Vivaldi is getting too complicated
-
The easiest thing that exists right now is to choose the regular web browser mode and right click on any of the toolbars to add or delete unnecessary buttons or even right click the address bar area to delete the Flexible space so it looks more like a traditional browser.
Refer to help.vivaldi.com
Articles for more information
Or ask me anything specific you need help with. -
@RasheedHolland said in Vivaldi is getting too complicated:
@Mick96 said in Vivaldi is getting too complicated:
I have been using Vivaldi on windows and android since its inception, but I now find it does so many things, has so many options, I am getting confused.
Well, I somewhat have to agree with this. There are way too many options, but I thought this was the whole idea behind Vivaldi. But sometimes, things could have been made simpler, for example, you have to use the Command Chain feature in order to make one-click buttons for your Workspaces (in statusbar), why on earth doesn't Vivaldi let you drag these buttons directly from the Workspaces button? This would make it way less complex.
Try a feature request
-
@mikeyb2001 said in Vivaldi is getting too complicated:
@RasheedHolland said in Vivaldi is getting too complicated:
@Mick96 said in Vivaldi is getting too complicated:
I have been using Vivaldi on windows and android since its inception, but I now find it does so many things, has so many options, I am getting confused.
Well, I somewhat have to agree with this. There are way too many options, but I thought this was the whole idea behind Vivaldi. But sometimes, things could have been made simpler, for example, you have to use the Command Chain feature in order to make one-click buttons for your Workspaces (in statusbar), why on earth doesn't Vivaldi let you drag these buttons directly from the Workspaces button? This would make it way less complex.
Try a feature request
Yes, good idea. Sadly enough I'm still waiting for a mouse gesture for ''stacking tabs by host''. I have made a request months ago.
-
@DoctorG Better late than never, me that is. I apologise for the innordinate delay in replying to your post. A simple effective browser with which i can find my way around again without scatching my head. I obviosly wish to retain my Bookmarks, Contacts, Passwords, Vivaldi and Gmail e-mail and the sync with my tablet & phone. Would a solution be to ensure the previous mentioned were all on my tablet then uninstall Vivaldi on my destop and do a clean reinstall. Any help would be appreciated as I keep getting lost amonst the numerouus windos tabs and god knows what else.
Finally is there anything that is on my Desktop version that will be lost in cyberspace -
@Mick96 if you have a lot of tabs, try the OneTab extension.. it can clear them out in one click.. but you can also get them (or any of them) back easily as well.
-
@TheCelticCross Interesting. I find Vivaldi simple. I don't use, and don't try to use, many of its infinite options. I just ignore or hide or never turn on the ones I don't want.
I set about six or seven things when I first set up a new Vivaldi installation, and then I leave it at that. I don't install extensions, don't make any modifications, don't use hardly any options at all.
I set my theme colors and background; my tabs, bookmarks bar and tool buttons where I want them, set up my email the way I want it, remove all of the nav links and extra buttons from Start page, turn on sync, and I am done. I just work in this friendly and familiar environment or months or even years after that, and change little or nothing.
-
@TheCelticCross In fact, My wife, who can't be bothered with complexity, does even less. She has no idea most of what Vivaldi can do, but is happy to just use it, pretty much right out of the box (with tabs on the right and accent color from sites turned off).
-
Although at first the configuration page may overwhelm a new user, once configured Vivaldi is what every user may need, with just the features they need. This is precisely the advantage that Vivaldi offers, being as complicated or simple as the user wants. Anything from a simple UI of an old IE to a dashboard of an F15 is possible.
-
@TheCelticCross Vivaldi is not meant to be suitable for everyone. It doesn't have to be. It only has to be suitable for each individual. And the aim is to make it so that each individual can suit themselves.
I'm old, stodgy and boring. So is my Vivaldi. It doesn't do everything. It only does what I want. Basically, exactly what I want. Many will find it doesn't do what they want, and so it will continue to be developed with the idea that eventually it will do what they want.
Interestingly, I literally can't get comfortable with any other browser. Each fails me in some significant way (or more than one way) that I just can't abide.
I feel a little sorry for folks on Mac and iOS, because of two things: Their range seems limited to me, because they can't readily adapt to other systems and - the Mac platform is the most difficult to develop for (both because of its intolerance for change and the fact that Apple forbids outside engagement) so it's hard to bring Mac users good things, including a cleanly and smoothly operating Vivaldi. Every time the Devs get close, Mac dodges. There's deliberately planned rolling obsolescence, to ensure that older systems can never run more modern software, and newer systems have to be acquired.
Companies with hundreds of developers can keep up with the changes, but smaller teams are challenged to do so.
My wife got a killer deal on a used iPad. It was less than five years old. When she got it, she went to the Apple store to download the Pinterest app (the reason she had gotten the iPad) and learned that there was no longer any Pinterest app that was compatible with her (obsolete) IPad.
Now it's true Vivaldi gets forced out of obsoleted systems as the Chromium gods decide to no longer support them (Windows XP, then 7, etc., Older Mac OS versions, older Android versions and so on) but it's not by Vivaldi's design. It's because they can't afford to write their own engine.
But to the degree possible, Vivaldi will always endeavor to make its browser easy to use on every platform it is possible for them to support - Win 10 and later, most flavors of Linux, Linux ARM like Raspberry Pi, Mac OS Intel and M1, iOS, Android 7 and later, 3 kinds of automotive OSes...) And if they could make it just right for you, they would.
-
@TheCelticCross said in Vivaldi is getting too complicated:
I've played with Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Brave, DuckDuckGo, Safari for a while. But I've settled with Opera at the moment, because they give me the features I need (and which I like in Vivaldi like rocker gestures) and even more so (Aria e.g. which I use quite often).
None of the browsers that you mention have the features I look for. I recently checked out Opera, what a nightmare, I honestly thought it was crap, it used a lot of resources without even any websites open. Edge is a nightmare too, so many pointless spyware-like features, and not easy to turn them all off.
-
@Ayespy said in Vivaldi is getting too complicated:
@TheCelticCross Interesting. I find Vivaldi simple. I don't use, and don't try to use, many of its infinite options. I just ignore or hide or never turn on the ones I don't want.
I know what you mean, Vivaldi can indeed be quite simple, and you don't have to actually use all features. But I think what people mean is that perhaps it has a bit too many options, which sometimes makes it a bit difficult to configure, would be cool if you could save settings locally now that I think of it.
-
@TheCelticCross said in Vivaldi is getting too complicated:
@RasheedHolland you may call Opera crap. Maybe it is. It's got its own kind of issues. But I can easily set up to remove thei ad-driven crap, but then it works without further tuning. I haven't seen any lag or delay with it. I've always felt that it runs quite smoothly.
Yes, I'm very picky about things. I just hate almost everything about Opera, the way how they hide the menu and statusbar, and I also hate the settings page. I don't see anything interesting, I don't need the AI nonsense. But that's the thing, we all have our preferences. I call Opera crap, but others love it. I also don't understand all of the hype about the Arc browser, I freaking hate the sidebar and vertical tabs, and that's what they call revolutionary, what a joke.
-
@TheCelticCross said in Vivaldi is getting too complicated:
I agree, that you can set up Vivaldi very simple. But in a way, it's a bit of a self-contradiction, because that's not what Vivaldi was meant to be. ...
Well, actually, there's no contradiction. It's exactly what Vivaldi was (and is) meant to be. With myriad optional features and settings, a user can make Vivaldi whatever they want it to be in terms of options and features and controls. Most of those features/settings are optional and out of the way... they're simply there, under the hood, but not necessarily in view or intrusive - unless you want them and set them up to be.
I probably use less than 20% of the available settings and features, only tweaking those various options that are necessary and convenient for how I work. That flexibility makes it a "friendly" browser for users with many different views of what a browser should offer and how it should work... which is the philosophy inherited from Olde Opera via Jon von Tetzchner's founding involvement in both browsers.
I'm hardly what's typically called a "power user"... but my work flow and mind function better when using certain things that I've adopted over many years of using browsers from the infancy of the web - things like a bookmark bar that allows textual-abbreviation titles (and no icons), allows folders beneath its buttons, offers different toolbars that can be swapped out at user discretion, and so on (try finding those in Chrome or Opera).
People are all different... what makes a browser more useful to them will vary for each. By offering a wide range of features and detailed settings, Vivaldi can become a comfortable fit for widely-differing kinds of users. Otherwise, the users must fit themselves into the mold of a browser designer's chosen way of doing and viewing things.
-
PPathduck moved this topic from Vivaldi for Windows on -
@TheCelticCross said in Vivaldi is getting too complicated:
really find it hard to see the sense of command chains, mail and calendar and the countless options for customization in a browser
You mention the specific things I am looking for in a browser here. As was discussed before, everyone's needs are different, and so defining what's in and what's not in the browser is hard to say.
Now my question: command chains, mail and calendar and customization options are exactly those things that are not at all shown in the default. Why do precisely those things bother you much while using the browser? (apart from development priorities, just usage, which pertains to the topic "getting too complicated"). I don't want to argue, just understand.
-
@TheCelticCross said in Vivaldi is getting too complicated:
But I suppose, that will never happen, because Vivaldi isn't meant for the average but for the elitist user. For them simplicity is a kind of insult.
Interesting point of view. Vivaldi was launched as "A browser for our friends." Jon knew exactly who those friends were. They were the former Opera users who were cast adrift in 2013 when Opera (which had been invented and built starting in 1994 by Jon and a partner who passed away), which Jon had left in 2011 over differences with the new majority owners, changed direction from a user-centric, ultra-configurable browser with it own engine and email, to a stripped-down Chromium/Blink browser.
It was not a statement or elitist or a way for users to differentiate themselves. It was a safe harbor for users who had relied on OldeOpera for a decade or more. I was one such. I still needed what I had lost when NeuOpera told us users to go suck eggs because the owners were going to make a browser cheap and easy to develop and maintain, cut staff to the bone, and sell off to the highest bidder to make a handsome profit off their investment. Which they did.
So when Vivaldi appeared 27 Jan 2015, I jumped in with both feet and have never left. Once again I had a browser and a team (much of the same team that had once guided OldeOpera) that cared about what I needed to do my job efficiently. If that's "elitist," then brand me guilty. But if that's just caring about a company that cares about me, then count me satisfied.
-
@TheCelticCross
I'd propose a Vivaldi light version without e-mail and calendar and all these alleged "power-user" stuff.
Vivaldi maintains 3 versions of Vivaldi (Stable, Snapshot, Sopranos) for nineteen different platforms - each of which must be custom-made for the platform it will run on. 57 flavors of Vivaldi. Were it to branch off a Vivaldi Lite, this number would double.
So their solution, so as not to have to double their maintenance chores, is the new install launch screen, which offers users 3 choices: basic, more, and everything. (or is it only two now?) Only the "everything" option enables mail, calendar and feeds. For the time being at least, that will probably have to do.
-
@TheCelticCross said in Vivaldi is getting too complicated:
@Catweazle Maybe you figured out the problem, really. In order to have Vivaldi simple, you have to customize it. What I think is, it should install as simple from the ground and leaving users the choice, to add and change whatever they want maybe.
This is what Vivaldi does for new users, from offering in the installation to do it in a basic way with the essentials or completely. That is, later the user can simply activate one by one the functions that he needs in the basic installation, or in the complete installation hide those that he does not need.
The difference between Vivaldi and other browsers is precisely that it adapts to the user, not that the user has to adapt to the browser.But this is the real issue: It's not really meant to be easy or simple. It's meant to be for the so called power user. But not everyone is. Imagine people heavily using the internet doesn't make them a power user who's not only engaged with the web, but also with playing around with software.
If someone is really looking for something more easy why should he take Vivaldi into account? Easy options are available easily.This poweruser thing, well, anyone who uses the browser for more than just checking email and posting on Fakebook, it can be interesting to have functions for different issues, without having to search or use third-party tools, also with the freedom to hide the ones he don't need.
It's the difference between going to a store where there are only clothes in one size or one where they have clothes in your size. Going to the second one does not make you a power client.>Laptop ACER, AMD Ryzen, GPU AMD Radeon RAM 16GB, SSD 512GB -Win11 Home 64 v24H2| Vivaldi last stable|
-
@Catweazle No, it makes you "elitist."
-
Coming late to this party, and there are lots of good posts here, and interesting tips and hints. IMO this Forum and its active community are what sets Vivaldi apart from anything else out there. So I will add my views too, to help Mick or anyone else.
I've been using the Browser for about 18 months now, on a tatty old Lenovo Think Pad running W10. God know's what I'll do when W10 reaches End of Life next year as I can't take W11 because of the technical restrictions making the machine incompatible - a topic for another day! Anyway, after trying all the other browsers I gave Vivaldi a go, and like many others I found it quite daunting initially. I'm a 70 year old retiree, with very simple requirements: I want a clean and easy to use browser that allows me to look at any internet site, I want to be able to listen to Spotify and various radio stations when I want, I want to be able to do a bit of work on the blogs I write on Blogger and maybe check emails. That's it. Simple. I spent a couple of days playing around with Settings and made short cuts for all the main sites I want to get at, including radio stations, and placed them where I wanted them. I linked my gmail and yahoo mail accounts to the email client. I set up the Theme I wanted so it looked nice (and now & again I change it, just because I can). And that is it. No extensions - I let the baked in ad-blocker do its stuff. Don't need massive power user productivity toos like Tab Stacks and Workspaces and all the rest, so I ignore them. I've left all the buttons there but ignore them too. It works perfectly well for me. It's as plain vanilla as I can get it, I think. I take all the new Version updates as and when I'm prompted to do so, but to be honest I have no idea what has really changed with them over that 18 month period - and I don't need to: the kit is working exactly the same now as the day I started using it, back in 2022.
What more could anyone with a similar user profile as me want? I would argue nothing.
-
@TheCelticCross said
@Catweazle said in Vivaldi is getting too complicated:
checking email and posting on Fakebook
How do you think that they do? I consider myself doing serious work with any browser I use, as it happens to be Opera right now. That remark is a good example of what I call "elitist". Not everyone who isn't using Vivaldi is a dumb Facebooker, I suppose.
We all want Vivaldi to become better, don't we? We all want Vivaldi listen to its users, former and potential as well. So I did my comments, told about my experiences and my personal wishes.
As I said, Vivaldi with all its flaws will have a soft spot in my heart. Nothing is perfect. So I'm having a pragmatic stance towards browsers.
Thank you all for your considerations.I have never assumed that you are someone who is a dumb Facebooker, I have simply said that anyone who uses more than email and SNs can fit what is called Poweruser, well this, anyone who uses the network frequently, be it for work, studies or for entertainment, that is, practically everyone today. This is why calling Vivaldi a browser for powerusers does not suit me at all and has nothing to do with its real nature and philosophy.
But it's a big difference to use a browser in which you have all at hand what you may need and such where you need third party apps and extensions for everything.
