[SOLVED] Google Chrome vs Vivaldi

[The Duck]

Hello everyone,

I'm wanting to get opinions on Google Chrome vs Vivaldi.

I understand that Vivaldi is a Google Chrome clone.

Google Chrome has enough settings which has to be addressed.

Vivaldi on the other hand OMG does a user really need so many settings.

I mean they have a setting for just about everything seems to take over an hour to just graze them and see what they ask.

So if you are using either of these please give some feedback.

Thanks.

 

[MikeWalsh]

@The Duck :-

I understand that Vivaldi is a Google Chrome clone.

Technically, that's "a Chromium clone". Even Chrome is but a clone of the Chromium source code, though since Google themselves 'sponsor' the Chromium Project (it's basically their browser R & D department!), it's hardly surprising confusion abounds on this point...

I'm a long-term Chrome user.....all the way back to the pre-release 'beta' testing stage in the summer/autumn of '08, prior to the very first stable release on December 11th that year. I've never used it 'exclusively', yet I've always had a copy kicking around somewhere.

I also use the parent Chromium (in both 'standard' and 'UnGoogled' versions), along with Iron, Slimjet, Opera, etc. I occasionally play around with Vivaldi, though it's far from my favourite (that honour goes to Opera in its current format). I've also experimented with the Russian Yandex (makes the settings for Vivaldi look simple by comparison, believe me!)

Even tried Comodo's 'Dragon' browser, in years gone by...

Mostly this is due to all the 'portable' builds I've put together & maintain for Puppy Linux, so I've usually got builds of all the above on the system, pretty much permanently. I'll investigate other 'clones' if, as and when they appear. Some, I'll 'keep' - if they interest me - while others get dropped sharpish-like.

Maxthon is about the only well-known one I haven't tried. This is Windows-only.......need I say more?


Mike.

 

[The Duck]

Back in the good old days of Windows XP I used Google Chrome it worked great.
Back in the day other browsers couldn't keep up with the search results although that may not be true today.

I usually use Firefox although in one particular Linux distro I use it seems to have a few issues so I've stopped using it.

Chromium seems to be lacking in codecs for certain video formats although for the most it works okay.

So now this is where Vivaldi is perhaps a choice although as I've already mentioned a lot of settings I mean come on it's a browser.

What happened to the good old days of "Keep it simple, stupid!".

KISS principle - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I'm a firm believer in this philosophy as to much adjustment with settings just adds leverage to create problems imo.

 

[data_x33]

I'm a Vivaldi user. A while back, I was looking for an Android browser that blocks trackers, removes ads, and removes most cookie warnings. That's how I found Vivaldi and installed it on Linux too.

The settings in Vivaldi are pretty easy to understand. Here's what I chose for myself:

• closed port 5353
• switched to dark mode
• adjusted filters
• disabled WebRTC
• increased the media cache, and
• enabled memory saver.

That's it.

 

[The Duck]

I'm a Vivaldi user. A while back, I was looking for an Android browser that blocks trackers, removes ads, and removes most cookie warnings. That's how I found Vivaldi and installed it on Linux too.

The settings in Vivaldi are pretty easy to understand. Here's what I chose for myself:

• closed port 5353
• switched to dark mode
• adjusted filters
• disabled WebRTC
• increased the media cache, and
• enabled memory saver.

That's it.

That's so few settings from what I've found in Vivaldi settings manager perhaps I'm looking to deep in the settings manager.

I'll bet there's at least a hundred different features that can be changed in the Vivaldi settings manager.

 

[data_x33]

That's so few settings from what I've found in Vivaldi settings manager perhaps I'm looking to deep in the settings manager.

I'll bet there's at least a hundred different features that can be changed in the Vivaldi settings manager.

I didn't need to change much else in the settings. I also adjusted the font size a bit, enabled sync, and turned on the zero-copy rasterizer. That's it. Everything else is left on default.

 

[The Duck]

So you trust that Vivaldi has your back correct.

Hmm I not that trusting I have to check and recheck settings.

 

[ron.alan]

If I had to choose between the two, it would be Vivaldi, no contest. I used to use Vivaldi a while ago, before I switched to Chromium. (Pale Moon is my main go-to browser.)

 

[The Duck]

I use Chromium now although it doesn't play some video formats for movies I want to watch.

I know Chromium is missing codecs for certain video formats.
MPV Player plays them as long as I can drag and drop the URL link inside the circle.
I can't always do that because a URL link for the movie isn't always available.

I like Pale Moon and have used it in other Linux distros work well although doesn't support my browser extensions.

 

[kc1di]

I've Also used Vivaldi for awhile and can't say it's that hard to set up. It works for me. Quit using chrome about the same time.
But I love that in linux we have choices.

 

[MikeWalsh]

Chromium seems to be lacking in codecs for certain video formats although for the most it works okay.

Try this, mate; it should help with the codecs issue:-

Get Chromium on Ubuntu To Play mp4, H.264, MP3 & view PDF files natively - OMG! Ubuntu

Google ChromeOS will do many wonderful things - the free and open-source version 'Chromium OS' sadly won't. Many of these 'features' can, given the nature

www.omgubuntu.co.uk

It's for the OS, rather than the browser, but the principle remains the same; the OS is built entirely around the browser anyway. Or, there's this:-

How to Install Multimedia Codecs on Ubuntu Linux

Multimedia codecs help the media player to open the specific media files. In this post, we will see how to install Multimedia Codecs on Ubuntu Linux.

www.ubuntupit.com

Or, this is the 'Ungoogled' build I use, from a guy by the name of Marmaduke:-

Release Chromium v125.0.6422.70-r1287751 - Portable ungoogled Linux (x86_64 Intel) · macchrome/linchrome

Chromium 125.0.6422.70 (Official Build) (64-bit) Revision c3908c706d3fc96a985e5e21a024b3609563f83a-refs/branch-heads/6422@{#1068} Built on Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS (GNU/Linux 6.8.7 x86_64) Default Chrom...

github.com

It comes as a tarball; extract it, and the fully-functional package is inside.....which comes with all the media codecs already installed. You can run this from your /home/user directory. The only snag with Ungoogled Chromium is that you can't add extensions without going into "developer mode" - because of the missing APIs - (which is a bit of a PITA, if I'm honest!)

You COULD even try AlienBob's Slackware build (you want the .txz package) from here:-

Index of /people/alien/slackbuilds/chromium/pkg64/15.0

Alien BOB's Slackware Linux and Slackware based projects mirror site.

slackware.nl

Again, all necessary codecs have been compiled-in, since Eric Hameleers builds all his stuff from source.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

Me, I obtain the libffmpeg package for Chromium (actually, it's for Opera, but it works fine for any of the clones) from this guy at Github:-

https://github.com/Ld-Hagen/fix-opera-linux-ffmpeg-widevine/releases

.....then build it into the Puppy-portable browsers (where necessary).

There are ways around the issue, though they don't always revolve around the standard package management methods, I'm afraid....


Mike.

 

[data_x33]

So you trust that Vivaldi has your back correct.

Hmm I not that trusting I have to check and recheck settings.

Keep in mind that Vivaldi is an open-source project that advocates for internet freedom.

 

[osprey]

Keep in mind that Vivaldi is an open-source project that advocates for internet freedom.

Vivaldi is not fully open source unfortunately for the free and open source community:

Why isn’t Vivaldi browser open-source? | Vivaldi Browser

People involved in the open-source community often ask us why Vivaldi browser isn’t fully open-source. In this post, we’ll explore and explain our position.

vivaldi.com

 

[data_x33]

Vivaldi is not fully open source unfortunately for the free and open source community:

Thanks for the info. From what I understand, 95% of Vivaldi's code is open source, and the 5% that's not open source relates to the UI?
They say it's to protect against theft, which makes sense. But let's be real, a xz-backdoor can be hidden anywhere.

 

[f33dm3bits]

Vivaldi is not fully open source unfortunately for the free and open source community:

If I were to use a Chromium-based browser it would be Brave.

 

[The Duck]

I'm going to give Vivaldi a try and painfully go through the long list of the settings and set them the way I want.

If I decide I don't care for Vivaldi I can always remove it and use something else.

I a Firefox tarball and it works and does what I want so I may just stick with that for now.

I appreciate all of the feedback.

I'm going to mark this Solved.


Thanks everyone.

 

[f33dm3bits]

I a Firefox tarball and it works and does what I want so I may just stick with that for now.

Why do you need a tarball for Firefox, it's in the default repos for every Linux distribution?

 

[kc1di]

Why do you need a tarball for Firefox, it's in the default repos for every Linux distribution?

I can understand if the op is on a distro that hasn't upgraded FF for awhile. In order to get the latest version you may have to use the tarball or appimage or flatpack ,ETC.

 

[The Duck]

Why do you need a tarball for Firefox, it's in the default repos for every Linux distribution?

I don't I was just checking to see if it worked for some of the videos I was having problems with.

I hate installing stuff only to find it doesn't work for what I want and then having to remove it as traces are always left behind.

Tars are easy to install remove and nothing left behind as they don't really install into the system.

I can understand if the op is on a distro that hasn't upgraded FF for awhile. In order to get the latest version you may have to use the tarball or appimage or flatpack ,ETC.

Exactly as I don't use mainstream Linux all of the time,

I like to use some of the small footprint Linux distros on old computers I have around just for the fun of doing it.

I've always liked resurrecting old electronics to see if I could get it running and in a usable state.

 

[The Duck]

I may not be using the proper terminology here.

Is this Firefox-126.tarbz2 the same as a tarball.