What is Direct Match?

Team_Vivaldi

Let’s find out how Direct Match, a new functionality, helps save time and reach the website of a familiar brand from any of our search fields.

Click here to see the full blog post

mossman

It does feel a little bit ... "Google-y", and I'm against this kind of thing as promotion of some services/sites over others is not net neutral.

But since I love ya, Vivaldi - and it's helping you survive - I'll let this one slide...

DoctorG

@mossman Servers need to be paid

darren91

Really not a fan of this. I typed in 3 characters (der) and it suggested a random website (dermstore.com) I would have never visited.

Fizh

@darren91: I turned it off. I typed in 4 characters (dere) and I have a bookmark which starts with 'dere', it would still suggest dermstore.com.
Very annoying.

DoctorG

@darren91 The suggested domain from Direct Match come from a localized list from Vivaldi, not from sites you visited.

DoctorG

@Fizh Change the order or disable it Direct match in Settings → Address Bar → Dropdown Menu Priority.

mossman

@DoctorG said in What is Direct Match?:

@Fizh Change the order or disable it Direct match in Settings → Address Bar → Dropdown Menu Priority.

I've probably just missed this if it came up before, but that's a very useful setting!

sstoneb

The help pages and linked article say that the suggestions come from locally-stored files, but... where are they? What files? If I want to see what's in them or control their contents, how do I do that?

DoctorG

@sstoneb Perhaps files like ....partner.....json in program's subfolder default-bookmarks contain more information.

LinLee

Okay but what if I use YouTube frequently so i expect to go there when i type 'Y' + Enter, but instead it sometimes directs me to yelp.com that i never use?! Can I change what direct match points to?

mib2berlin

@LinLee
Hi and no but you can disable Direct Match in the address bar settings > Drop-Down Menu Priority.

Cheers, mib

LinLee

@mib2berlin Yeah This I have found, but I see that it supports the devs + this would be the only website I use so frequently so I expect my combination to let me fast into YouTube, so if I could change just this one and leave the rest it'd be preferable

mib2berlin

@LinLee
I guess this is not possible without some developer knowledge.
But there are many ways to get the results you want.
Try to move Direct Match down in the list.
Create a bookmark for YT and a nickname y, this gives:

Nebu

I didn't find out about Direct Match until today.

And I can say it's working atrociously for Skyscanner. It goes to a certain URL that updates the whole page seemingly every second. I'm getting epilepsy. (https://www.skyscanner.net/flights?market=uk&locale=en-gb&currency=gbp&referralServiceVersion=meeseeks-referral-service-v1&associateid=AFF_TRA_19354_00001&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=2283642-Vivaldi&utm_campaign=&campaign_id=2283642&utm_content=Other Referral&adid=1477112&click_timestamp=1733957464800&irmweb=&irgwc=1)

mib2berlin

@Nebu
Hi, strange bug, please report this to the bug tracker, I can confirm internally.

For information on how to report a bug, see this URL: https://vvld.in/how-to-report-bugs
Once that is done, please share the bug number (beginning with VB-).
Add your vivaldi.net username, please.
On the form, you can add your email address. Once submitted, you'll get a confirmation. You can reply to this with any logs or further info.

Cheers, mib

DoctorG

@Nebu I guess you have some block list to remove Cookie Warnings in Settings → Privacy → Ad and Tracker Blocker? Try to disable blocker in shield of address field on the site.

mib2berlin

@Nebu
I can confirm @DoctorG hint and disabled Remove cookie warnings (Easylist Cookie List), then the page work.
No need to report this, these lists are disabled by default.

Cheers, mib

Aemony

This feature slows down the address field/search functionality so as to be almost useless. I frequently typed in stuff and ended up on the wrong location because Vivaldi's suggestions was delayed/hadn't updated to account for the last typed characters yet.

It was first after approximately 250-500ms of not typing anything that the suggestions was updated to reflect the current typed query.

After having been taken to NordVPN due to Vivaldi's "Direct Match" suggestion when randomly typing a search query that began with "nirvana", I flipped out and disabled this feature and lo' and behold now the address field/search suggestion popup actually refreshes in time with my typing, and is actually usable and comparable to other browsers! I was on my way to drop Vivaldi due to this laggyness, actually, but am glad to have found out what caused it.

I really don't understand how it's possible for the browser to be this laggy when looking up what's supposed to be a local file of bookmarks. You cache these affiliate/partner bookmarks once on launch in a trie and then just look up that for results on every new typed character. It's not rocket science, nor should it result in this kind of random delay before updating the suggestions while typing. What are you doing instead? Opening the local file for reading and parsing it all over again and again on every typed character or something?!

DAOWAce

I just found out Vivaldi is doing this after a number of months of not understanding how the hell affiliate links were being added to my URL's; thought my browser was hijacked.

Absolutely and utterly scummy behavior.

Vivaldi used to be THE browser for power users. Now it's been slowly going the rate of any other monetized piece of crap in this industry. Terrible UI changes, terrible functionality changes, numerous bug introductions, destroying the entire autocomplete function and not fixing it for over a year, and now silent affiliate injection... as if the recent Honey scandal wasn't bad enough.

People aren't generally against monetizing something, but you have to disclose when something like this happens, not silently do it in the background.

Every month I get driven further and further to finally going back to Firefox... and I switched away from it years ago for a reason.