you experience after using something that you love is at least a huge part due to design. As Steve Jobs said, design isn't just how it looks, but how it functions, or something like that. I'm no design expert(though I've heard of some design experts and I'm interested in the subject), but when you can look at something and immediately know how to use it, then it is good design, especially if you don't need a manual. Ex. a door with good design in a building usually has bars that you know you push, and a handle that you know you pull. Psychologically, it's designed for you to easily guess as to how to use it, and that's what human centered design does. A door that isn't easy to guess how to go through, and on trying to open the door you fail, it leaves you feeling bad, but when designed properly, you actually feel good and you feel smart.
And in order for something to be designed well, I think it would have to be useful as well. One thing I'm very annoyed with in Google software these days is that, while it looks nice, some of their software is really dumbed down. Like the Gmail app on Android, they took away the "mark as read" button on the notifications menu. I think that's what I like about Vivaldi. It looks amazing, it's just as clean looking, and is more modern looking than any other browser, so of course basic use is easy, but it's well designed enough that even advanced stuff is actually pretty easy and not complicated at all. Heck, it's settings and configurations are even easier to navigate than Opera 12, so they're improving in some ways, and Opera 12 is easy enough to use and to do a lot of things with it. I tried it out for a while and like it.
So, if something is user-friendly, useful, and works well in an intuitive way that is natural to you and isn't complicated or nonsensical but just works, then that is great design. Especially when they can mix the great design with great aesthetics, which is what Vivaldi has done. They've created a piece of software that just naturally works for you, and it makes you feel good and you feel smart using it's controls, functions, and navigation.
I'm looking forward to Vivaldi improving on their design and aesthetics even further, as there is always room for improvement. And I know that they will add the same features that Opera 12 had, and in an improved way that is easier to use(which is what I've seen with setting keyboard shortcuts and using the panel, it's easier on Vivaldi than O12, and more added features will be implemented in a simpler to use way to do the same thing, and Vivaldi won't be a complete copy of O12, but it's own thing and an improved version). Viva La Vivaldi!
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Many thanks to devs! Keep up the great work!
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Wow, it's hard to believe that it's been that long since I changed browsers… about roughly the moment it was stable enough to use on a regular basis.
Thank you everyone involved with Vivaldi. And especially thank you for paying attention to the pet features that I've asked for, I didn't really think things like what I've asked for / bug reported were commonly used, so it feels extra special that those got implemented or fixed.
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@ Steffie:
First of all, even though your post isn't strictly on topic, I nevertheless do not consider it to be so far removed from this thread's spirit, that it should be regarded as being off topic. So, as far as I'm concerned you're still in safe waters here.
While I truly find it interesting to see what you think it is that got you so excited about Vivaldi, the moment you became aware of its existence, I sure hope that I didn't say anything in my posts in this thread, so far, that made you feel like you had to somehow explain your previously described enthusiasm in this regard, because that was never my intention; I was being quite sincere when I praised you for your description of your sentiments, concerning your discovery of this wonderful new browser called Vivaldi.
As for your attempt to psychologically explain your feelings about this browser, which I think you did pretty well, I also think that it's perhaps simply a matter of the importance that one assigns to an object, regardless whether it's a Web browser or a car or mobile phone, which determines how deeply one feels about it. In your case your Operating System and your Web browser are things that you place a high value on, and that can trigger deep feelings, obviously, when certain events arise that involve these objects.
Anyway, I suspect we'll all have enough reasons to stay excited about Vivaldi for a long while to come. :cheer:
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@ Ayespy:
Okay, I suppose you're describing more or less what I just said in a reply to Steffie's post, about the importance that one assigns to a certain object, and how that relates to the way in which one responds to things that involve such an object. So, I think I shall take this as confirmation of my thoughts on this matter.
You're right, of course, when you say that you so strongly hope for Vivaldi to not go the way of Jon's former browser project, for which he wasn't to blame, as I understood it, but which nevertheless came as a great shock to many of its (long time) users; I'm one of those, sadly. So, here's to hoping that Vivaldi can and will remain independent of those forces that could ruin it if they could have their way with it, shall we say.