Vivaldi browser and open-source
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@Priest72 said in Vivaldi browser and open-source:
My impression of the open source communtity is that they want everything done for them and for free..
From my own personal stance (as a sometimes contributor to the open source community), I very much disagree with this.
Not "done for me": Open source allows people to modify software for themselves, if they put in the work. It is in no way a demand that someone do work for you.
Not "for free": Open source contributors should be compensated for work they do.
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@LonM , although I always prefer OpenSource for various reasons, I am not a programmer and it is of little use to me to be able to modify the code.
First of all, I'm interested in the program serving me and coming from trusted sources.
That an OpenSource program is better or worse than a commercial program is relative, there are examples where an OpenSource program is considerably superior to a commercial equivalent, although there are also quite a few examples where this is the other way around.
In general it always depends on the user and the functions they need. -
I thought I would share this Digital Trends link in case you or anyone else were interested in finding out more about the sale.
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From 2014 - 2018 I was in Windows Insider program. I love testing new software, especially browsers, and at one point I was using Chrome, Edge, Vivaldi (I think I might still be a Vivaldi Ambassador), Firefox, Opera, Brave (and even Torch for a little while).
Early on I thought Edge was fun and innovative but I was always a big fan of Vivaldi. Back in 2017 I recall VIVIDLY how angry and upset I was when a huge number of tab features that had only been available when using Vivaldi suddenly appeared on Edge. In 2018 I found out how very untrustworthy Microsoft, Edge, Windows 10 and Cortana were and quite honestly watching Microsoft blatantly steal concepts, ideas (and most likely code) from Vivaldi is what led me to start learning about my privacy, security, and anonymity and helped me find out how important it was for me to walk away from Windows, Microsoft, Google, and other invasive monopolies that controlled so many aspects of my life and how I interacted with computers.
My love affair with Linux started in 2017 but it wasn't until early 2019 that I was able to fully migrate my entire life away from Windows and Microsoft. I am a strong advocate for FOSS and open-source technology but I have never, ever questioned why Vivaldi isn't open-source.
In my opinion, Vivaldi Browser is one of the most innovative, creative, and useful projects being developed. The Vivaldi development team is one of the most gifted, capable, and accomplished groups of people that I am aware of. You all deserve far more praise and recognition than you likely receive.
Thank you for articulating how Vivaldi is structured and why you chose not to become a fully open-source project. I am a long, long, long time user and I have no issue with Vivaldi Browser not being fully open-source to prevent blatant theft of your amazing work by other companies or groups that don't share the same strong work ethic that you do.
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โEven though our license doesnโt formally allow for this, we welcome it and we allow users to share these code modifications through our forums.
This is a bad thing to do. Please make it explicit when this is allowed, otherwise people both have to fear legal consequences in case you decide otherwise (then your informal statement is almost useless) and waste of efford when they put a lot of work in the changes and then are not allowed to distribute them anymore.
Can't you just put in a license "Modification of the obfuscated code is allowed by adding code, please note that our code is non-free and your code must be distributed separately, e.g., in an own source file and cannot have strong copyleft (e.g. GPL)"? This would prove some legal basis for doing what you encourage people to do.
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@allo said in Vivaldi browser and open-source:
people both have to fear legal consequences in case you decide otherwise
I barely can image such scenario as would be a marketing disaster for Vivaldi if they sue potential "clients".
In the worst case they will ask for code removal (as Opera did for Presto source) due copyright infringement.
But having a Vivaldi approved licence (e.g.: "mods of our code, obfuscated or not, is allowed - without any kind of support - for personal/community purposes as long they are kept free and could be shared") is not a bad idea. -
Hello, I'm Sharon New to Vivaldi, I decided to fully engage with this browser, because it's much better product, I've been using Chrome for awhile and still do, however Chrome has is beginning to slow down for me and I don't know why, so in surfing the internet I was impressed with a story I was reading and this browser was mentioned. I knew about this browser when it first came out, but I didn't continue with it and now I am back, my question is what differs from this browser than the other browsers, I've found one for myself, and I also notice the language content is from various countries.
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@Ja27CS2g there are numerous differences between Vivaldi and other browsers, too many to list. Perhaps it's best to just point out Vivaldi's mission, which is to build a browser that adapts to the user not the other way around. This means their focus is on giving the user control over the browser. If you take a little time to look through the settings, you'll see that Vivaldi offers a much greater variety of options to configure. Much of what gives Vivaldi their flexibility to make these kinds of changes available is the fact that instead of just skinning the browser for branding purposes, they've completely rewritten the user interface, and have done so using web technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript). This means that people with the knowledge & skills to do so can further modify the user interface; there are a lot of examples of doing just this in the Modifications category of the forum. While this isn't something every user is going to be doing, that highlights another point of Vivaldi's target audience -- they aren't trying to be "the one browser for everyone." They don't appeal to the lowest common denominator, and some things just work differently than Chrome and the various Chromium-based browsers. They aren't trying to be like everybody else, but that's why we're all here -- those browsers that work for everyone else don't offer us the configurability that we seek. Vivaldi has a specific goal in mind, and it achieves that goal well. If it accommodated everybody, it would accommodated nobody to a very high degree (I refrain from using the word perfectly, because no browser will suit any significant number of people perfectly). So if tweaking the browser, along with lots of innovative features that enable new and unique workflows is what you're seeking, them Vivaldi is likely the browser you want. There is a very active community in the forum, which is another of Vivaldi's special attributes. In fact, the community preceded the browser. Vivaldi provides the home that so many lost when Opera ditched Presto. It's not a coincidence that the same man who built that old home built this one as well.
Edited some phone autocorrect typos.
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The most important in a bright software is that it works and it works well, not that it is open-sourced or closed-sourced. You guys at Vivaldi do a wonderful job with your browserS and what you deliver is (far) better than other competitors who care more about ethics than white elephants they propose to their users (I'm thinking to the collapsing 'fox saying that).
I miss Presto and Carakan too. It was a wonderful browser couple, which made me love Opera at first sight when I saw them in action in Opera 10.50. I finally ditched it at 12.16 when I found that browser compatibility was not good enough. Vivaldi browser sweet talked to me when I saw what it consists in: the Presto-Opera based UX with the browser compatibility I missed in the final versions of the ancient Opera. That's why you became my default browser. Chromium is a good compromise.
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@BoneTone said in Vivaldi browser and open-source:
they aren't trying to be "the one browser for everyone."
They are trying to be the one browser.
... provided you can make sense of the settings and customization and provided you have no extra wishes.When it boils down to the extra wishes: They cannot provide them.
(Not meaning they do not want to provide them, but they simply cannot cater for all individual users)That's where Extensions come in - but Vivaldi is lacking in Extension support too, because some functions are incompatible with Vivaldi or have side effects, e.g. especially when it comes to tab management and power handling, because the UI of Vivaldi is different and they use some internal APIs which they did not expose for Extensions use.
I know what I am talking about, because I ran several times into issues where the Extension worked fine in Chromium but caused issues in Vivaldi, despite I used only standard API calls and validated them with the latest ES validator. Sadly there is no developer relation set up, so we can't even ask how to solve those Vivaldi specific problems, because those who know the answers (aka. the devs) point us to the source code (4 GB packed!) which is partly written in languages I am not comfortable with (and I bet most of the Extension authors are not comfortable with those too) which in effect makes "fixing" annoyances almost impossible.
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@jrsilvey said in Vivaldi browser and open-source:
Back in 2017 I recall VIVIDLY how angry and upset I was when a huge number of tab features that had only been available when using Vivaldi suddenly appeared on Edge. In 2018 [...] Microsoft blatantly [stole] concepts, ideas (and most likely code) from Vivaldi
The code bit aside, that sounds like good news to me! It's traditional for the other browsers to steal ideas from Opera. Ideas such as (if memory serves) tabs, speed diel, and using a search-engine from the browser's toolbar. That this tradition is continuing with Vivaldi, shows that Vivaldi is a worthy successor to the old Opera.
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@Eggcorn , although it is true that Vivaldi is not OSS, at least not in the traditional sense, it has a great community of support and contribution, which large companies like Google or Microsoft do not have. They are oriented to what the administration decides for what is supposed to be of interest to users, they lack the feedback and ideas of a community like this one.
This is the reason why they only limit themselves to making poor traces that they see in browsers like our. -
@Catweazle You motioned Google and Microsoft, what about the Mozilla Foundation (they make Firefox)? And if they don't have a community like this one now, did they ten or fifteen years ago?
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@Eggcorn , maybe, FF is OSS and has a community, but also as active as this? A Soft is always only as good as its community that supports it.
Firefox is certainly a good browser, but it is not the same as Vivaldi.
All browsers serve their purpose, even Edge. But the functionalities and the way of adjusting to the needs of the user differ greatly from one to the other.
Edge works perfectly for people who only check their email or / and participate in a social network, but little else. Adding just like Chrome some bad copies of Vivaldi features makes them look just like the cartoon I put up. -
@Catweazle I ask because: ten years ago or so, Firefox was a better browser then IE or Chrome. But it was no Opera! And Firefox has gone downhill since those days (it doesn't even have a status bar anymore).
And that makes me doubt that it's really about community. I think it's more about goals. Opera ten years ago, and Vivaldi today, aim to highly customizable and feature-rich. And the others don't.
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@Eggcorn , goals is the magic word, this is why an active and strong community is important, this determines whether the goals are in the interest of the company or those of the user community.
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As a Linux user, I strongly prefer FOSS. I like Vivaldi, its customizability reminds of what Firefox used to be. I hope you will reconsider, otherwise I can see myself jumping a ship when I learn of some new/other FOSS browser that has features I want (e.g. installation of unsigned extensions, highly configurable UI and not backed [at least directly] by big tech).
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@quiray , all this you can do in Vivaldi, you can use Extensions directly from GitHube, Sourceforge, etc., downloading the crx file and pulling it on the extensions page in developer mode, modding the UI more than in any other browser, no has relations with big companies.
Vivaldi isn't FOSS, true, but only in tradicional definition, the code is open for audit.
https://vivaldi.com/source/
https://github.com/ric2b/Vivaldi-browser
https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/privacy/is-vivaldi-open-source/ -
@Catweazle said in Vivaldi browser and open-source:
no has relations with big companies
This isn't entirely true. Vivaldi is "sponsored" by e.g. Microsoft (to include Bing as a search engine) and other companies (for search engines or bookmarks). Of course, this doesn't mean that Vivaldi is exchanging any data with these companies, but there are still relations there.
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@Komposten , true, Vivaldi makes money by adding some sponsor links by default, including MS Bing as a search engine and others, apart from his shop co merchandising. The team also has to pay bills and the sync servers are not free either.
I think it is preferable to trafficking with user data, as others do.See the Vivaldi business model https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-business-model/