What is the Top Sites file?
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Hello, I've been using Vivaldi in Linux for about 6 months with no serious issues. In the forum there are several posts about the Top Sites file which seem to imply that it can cause problems. https://vivaldi.net/forum/all/8634-temporary-fix-for-constant-writing-to-top-sites-and-destroying-your-disk#57238 https://vivaldi.net/forum/vivaldi-browser/10693-heavy-disk-activity#58004 https://vivaldi.net/forum/german/10776-vivaldi-top-sites-und-lesezeichen#58427 https://vivaldi.net/forum/vivaldi-browser/9527-high-hard-disk-activity-by-vivaldi-1-0#57287 I have noticed that it grows very quickly. When it is deleted, the only difference I see is that the speed dial images disappear. Would someone please explain the role of this file? Does it require periodic attention? Thanks
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It was originally Chrome's version of "Speed Dial." Except with Chrome, it didn't let you pick and choose which sites you wanted. It picked your most-visited sites for you. A thumbnail of a visited site was stored there, plus a huge load of records concerning which sites you visited, when, how often, and how long. Vivaldi still uses the file for your Speed Dial thumbnails. It appears the legacy function of Chromium writing continuously to, and continually inspecting the status of the file seems so integral to the engine that getting it to stop doing that (and the bigger the file is, the more time and resources this continual reading and writing take) is really fraught. People have been complaining about this obsessive reading and writing in Chrome for YEARS, and the authors of the engine pretty much refuse to do anything about it.
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Thanks for the explanation. I hated not being able to make my own speed dial!