Waterfox is now my default browser

RockinRobbins

I hope the management of this forum does not reflect the attitude of Vivaldi developers. If they do, then Vivaldi is doomed to be a bit player in the browser world. Asking why it is reasonable for a "power user" browser to "protect" users from the evils of Java is NOT sufficient reason to close a thread.

As a matter of fact, I quote the developers of Waterfox.
"Features
Built with Clang-cl on Windows
No Adobe DRM
No Pocket
No data collection
Run every 64-Bit plugin
Run every Add-On (even unsigned ones!)
Windows XP 64-Bit Support"

The essence of a power user stance is the respecting of users' preferences and choices. While parts of Vivaldi show there is some understanding here, its blanket blacklisting of Java shows that it at the core, contains the same hand-holding, choice denying authoritarianism as Chrome, Firefox, Internet Exploder and that Windows 10 abomination.

Vivaldi has some great things. The new history view is inspired. Although it uses the same sharp angles and primary colors of Windows 10, it doesn't look childish and garish like Windows 10 does. Instead the colors guide your actions and give context to what you are doing.

Vivaldi is fast! The interface for downloading is the best there is. The sidebar is fabulous and configurable.

But without the ability to run Java on my own responsibility and at my own risk, Vivaldi can't call itself a browser for power users. According to Wikipedia's article on power users:
[quote]Some software applications are often regarded as being particularly suited for power users, and may even be designed as such, due to their inclusion of sophisticated function and feature sets not typically found in other comparable applications. Examples include VLC media player, a multimedia framework/player/server, which includes a complex, feature-rich, and highly customisable interface (and multiple interfaces moreover, beyond simple skinning) with numerous built-in capabilities not typically deemed useful or even understandable to users in the context of other media player suites such as Windows Media Player or iTunes.[/quote]

Programs for power users are supposed to remove those barriers that prevent user preferences from being implemented, provide options not available in lesser programs and respect users' power to decide how to protect themselves.

It seems to me that a great feature would be 1. allowing users to run Java or deny it as they wish. 2. To have the ability (not the requirement: the CHOICE) to run Java in a sandbox for the benefit of those who need to run it but are not able to protect themselves.

I'll keep checking on Vivaldi, but for now it comes up well short of the bar for the browser I'll use daily.

Blackbird

Vivaldi is built upon the chromium rendering engine. As such, it is limited by many of the architectural limitations imposed by the chromium designers, one of which was the deprecation of NPAPI 'plug-in' inter-functionality due to the greater vulnerability of browser designs compatible with NPAPI technology. As a result, there was a movement toward PPAPI plug-in technology which (for a time) was deemed less destabilizing to browsers. Currently, even those kinds of plug-ins are in process of being deprecated in chromium. For a chromium-based browser to now provide plug-in compatibility, either they would have to freeze the chromium rendering engine version (with all the attendant security and support issues that raises) or somehow provide independent, parallel plug-in functionality without either conflicting with the chromium engine or risking the destabilization of the browser.

As @Gwen-Dragon explained in the other thread, Oracle (not Vivaldi) has declined to offer Java for browsers via anything other than its old NPAPI plug-in form. That is Oracle's choice, of course, but it has consequences that make it incompatible with evolving browser technology and security design considerations. Frankly, I find it rather 'telling' that Oracle is choosing to stand pat with an aging Java plug-in amidst a circle of fast-shrinking compatible browsers.

You can choose to continue viewing all of this in the narrow terms of a "power-user-unfriendly issue", or you can deal with the reality that browser designs are almost universally moving away from plug-ins entirely for security and stability. Oracle can likewise either deal with a rapidly diminishing pool of compatible browsers or find some other way to implement their Java software via a browser - that's their choice. But, just like with Macromedia's Flash, I strongly doubt that Java has sufficient future market potential to justify such a costly effort - particularly in light of the security and other issues that exist as baggage for both Flash and Java.

brianlj

@Blackbird said in Waterfox is now my default browser:

But, just like with Macromedia's Flash, I strongly doubt that Java has sufficient future market potential to justify such a costly effort - particularly in light of the security and other issues that exist as baggage for both Flash and Java.

+1

Let me check....

Yep, Java and Flash are still not installed on this computer. I had to go and check because I simply don't miss them and can't remember when I uninstalled them. I'm just an average guy, but am I alone in not needing Java and Flash? Surely not...!

Desiree

@brianlj

@brianlj said in Waterfox is now my default browser:

@Blackbird said in Waterfox is now my default browser:

But, just like with Macromedia's Flash, I strongly doubt that Java has sufficient future market potential to justify such a costly effort - particularly in light of the security and other issues that exist as baggage for both Flash and Java.

+1

Let me check....

Yep, Java and Flash are still not installed on this computer. I had to go and check because I simply don't miss them and can't remember when I uninstalled them. I'm just an average guy, but am I alone in not needing Java and Flash? Surely not...!

I still need BOTH. Vivaldi is not my default browser and because I cannot run such tools as Netalyzer from Vivaldi is one reason I have Pale Moon 26.5 x64 as default and I love it to death (I don't upgrade it because then I will lose much functionality (builtin PDF reader, etc.) and XUL extensions that I need and love).

As for Waterfox it will be dead soon as per its author who has had fun with it but who doesn't want (or have the time) for a lot of very hard work joining with Pale Moon to keep it going. (SeaMonkey also plans to just let that browser die and Thunderbird also). We are fast approaching very few browser choices and Pale Moon is the ONLY one with an author willing to fight a very uphill battle to keep it going and who had hoped Waterfox dev and SeaMonkey devs would join with him (along with Thunderbird devs) but apparently Moonchild is the only one up for such a difficult effort.

I like and use Vivaldi but to me it is in NO WAY a power user's browser. I can't even choose something as basic as my link colors nor can I specify NO Cache of any type (to save my expensive SSD as well as simply having no need of any cache since I have very fast broadband and tons of RAM). Vivaldi can't even handle cookies as well as awful IE! Opera 12x and before is more a power user's browser as is Firefox (but it is committing suicide and become another Chromium browser). Yeah, I can install spying Stylish to get proper link colors and other basic missing elements in this browser but, of course, I had to switch to non spying Stylus and it doesn't work nearly as well.

iAN CooG

@Desiree said in Waterfox is now my default browser:

I can't even choose something as basic as my link colors

And you call this a feature for power users? It sounds like a feature for people wit OCD to me

nor can I specify NO Cache of any type

yes you can, via a commandline switch, power users should be able to do a bit of research before whining on forum about features they don't know are existing.

Blackbird

@Desiree said in Waterfox is now my default browser:

...
As for Waterfox it will be dead soon as per its author who has had fun with it but who doesn't want (or have the time) for a lot of very hard work joining with Pale Moon to keep it going. (SeaMonkey also plans to just let that browser die and Thunderbird also). We are fast approaching very few browser choices and Pale Moon is the ONLY one with an author willing to fight a very uphill battle to keep it going and who had hoped Waterfox dev and SeaMonkey devs would join with him (along with Thunderbird devs) but apparently Moonchild is the only one up for such a difficult effort.

I like and use Vivaldi but to me it is in NO WAY a power user's browser...

When very few skilled developers are willing to "go it alone" any longer in keeping alive an independent 'browser' design (an integrated set of coded 'engines'), it speaks strongly about the nature of the effort level required and the economic realities involved.

Most features we associate with 'power user' involve individual hooks and access/control portals into the bowels of the engines associated with the browser... all of which must function smoothly on a non-interfering basis, without perturbing the overall stability and security of the browser. To 'fully enable' every detailed wish of a broad collection of 'power users' almost guarantees that the browser makers must write, test, and maintain the totality of their own code for every part of the browser. As Olde Opera and so many others have already discovered (or are now rediscovering), simply maintaining a browser's rendering engine for website compatibility can be a Herculean task in the world of today's Internet. So browser makers have tended to converge around certain available and currently-maintained rendering engines, each of which carries its own traits and limitations, in large part based on the influence of those who created and still maintain those engines.

Part of Vivaldi's concept involves the belief that it can create a shell of code that allows it to provide a wide array of functionality and user control that may not inherently be available from the underlying rendering engine, and hence, from other browsers built solely on that foundation. In that regard, some controls are naturally more difficult to implement than others, perhaps even impossible. Only the passage of time and increasing developmental experience will define where the limits truly are. I believe they have made great strides toward configurability thus far, with much more to come... but they're still a work in progress.

Users have argued for years over what constitutes a 'power user', and what a browser must possess to be called a 'power user's browser'. That argument will never be resolved, since few users can fully agree on the definitions for either one. But reality is indeed unfolding around us, and the browsers of yesterday, for better or worse, are rapidly disappearing, as we all are seeing. Those who fashion themselves 'power users' will have to determine which of the array of today's and tomorrow's browsers are most adaptable for their usage going forward. The only alternative will be to cling to old and increasingly obsolete and insecure browsers in days to come.