Oops, I was drafting this and must have hit publish. Ten people saw my not even half written blog. I need to get better at this whole process. Sorry to those ten readers that probably won't reread this post.
About a week ago I read an article about internet browsers. There aren't many new entrants into this realm and the players seem to be pretty stable. I moved from Internet Explorer to Firefox to Chrome way back in the day. I apparently don't have a good track record with my browsers. Give me one the has better functionality and I will at least look at it. I don't feel there have been many other options come into the market since the release of Chrome in 2008 (granted I am most likely wrong). Well, in comes Vivaldi (don't worry it doesn't play classical music the entire time it is open). Vivaldi was created by the same people that brought us Opera (see a theme here?). I never used Opera, I know that I wasn't as into tech when it came out, 21 years ago! I thought I would give Vivaldi a try, the slogan is "A browser for our friends"
A little on the build of Vivaldi. It is built off Chromium, an open source project, along with other open source software. Given that, it looks a lot like Chrome, but with a few extra options and customizations to help you get the browser you really want. You are able to use all the plugins that you love so much in Chrome I believe that since it is built on Chromium.
I am writing this in the Vivaldi browser now. I really like all the options that Vivaldi offers. The first is the grouping of tabs. Tabs are great, but don't you ever get so many tabs that you have no idea what each tab is and you have to go through each one in order to find what you are really looking for? Well, you can now group them together (I think Opera allowed this as well, but never used it). The attached image shows the two grouped sites I have, blogger and gmail.
Once you have your tabs grouped you can then tile each tab into the same window. It is helpful if you don't want to have two windows open with the different pages open. Okay, not that big of a deal, but who really wants to have two windows open?
You will notice I have a dark theme for the browser, just one of the many options. There are also great options if you don't like using a mouse. You can set a keyboard shortcut for almost anything! In order to best utilize real estate on my screen I have two shortcuts, Alt + t and Alt + a to remove the tabs (at the bottom of my screen and not the top) and the address bar. There are so many other options for key board shortcuts.
There are also mouse movements that will do actions as well. The one I like the most would be the "Rocker" movements. You quickly press the right mouse button and then the left in order to move back to the previous page. Or, do left then right to move forward in the pages. Pretty nice that the browser is build to accommodate those that like to only use the keyboard and those that like to use the mouse as often as possible.
So many other options that can be done. Like how pressing Ctrl + Tab works. You can have it rotate through the order that the windows were last glanced out or go straight down the line. But not everything is good about the browser.
Really the most glaring downfall is that the browser doesn't appear to be as quick as Chrome. Pages load quicker in Chrome, but not too noticeable. You may lose a few seconds of productivity, but nothing that will keep me from using the browser.
I will continue using Vivaldi.Maybe I will find out more that I like about it. The slogan says "A browser for our friends." I have read they mean this to be a browser for those that were power users and wanted something beyond Chrome. I would venture to say that it is a browser for everyone. Even if you aren't a power user, there is something here for you.
"If you don't like this, I'll stop writing music." - Vivaldi (or maybe I'll stop writing blogs)
About a week ago I read an article about internet browsers. There aren't many new entrants into this realm and the players seem to be pretty stable. I moved from Internet Explorer to Firefox to Chrome way back in the day. I apparently don't have a good track record with my browsers. Give me one the has better functionality and I will at least look at it. I don't feel there have been many other options come into the market since the release of Chrome in 2008 (granted I am most likely wrong). Well, in comes Vivaldi (don't worry it doesn't play classical music the entire time it is open). Vivaldi was created by the same people that brought us Opera (see a theme here?). I never used Opera, I know that I wasn't as into tech when it came out, 21 years ago! I thought I would give Vivaldi a try, the slogan is "A browser for our friends"
A little on the build of Vivaldi. It is built off Chromium, an open source project, along with other open source software. Given that, it looks a lot like Chrome, but with a few extra options and customizations to help you get the browser you really want. You are able to use all the plugins that you love so much in Chrome I believe that since it is built on Chromium.
I am writing this in the Vivaldi browser now. I really like all the options that Vivaldi offers. The first is the grouping of tabs. Tabs are great, but don't you ever get so many tabs that you have no idea what each tab is and you have to go through each one in order to find what you are really looking for? Well, you can now group them together (I think Opera allowed this as well, but never used it). The attached image shows the two grouped sites I have, blogger and gmail.
Once you have your tabs grouped you can then tile each tab into the same window. It is helpful if you don't want to have two windows open with the different pages open. Okay, not that big of a deal, but who really wants to have two windows open?
You will notice I have a dark theme for the browser, just one of the many options. There are also great options if you don't like using a mouse. You can set a keyboard shortcut for almost anything! In order to best utilize real estate on my screen I have two shortcuts, Alt + t and Alt + a to remove the tabs (at the bottom of my screen and not the top) and the address bar. There are so many other options for key board shortcuts.
There are also mouse movements that will do actions as well. The one I like the most would be the "Rocker" movements. You quickly press the right mouse button and then the left in order to move back to the previous page. Or, do left then right to move forward in the pages. Pretty nice that the browser is build to accommodate those that like to only use the keyboard and those that like to use the mouse as often as possible.
So many other options that can be done. Like how pressing Ctrl + Tab works. You can have it rotate through the order that the windows were last glanced out or go straight down the line. But not everything is good about the browser.
Really the most glaring downfall is that the browser doesn't appear to be as quick as Chrome. Pages load quicker in Chrome, but not too noticeable. You may lose a few seconds of productivity, but nothing that will keep me from using the browser.
I will continue using Vivaldi.Maybe I will find out more that I like about it. The slogan says "A browser for our friends." I have read they mean this to be a browser for those that were power users and wanted something beyond Chrome. I would venture to say that it is a browser for everyone. Even if you aren't a power user, there is something here for you.
"If you don't like this, I'll stop writing music." - Vivaldi (or maybe I'll stop writing blogs)
