The Vivaldi Browser is released. Its from Opera founder von Tetzchner, the guy who did Opera Presto.
Its just a preview. It needs a lot of work.
https://vivaldi.com
Let's keep it open. :) We have what's going on with Vivaldi (the company) (https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?topic=237.0), what's Otter's future (https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?topic=791.0) and then this, what's up with Vivaldi the browser.
For instance, you could share tips. If you browse to vivaldi:extensions (or about:extensions), you can drag Chrome/Chropera extensions onto the page to install.
For instance, you could share tips. If you browse to vivaldi:extensions (or about:extensions), you can drag Chrome/Chropera extensions onto the page to install.
Drag them from where? From your own harddrive where you download the extensions first? :yikes:
Which promised feature of Vivaldi are you most looking forward to?
Drag them from where? From your own harddrive where you download the extensions first?
Well, yes. :P
Which promised feature of Vivaldi are you most looking forward to?
Spatial navigation. Possibly sync if I were to end up using it as a secondary or tertiary browser.
Even though Otter is planning to add modules for various functionalities that used to be integrated in Opera, I'm working on a long, incredibly drawn out process of moving everything but browsing itself into separate applications. I switched to Icedove (Thunderbird) for mail years ago, I've kept my notes in Zim for over a year, I've been using HexChat for IRC for a few weeks, and I'm currently experimenting with QuiteRSS for newsfeeds.
I know I said Otter, but all this applies equally to Vivaldi. My interest in replacements for anything but the core browsing functionality is waning quickly. Only QuiteRSS hasn't quite won me over yet. But perhaps as the saying goes: even if you don't use 3D, all of the best TVs are 3D TVs. Chrome focuses on just the browsing and it's awful at it.
PS I never really used Opera for torrents because its implementation was suboptimal at best. I currently use qBittorrent for that. I used µTorrent on Windows when it was still good.
Spatial navigation.
Me too, even though I doubt anyone will be able to implement it as well as in Opera. Elinks is equally good, even though not out of the box; it has to be configured for that.
Possibly sync if I were to end up using it as a secondary or tertiary browser.
What's the primary browser?
I maintain browser profiles and I copy them from one machine to another to achieve what sync would do. Vivaldi has a highly suspicious profile, full of stuff that don't make sense.
My interest in replacements for anything but the core browsing functionality is waning quickly.
What is the core functionality for you? Displaying websites?
For me there's pretty much that a browser should be able to do, but displaying websites "correctly" is not necessarily among those functions. If the browser is able to keep the text legible (this is where user fonts, font sizes, and UserCSS become a requirement) and launch plugins on demand, it's good enough as far as displaying websites is concerned.
Further, I want certain things, such as toolbars, buttons, status indicators, keybinds, custom menus, etc. available in convenient places and ways. Lately I am realising I would want to have an indicator when a website tries to place a cookie in the browser. I would automatically refuse all cookies, but if I decide to add the site among my logins or something, I would click that indicator to change site-specific settings. If I remember correctly, IE (of all things) had this indicator, even though the indicator was not a button that would have taken you to settings.
Further, I want the browser window to be an effective window manager, with tiling and cascading, with dragging, detaching, and drag&drop. I want fullscreen to be proper fullscreen and detached windows properly detached. I want panel items to be duplicated as windows. And I want as many
about: features to be put into panels as possible. And it would be nice to have e-mail in the same app, because e-mail is also a web protocol (I have my e-mail accounts duplicated in a few apps for now, including old Opera). And I want to take and compose notes. And things that the browser cannot do too well, such as torrent or FTP or IRC, it should be able to redirect to other apps.
As you see, old Opera is irreplaceable for me. Moreover, Opera is still king on weak hardware, which is an important factor when you try to keep your hardware running for as long as possible.
Then there are things that even old Opera didn't do well and I must therefore do them elsewhere. For example the otherwise excellent Notes do not have a sane font setting nor a decent interface for editing - and no ability to redirect to another editor. (DWB can redirect textareas to external editor. Elinks naturally offers the default console editor. This is very good.) And Opera incomprehensibly ditched true detach. To have this functionality, I have to use some minimalistic webkit browsers.
If/When Otter re-implements tiling/cascading, Notes, redirection of Notes/textareas to another editor (even though hopefully it will be a decent editing environment itself), proper fullscreen and true detach, it will become my next home browser.
Another feature I need in a home browser is ability to keep a session with a bunch of websites where I autologin. Otter has the exact same session management as Opera now, but this too needs a little improvement. I don't want to be forced to select "Open in the current window" every frigging time. It should be a sticky option. When I choose it once, it should stick, until I decide to specifically untick it.
From what it looks, Otter is by far closer to what I need than Vivaldi will ever be. Notes look good in Vivaldi though. Even very good.
What's the primary browser?
Opera 12.16, to be replaced by Otter at some point in the future.
I currently use four browsers somewhat regularly, namely Opera/Presto, Iceweasel, Otter, and Opera/Blink. Out of those Otter has by far the most potential. Two years ago I entertained the notion of Firefox with a few extensions (GreaseMonkey, Stylish, Session Manager, Tab Mix Plus, maybe All-in-one Sidebar, Custom Buttons and something for "rocker gestures") but I just don't like the damned thing even half as much as I liked it in the 3.6 days, when it was my trustworthy secondary browser (even though I actually opened it less at the time; unfortunately Presto is aging).
What is the core functionality for you? Displaying websites?
Essentially, but displaying and managing websites includes probably most of what you said.
As you see, old Opera is irreplaceable for me. Moreover, Opera is still king on weak hardware, which is an important factor when you try to keep your hardware running for as long as possible.
I haven't tried Opera/Blink on my netbook, but Firefox isn't too bad for me.
I haven't tried Opera/Blink on my netbook, but Firefox isn't too bad for me.
I tried Firefox on netbook too, but Seamonkey is better. And Opera works better than Seamonkey. Otter is somewhere in between.
Try Vivaldi on netbook and report back :)
Try Vivaldi on netbook and report back
It's surprisingly fast, but there are some clear performance issues.
- The addressbar is quite a bit slower than in Opera/Presto or Firefox. This was already perceivable on my desktop.
- Opening a new tab takes forever because of the speed dial (even on my desktop it feels a tad laggy). The same problem exists in Opera/Blink. I used to disable it in Opera/Presto for the same reason when it was first introduced, but it later became instantaneous.
- Switching tabs isn't slow, or at least not excessively so, but feels slow because of the interface changing color which lags behind. On my desktop this is merely a visual effect I don't care for.
That means I won't be using it on my netbook the way it is right now.
I'm working on a long, incredibly drawn out process of moving everything but browsing itself into separate applications.
I always prefered specialized software for dedicated tasks. A jack of all trades device is aimed for aunt Gertrude.
I always prefered specialized software for dedicated tasks. A jack of all trades device is aimed for aunt Gertrude.
I don't see any problem in being aunt Gertrude. You're being aunt Gertrude every time you opt not to download using e.g. wget because you don't need any of its more advanced functionality.
When it comes to download managers I'm aunt Gertrude. :)
Actually I don't have any use for them anymore.
I had wget installed many years ago. It made sense for me at that time. I had a slow connection and most hosting sites didn't restrict the use of download managers. Times have changed since. My connection is very fast and all hosting providers restrict the use of download managers, except you are a paying customer.
Since the last update im enjoying the browser, im looking forward to it maturing in the coming years. Nice to have good alturnitive to firefox
Since the last update im enjoying the browser, im looking forward to it maturing in the coming years. Nice to have good alturnitive to firefox
What became enjoyable?
Since the last update im enjoying the browser, im looking forward to it maturing in the coming years. Nice to have good alturnitive to firefox
What became enjoyable?
Its now not completely crashing or locking-up every so often, im now able to properly use the browser.
It doesnt take much to please me :-)
Try Vivaldi on netbook and report back
It's surprisingly fast, but there are some clear performance issues.
I cannot even install it on my netbook, because I have a 32-bit system. And based on what I see on the larger system, I would not try it on the smaller.
Now also in 32-bit: https://vivaldi.net/blogs/teamblog/item/7-new-snapshot-1-0-105-7-now-with-32-bit-linux
Now also in 32-bit: https://vivaldi.net/blogs/teamblog/item/7-new-snapshot-1-0-105-7-now-with-32-bit-linux
finally! thanks for the link :-)
Is there an open bugtracker for Vivaldi? I have not been able to find it.
All I could find was this thread (https://vivaldi.net/forum/all/1289-bug-tracker) asking for one.
All I could find was this thread (https://vivaldi.net/forum/all/1289-bug-tracker) asking for one.
As I thought. Buggers :irked:
https://vivaldi.net/blogs/teamblog/item/9-snapshot-1-0-111-2
Vivaldi now sports the beginnings of Opera-like spatial navigation.
Vivaldi looks promising! :happy: Do you guys think it will go as far as including Widgets and Unite? :eek:
I wouldn't count on it, but I suppose anything's possible long-term. :)
TP3 came out. I haven't tried it.
https://vivaldi.net/blogs/teamblog/item/27-tp3-is-here
April 30 update: DPI issues not fixed, ergo it's still completely unusable.
Vivaldi introduces web panels: https://vivaldi.net/en-US/blogs/teamblog/item/45-snapshot-1-0-249-12-web-panels-extension-buttons-ui-progress-bar-info-and-tab-performance-improvements
Great (old) news: last month, Vivaldi became usable (https://vivaldi.net/en-US/blogs/teamblog/item/37-snapshot-1-0-219-34-tp4-is-just-around-the-corner) by scaling to DPI.[1] Something that doesn't yet apply to the Linux version of Maxthon. This means Vivaldi joins the ranks of e.g. Otter, Netsurf, Firefox, and Opera/Blink as an actually usable program.
[1] I didn't bother to check if that particular snapshot picked it up automatically like the latest snapshot, but without UI-scaling that's a moot question.
Vivaldi implemented something that's been missing from Opera since forever ago: tab selection for tiling. Of course it was available in an easy manner through the window panel, which was preferable over the tab bar for that and many other reasons.
https://vivaldi.net/en-US/blogs/teamblog/item/49-snapshot-1-0-258-3-a-quick-fix-for-languages-and-improved-tab-selection-for-easier-tiling
Vivaldi implemented something that's been missing from Opera since forever ago: tab selection for tiling. Of course it was available in an easy manner through the window panel, which was preferable over the tab bar for that and many other reasons.
https://vivaldi.net/en-US/blogs/teamblog/item/49-snapshot-1-0-258-3-a-quick-fix-for-languages-and-improved-tab-selection-for-easier-tiling
I never missed this feature. Here's how to select tabs for tiling:
- Open up two browser windows
- Send the tabs that you don't want tiled into the other window
- Tile
- Open up two browser windows
- Send the tabs that you don't want tiled into the other window
- Tile
And just how do you select the pages you want to put into another window, or that you want to bookmark in a folder, or close all at once,* or…? Selection with Control and Shift is paramount unless you like RSI. :) But of course, none of that stuff works in Vivaldi (yet ?), and the tab bar is an inherently inferior specimen regardless.
* When I'm done with something I often want to close something like 20 tabs all at once. In Opera this takes something like 1-2 seconds. In any other browser I'm clicking 20 times, hoping I don't misclick in the meantime.
- Open up two browser windows
- Send the tabs that you don't want tiled into the other window
- Tile
And just how do you select the pages you want to put into another window, or that you want to bookmark in a folder, or close all at once,* or…? Selection with Control and Shift is paramount unless you like RSI. :)
What is RSI?
The way I used to do it with Opera was to create a new window, open the Windows panel and drag&drop there until set, and then tile. I have the New window button in Windows panel, plus buttons and menus for tab management and tiling - all there in Windows panel.
Ctrl+Click in Opera's Windows panel in fact allows multiple selection. Hopefully Otter gains the same functionality rather sooner than later. I miss tab management like this a lot.
* When I'm done with something I often want to close something like 20 tabs all at once. In Opera this takes something like 1-2 seconds. In any other browser I'm clicking 20 times, hoping I don't misclick in the meantime.
If you have arranged the tabs in multiple windows, you can close the "done" window. If you have one set of tabs pinned and the "done" set unpinned, you can close all - the pinned ones will remain open.
Ctrl+Click in Opera's Windows panel in fact allows multiple selection.
As does selection with Shift and arrow keys.
If you have arranged the tabs in multiple windows, you can close the "done" window. If you have one set of tabs pinned and the "done" set unpinned, you can close all - the pinned ones will remain open.
That still doesn't work in any way other than through Opera's window panel if you start on something and you notice it's really starting to become its own independent thing. It doesn't matter whether we're talking about separating 20 tabs, bookmarking them or closing them. The only workable solution I'm aware of exists in Opera/Presto.
Vivaldi came out with a "beta candidate".
This snapshot is a "candidate" for a beta release. This means it should contain enough fixes to be labelled beta quality. We are not calling it beta yet, in case one of the recent fixes is incomplete or we missed something very important. If all goes to plan we will reissue it as a beta (a final change that allows us to update technical preview users). If not, we will put out further candidates with just a few more critical fixes.
Now for the other news from Iceland: Vivaldi is now officially 1.0 greek-letter-free (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/06/vivaldi-the-new-web-browser-for-power-users)
Vivaldi has launched a new web browser that is different enough to have a chance of success. Rather than targeting the mass market with a simplified browser, Vivaldi is trying to deliver more power to the people who live and work on the web, whether they use Windows, Mac OS X or Linux.
These people, the developers believe, are those who want to take notes and screen grabs while browsing, or view three or four different web pages in the same tab. People who want to be able to save and reload all their favourite sites as sessions. People who want to do everything via configurable keyboard commands, or use mouse-gestures instead.
(https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/688cc0ca001d5796faa28659274557793775ca32/382_0_3696_2216/master/3696.jpg?w=1920&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=03a64979660f4b3a68dabd41bffb13b5)
I like their download screen (for future reference, screenshot here (http://tweakers.net/nieuws/110023/vivaldi-brengt-final-versie-browser-uit.html)). There are some minor annoyances like having to click on the menu button, Windows style, instead of being able to hold down on it and I think the fonts seem to look a bit fuzzier than elsewhere on my system, suggesting it applies some extra or different anti-aliasing of its own volition.
Besides that — well, bookmarks are obviously better than Opera/Blink's (nicknames!). The download panel is significantly more usable than the annoying @#$% they utilize in Opera/Blink and Firefox. Opening the mail panel does nothing for me and the windows panel is sorely lacking. On Firefox I've got a pretty decent alternative in Tab Tree (https://github.com/traxium/tabtree), although it doesn't currently support selection of multiple windows by holding Ctrl or Shift. But Otter doesn't currently have a windows panel either, so I can't complain I suppose.
It doesn't have a Ctrl+Tab list like Opera/Blink does, and Ctrl + scroll zooms the surrounding GUI instead of the page. Which might be a pretty cool feature if it happened while your mouse was resting on the GUI, but it's pretty annoying when you're fully over the page.
In short, for me it hasn't really improved since the beta a few months ago but as a tertiary browser it's neck and neck with Opera/Blink. I think I actually prefer Opera/Blink because of the tab list (although that might be an opera:flags feature) given that I don't care about its lack of bookmarks. On the flipside, Vivaldi feels like it could be an actual competitor for being my default browser, which Opera/Blink clearly has no aspirations to, and that's something indeed.
Here is a guide to some presumably common questions about Vivaldi: http://www.webupd8.org/2016/04/how-to-get-flash-and-h264-to-work-in.html
Here's an interview with Ruari: https://opensource.com/life/16/4/young-vivaldi-browser-taking-its-cues-community
I'm interested in the fact that they have plans to go mobile:
When can we expect Vivaldi for mobile?
It's hard to give a timescale on that. We fully intend to produce a mobile version, but we really need to focus on getting out a final of our desktop version first. I will say that we will be looking at Android first, since iOS only lets you use their rendering engine, which severely limits what we can do.
I guess there technically should be a new thread, now that there is a release version and the browser is no longer TR. I am too lazy to make one though, and it probably doesn't matter.
I think I saw something about a 1.1 RC in my newsfeeds.
Is this also where news about the Vivaldi community goes? They've switched to NodeBB (https://nodebb.org/) for their forum: https://vivaldi.net/teamblog/170-a-fresh-makeover-vivaldi-forum-gets-a-new-look
The improvement is palpable. Whereas previously it was rather slow for me to say the least, now it's as fast as DnD.
But Vivaldi totally sucks as a blogging platform ever since they started pre-screening posts. It takes days to publish a blog post there. Same goes for each edit. Pointless.
They do? I admit I don't keep the closest eye on their blog posts (mostly headlines) but that sounds awfully labor intensive.
Vivaldi says they now do high-contrast mode: https://vivaldi.net/teamblog/174-designing-the-developer-story-at-vivaldi-web-browser
I pointed out (to Opera) that Opera/Blink did not a few years back, but I wouldn't know how it's looking today.
https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-makes-history/
Vivaldi came out with an interesting new history feature.
I wonder when email is going to arrive in Vivaldi. I may have to give it serious consideration at that point, as my current email program (Poco Mail) is starting to have issues. :(
Me too.
I wonder when they are going to support FreeBSD.
Opera M2 is still my primary e-mail software.
Mail is the main feature I have bee waiting for Vivaldi to release. :wait: I moved my mail from Opera M2 to SeaMonkey just because... I think, they are the only browser with integrate mail by now. :eyes:
What? Even Vivaldi hasn't implemented the mailer yet? This means it's either very hard to do or it's perceived as a superfluous nuisance in the industry in general. Likely there won't be anybody to do it. So the loss of Opera M2 is truly tragic, irreparable. (I still use it, by the way, though not exclusively.)
An interview with Jon von Tetzchner in an Estonian tech magazine/webmag https://am.ee/Jon-von-Tetzchner-Latitude59-intervjuu
Vivaldi joins the campaign for net neutrality https://vivaldi.com/blog/dont-let-monopolists-call-the-shots-save-the-internet/
#NetNeutrality allowed me to invent the web without having to ask for permission. Let's keep the internet open! http://battleforthenet.com
Testing browsers here again, since long time.
Looks like Vivaldi doesn't switch tabs with right-click+scroll like old Opera. Otter does. And Vivaldi doesn't have the secondary address bar.
And paste-and-go by keybind does not work when the address bar is switched off. Am I the only using browsers this way?
nd paste-and-go by keybind does not work when the address bar is switched off. Am I the only using browsers this way?
Many things don't work in Vivaldi/Chropera when the menubar or addressbar isn't visible or switched off. At least in Otter F8 still works in fullscreen mode, although somewhat oddly imo. I think Firefox often handles such use cases most elegantly and consistently in spite of its odd Chrome envy.
I stated the same issues in Vivaldi forums. It turns out that right-click+scroll can be enabled in hard-to-find settings. The side-effect is that scroll on tabbar becomes enabled too (undesirable for me).
And paste-and-go supposedly works without addressbar in the very latest snapshot.
I just started looking at Vivaldi, after a year. Quite an improvement. There are still a few rough edges but I now feel comfortable using it.
I'm trying it now as my default browser and hopefully be able to keep it as such.
I have also found a function for Vivaldi lately: To keep a single little FB messenger chat window open.
Right now I downloaded Chropera to see how it compares in this function. Surprise surprise (not really), Chropera has both a FB messenger and a Whatsapp button ready in the sidebar for you, out of the box!
Functions like this make better sense when the browser has something like True Detach (https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?topic=568.msg30441#msg30441), a function that has historically existed only in old Opera. Such a detached window would make perfect sense as a messenger or music-player windowette somewhere in the corner of the screen, but as long as there is no True Detach in any browser, our best approximation is to open a separate browser app modified for the purpose.
New Chropera has created a limited emulation of True Detach - video popout (https://blogs.opera.com/desktop/2016/04/opera-beta-update-video-pop/). It's limited and poor in many ways. First, as the announcement says, it's apparently only meant to work on YT and other video-heavy pages, instead of on absolutely any page. Second, the popout requires its own plugins or codecs or whateveryoucallit for the video to play. In my current setup (Linux with i3wm) the video popout created a black silent quadrangular blot that cannot be moved and just stays there even after I closed the main browser window. The blot would be tolerable if it (a) played something, (b) could be moved and resized at will and (c) the main window stopped playing as soon as the popout started playing. As it is, it just misbehaves in every possible way.
But yeah, I admit I have been using Vivaldi for FB messenger, because Seamonkey keeps getting script errors on that page. During my current brief look into the settings of new Chropera I was unable to find the place/method to alter/add keybinds, whereas in Vivaldi it's easily found and it has pretty much everything I want, such as removal and adding of toolbars by keyboard shortcut, so I must prefer Vivaldi over Chropera.
And Vivaldi offers a transparent option to sidebar any webpage. Maybe Chropera does that too, but not as transparently. Not that I use this option, but there seems to be more reminiscent of old Opera in Vivaldi than in Chropera.
Wonder if I'm the only one who finds the Wikipedia input for Vivaldi funny. :)
The browser is aimed at staunch technologists, heavy Internet users, and previous Opera web browser users disgruntled by Opera's transition from the Presto layout engine to the Blink layout engine
And the below at the end of the article:
Vivaldi uses the Blink rendering engine, as Google Chrome and Opera do.
:lol:
@krake It's sad really. First, it's sad because non-standard pages like FB were allowed to be born. Second, those pages took over people's lives and became the Next Big Thing. Third, they were announced to be the new standard, Internet 2.0 or such crap. Fourth, rather than adhering to the actual web standards, webbrowsers began, by popular demand, to cater to the new heavy webpages, otherwise keeping to the lowest common denominator instead of being true to the standards. The total nonsense browser Google Chrome led this development and became the new de facto standard-bearer. Everybody else lags far behind. Sad really.
Wonder if I'm the only one who finds the Wikipedia input for Vivaldi funny. :)
The browser is aimed at staunch technologists, heavy Internet users, and previous Opera web browser users disgruntled by Opera's transition from the Presto layout engine to the Blink layout engine
And the below at the end of the article:
Vivaldi uses the Blink rendering engine, as Google Chrome and Opera do.
:lol:
I wish the others (Vivaldi, Opera) would get away from Chrome. Won't happen. It saves devel effort/cost.
I like the many built in customizations available Vivaldi. Vivaldi requires far fewer extensions to get what I want than on Firefox.
@krake disgruntled by Opera's transition from the Presto layout engine to the Blink layout engine
I'm not overly pleased by that but it's hardly why I'm disgruntled about the current simulacrum that calls itself Opera. Also, that phrasing is decidedly unencyclopedic and violates Wikipedia's guidelines. :P
Speaking of Firefox, since I don't think we have a dedicated topic here are some links I saw the other day.
the All-in-One Sidebar turned twelve this year. Is this a reason for a party? I don’t think so, because I announce the end of development, the end of life of this extension.
What are the reasons, you may ask. There are a handful of reasons, but mainly there is one reason caused by life, and one reason caused by Mozilla.
[…]
The other main reason is, that even if I had free time and desire, I now would stop the development, because of the upcoming release of Firefox 57. Maybe you know that Mozilla plans to make Firefox 57 the first version of the browser that supports only WebExtensions. I spent some time to check if I could migrate AiOS to a WebExtension, but it’s simply not possible, even if I would completely rewrite the extension. Manipulation of the browser window's interface and functionality is extremely limited by definition.
They say they've made sure Firebug and NoScript will continue working. That's great, but the new Firebug and NoScript won't be made on Firefox anymore this way, will they?
Dedoimedo also published an article about this the other day.
Firefox without CTR modifications looks like any typical modern browser - an abstract representation of stupidity. Tabs on top will go down the history lanes as one of those things that were created for the sake of it, justified post-creation as the next best thing since the Spanish Inquisition, and will remain around despite being a manifestation of all that it wrong in this world, even worse than hunger and Ebola.
So if you can't have a sane browser, what can you? Well, you know you can't really customize Chrome, but it has always been that way, you don't expect to. With Firefox, you can play with half a dozen options and buttons, which go top right, plus icons for your various extensions, just like Chrome. No more status bar. No more tabs on bottom. No more back, forward, reload and stop buttons as they used to be. It feels minimalistic, but not in a good way. Yes, you can get used to it, the same way you can get used to working in a mine quarry.
[…]
The price to pay is quite high. The reward isn't good enough. Not visually and not actually. The performance isn't as good as you'd hope, so you would be willing to sacrifice ancient extensions for the sake of awesome speed. Nope. Chrome remains ahead in pure user experience responsiveness, and with both browsers now sharing the same pointless design, Firefox losses still more points, because it has neutered all and any advantage over Chrome by moving to WebExtensions.
I don't know if Firefox ever regains its smooth elegance that it had around 2011, but whatever it does, it's still on the defensive. Chrome is ahead, and should remain so, because so far, it has. With one big difference. It remains largely consistent, and the changes, when they happen, are mostly invisible. Firefox goes for a highly disruptive revolution, willingly sacrificing old for new. But why would there be new?
All in all, it seems we will get another happy-go-lucky browser, without any distinct features, maybe, hopefully a few useful extensions, and performance that is not quite as good as its chief rival. And if you tell me you need the latest and greatest CPU to realize the benefits, then you're deluded. Browsers aren't computer games. They should be slim and fast, and if they cannot realize the entire spectrum of computing power available, then it's a lousy implementation. The perceived slowness and startup speed issues remain. And unless solved, there will be nothing to give Firefox the edge.
If I wanted Chrome, I'd be using Opera as my main browser. It's probably the best Chromium. Anyway, I guess Firefox is panicking because they're bleeding users. I just don't see how getting rid of anything that makes it unique is supposed to stop that.
Being very much in a True Detach mood today, I share my current best recommendations to achieve this effect. Roughly in the order of bestness.
1. A minimal browser (https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?topic=447.msg24735#msg24735)
A minimal browser has minimal interface out of the box, basically just the title bar (mandated by the window manager) and the combined status+navigation bar. To achieve something like True Detach, just open such a browser. That's it. If you are extra lucky, it has a rendering engine that can play anything you need. More likely not though.
2. Pale Moon
This Mozilla derivative has a fabulous toolbarless mode that you can try out as follows:
- Under Preferences > Tabs, uncheck Always show the tab bar
- Under View menu, uncheck the Bookmarks toolbar, then the Navigation toolbar, and finally the Menu bar
What is left is something like a minimal browser. What's super awesome about it is that, in this state, Pale Moon has a popup secondary address field under the common keybinds Alt+d and Ctrl+l, so the browser remains completely usable without menus and toolbars.
A new tab and the tab bar opens up by Ctrl+t. By right-clicking on the empty space in the tab bar you will get your toolbars back. By the way, Seamonkey (the successor of Mozilla Suite) works the same way, except that the secondary address field is only under Ctrl+l.
This is an area where modern FF totally lost it.
3. Otter
In Otter, all toolbars can be hidden either by right-click or menus, like in Pale Moon, or by keybinds that you have to build. Otter has a less elaborate, but functional secondary address field. Additionally, there is a separate popup to go to bookmarks like in old Opera.
Honorary mention: Vivaldi browser
Under Tools > Settings > Appearance, Vivaldi has the Show User Interface checkmark. Vivaldi turns into a minimal browser by this setting. This is a fabulous setting, but it's better to make it into a keybind. Under Keyboard, find View > Toggle UI and put your preferred keyboard shortcut there.
With these settings, Vivaldi's interface morphs faster than Pale Moon's, but Vivaldi cannot earn a better place on this list due to lack of access to a (secondary) address field in this state. As far as I can see, to use the address field, you have to turn the interface back on.
I asked the question in Vivaldi forum and I got the reply: Quick commands. Indeed, Vivaldi's Quick commands do more than old Opera. You can search for anything in Quick commands, in this case for Address bar and select it and the address bar returns. While this does the trick, it is (a) slower than having a direct keybind to secondary address field and (b) loses the minimality. Edit: Looks like the Quick commands field doesn't just search, but acts as a secondary address field just by typing a url in there. I guess I have to raise Vivaldi on this list :)
Haaaa! A lot of disgruntled ex-Opera users are referring to it as "Opium", now. Their old forum moderators got dead pissed about it and banned a load of us, for that. Like we were worried...
Funny, really, as it's hardly addictive.
Their old forum moderators got dead pissed about it and banned a load of us, for that.
At the time I was posting there one didn't get banned so easy - at least not for criticizing their new fake Opera.
I recall lashing out even at Bruce Lawson (their new PR guru at that time) proving him a liar.
Last time I threw a look at their forum, I saw a bunch of new moderators - some of them ridiculous fanboys.
Steve (if I recall exactly sgunhouse was his nick, he was a gun freak) is the one I kept in fond memory. :up:
It was silly, really. Opera was the only browser I ever used, other than for testing purposes. But, they killed it, as Mozilla are doing, to Firefox. I used that way back when it was Firebird. As many have noted, if we wanted to use Chrome, we'd get Chrome.
This killing off of addons that a lot of people rely on, they're just gonna get people sticking with the old version, security risk or no. I'm the same with W7. I tried W10 and abhorred it. Then, just by using Windoze updates, they forced it on a lot of people. So, we all disabled updates. Again, sod the security risks. After all, many deem W10 to be a security risk, in itself.
I get around that, now, by using WSUS Offline Update.
I recall lashing out even at Bruce Lawson (their new PR guru at that time) proving him a liar.
He worked at Opera from '07/'08-ish to 2016 (source (http://www.brucelawson.co.uk/2016/leaving-opera/)), so not that new even in 2013. :P I don't remember noticing him until '09.
I had no idea when he started his job at Opera but I was speaking of his appearance as PR man and fire-fighter in the Forums. This occured shortly before the transition to Google. The transition was praised as some changes under the hood that nobody will notice.
I didn't buy this from the very beginning but imagine the shock of some Opera veterans when the first alpha of the new browser was released. :lol:
It was always clear that it would be something like Otter or Vivaldi. I don't think anybody bought that just some small changes under the hood was even really possible, at the very least without breaking a lot of the UserCSS and UserJS people like me were into. But yeah, I was fairly shocked to see Chrome with FlipBack and FlipForward rather than something akin to Otter or Vivaldi. It seemed like they didn't even try.
If they had advertised it the same way they talked about their Project Reborn (http://blogs.opera.com/desktop/2017/05/opera-46-beta-debuts-ui-refresh/) from the get-go I wouldn't have liked it, but that deceptive strategy you mention definitely stung.
A funny (no, actually sad) detail: Every browser since the beginning of the internet can do alt text, but Webkit derivatives need an extension for it https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/image-alt-text-viewer/hinbolcnfifkhlcehoakdledkfjiaeeg
:lol:
Now I'm tempted to install Konqueror to see how KHTML fares (or have they discontinued it in favor of the WebKit fork?). The odd thing is that Apple is supposedly the best about accessibility (e.g., for blind people).
Every browser since the beginning of the internet can do alt text, but Webkit derivatives need an extension for it
I can't imagine that Webkit derivatives can't handle the alt attribute.
I'm too lazy to test but I'm afraid that you totally misunderstood something.
That extension is for
switching between images and their respective alt text.
@krake Actually I just verified that Otter does
not display the alt text when you disable images, the way Firefox and real Opera do. You just get a question mark. In Opera/Blink you don't even get that. Curiously, in Vivaldi it does work. Apparently not all Blinks are equally bad.
But I assume that if you hover over the shown image, the alt text gets displayed. ;)
Nowadays there are very few people browsing the Internet with images disabled. Those who do, don't want to get distracted by images. An alternative text can be for them a distraction too.
But I assume that if you hover over the shown image, the alt text gets displayed. ;)
I don't think any browser other than IE does that (maybe Edge). On other browsers you'd have to use a UserJS to map the alt attribute to the title attribute if that's something you want.
Nowadays there are very few people browsing the Internet with images disabled. Those who do, don't want to get distracted by images. An alternative text can be for them a distraction too.
It's still indicative of a trend in which WebKitBlink litters the web with shoddy implementations, causing less competent so-called developers to think something "doesn't work" in Fx when they (and Blink) are doing it wrong. Although oddly enough since the divorce both WebKit and Blink seem to have improved in quality.
I don't think any browser other than IE does that (maybe Edge). On other browsers you'd have to use a UserJS to map the alt attribute to the title attribute if that's something you want.
IE 7 and earlier but you are right.
It's still indicative of a trend in which WebKitBlink litters the web with shoddy implementations, causing less competent so-called developers to think something "doesn't work" in Fx when they (and Blink) are doing it wrong. Although oddly enough since the divorce both WebKit and Blink seem to have improved in quality.
I've looked it up. According to W3C - Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari and Opera are supporting the alt attribute.
Excepting Opera, the above are all actually maintained/developed engines.
Wondering though which Opera they mean since you tested Chropera and it doesn't support the alt attribut.
Perhaps there's a disconnect in the Chromia between purposefully disabling images and images not loading for some reason. The page I used for testing is this one: https://www.w3schools.com/TAGS/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_image_test
Opera/Presto, Firefox and Vivaldi display the text "Smiley face" when you disable images. WebKit (in Otter) displays a question mark square image placeholder (if you've ever used IE it looks very similar to that) and Blink (in Opera) displays nothing at all.
Perhaps there's a disconnect in the Chromia between purposefully disabling images and images not loading for some reason.
The only browsers I have at hand are OperaPresto and Firefox.
You could write a minimalistic html where the source (src="../Mix/_ABA.png") is mismatching with your image file name (AAA.png) and see if it works then.
You can also do that online (I linked to an online editor after all ;)) and the reason I hadn't is because I don't particularly care.
Anyway, the results are:
- Show all images: works fine
- Do not show any images: zip, nada
- Wrong URL: alt text appears
- Switch back to working URL: alt text remains
It's still indicative of a trend in which WebKitBlink litters the web with shoddy implementations, causing less competent so-called developers to think something "doesn't work" in Fx when they (and Blink) are doing it wrong. Although oddly enough since the divorce both WebKit and Blink seem to have improved in quality.
I've looked it up. According to W3C - Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari and Opera are supporting the alt attribute.
Excepting Opera, the above are all actually maintained/developed engines.
Well, I cannot test too extensively, but here's someone who ran a test in 2010 I guess http://files.paciellogroup.com/blogmisc/HTML5/alt-tests/alt-examples.html
Safari (the first major browser to branch off their own webkit version) performs worst, indicating that they care little for developing for the standards. A megacorp simply grabbed a passable fruit of volunteer work and relabelled it for their own purpose.
Chrome (version 4) does better. Thumbs up for that.
However, the linked test only tests the situation with faulty
src. In real life, there are more situations, my favourite being to browse with images off. The textmode browsers that I use are very sensible with alt texts, as is old Opera. These are most pleasant to use for browsring without images. The rest is downhill.
Among newer browsers, Vivaldi seems to be actively paying attention to these points. They have fixed the handling of the alt attribute and they have colour filters inbuilt (though they don't work as good as in old Opera). It's somewhat of a hit and miss, whereas other Chromites are more of a miss.
Among newer browsers, Vivaldi seems to be actively paying attention to these points. They have fixed the handling of the alt attribute and they have colour filters inbuilt (though they don't work as good as in old Opera). It's somewhat of a hit and miss, whereas other Chromites are more of a miss.
I don't really keep tabs on Chromuenza, but the picture I'm getting goes something like this:
1. Vivaldi
2. Opera/Maxthon/Yandex
49. Opera Mobile
50. Chromium
999. Chrome
9999. Chrome Mobile/Samsung Chromium
- Wrong URL: alt text appears
- Switch back to working URL: alt text remains
- Voilà
- I asssume that after refreshing the page, alt text is gone.
You can also do that online (I linked to an online editor after all ;))
Writing a minimalistic test wouldn't be the problem (a matter of 2 minutes?).
But I'm sick of downloading and installing browsers I don't intend to use. ;)
However, the linked test only tests the situation with faulty src.
AFAIK, because it is the purpose of alt text in the first place.
In real life, there are more situations, my favourite being to browse with images off.
Wonder what valuable informations you get by reading the alt text when browsing with images off?
Chromites are more of a miss.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not defending Chrome/Chromites/Blinkies. I've never used such a browser and don't intend to do so in future - not even for testing. :)
I asssume that after refreshing the page, alt text is gone.
Not with F5 or Ctrl+F5. The alt text won't go away. It's pretty
bizarre.
Normal. It's normal. The fact that alt text won't show up when you disable images is what's bizarre.AFAIK, because it is the purpose of alt text in the first place.
The main purpose is accessibility, which basically means people with visual impairments.
Wonder what valuable informations you get by reading the alt text when browsing with images off?
Various websites (possibly including my blog) use alt and title attributes for added value. The most famous being, of course, xkcd. ;)
I asssume that after refreshing the page, alt text is gone.
Not with F5 or Ctrl+F5. The alt text won't go away.
Freeenziiie!!! :irked:
You made me download that ultimative piece of crap we use to call Chropera for that stupid test.
With the wrong URL it showed the alt text.
After fixing the URL and hitting F5 it showed the pic instead of the alt text.
I don't see anything in there about disabling images. :wizard:
You don't because I've tested only with a wrong URL.
Google doesn't want you to disable images! This would be Un-American and a blow to our free world.
Imagine the loss of hundreds of millions of $$$ through advertising.
They try hard to build the ultimative browser, trimmed for revenue that will please enterprise worldwide.
It also will ease fingerprinting and tracking, that will please three and even more letter agencies worldwide.
No wonder that this browser managed in short time to gain the largest market share and it's only the beginning...
After all it's the browser and the philosophy behind it that increases our wealth and our safety day by day.
Be that as it may, now you made me temporarily install Chromium (which urges you to sign in to Google services because it's easier and more secure). It offers the same settings but it doesn't share Opera's peculiar bug. I've attached a screenshot of Opera's odd behavior.
Wonder what valuable informations you get by reading the alt text when browsing with images off?
It's information that (a) there's a picture there and (b) whether it's worth looking at. I prefer to read, first and foremost, and this means pictures only when they add something to the text. When alt text is missing, textmode browsers (can be set to) display the filename, so I still know at least that there's an image there.
Originally I used to browse with images off (with old Opera) because my internet connection was slow and on the mobile phone it was to save data. Now you can call it just a quirky habit.
Unfortunately on news websites we increasingly tend to have videos. Sometimes there's a sensible caption or summary, sometimes not. Video thingies should also have alt text.
Be that as it may, now you made me temporarily install Chromium
:P
Originally I used to browse with images off (with old Opera) because my internet connection was slow and on the mobile phone it was to save data.
Those were good reasons to do so in the past but nowadays some things have changed to the better.
Now you can call it just a quirky habit.
:)
I finally got around to do some spring cleaning, and created two threads,
- Keeping an eye on the Vivaldi Browser (https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?topic=2820.0) (for discussing the browser, a continuation of this thread)
- What's going on with Vivaldi Technologies? (https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?topic=2819.0) (for discussing the makers of said browser)
This thread can thus be closed, the Vivaldi public alpha phase is long passed.
(Later I should do something similar with the Opera threads, but that can wait for another spring.)
Abusing my admin privilege to post here, it looks as if you can't "like" posts in closed topics. I didn't know that. :sherlock: