“For me it was always a question of ‘Okay, we should open up to everyone’s needs,’ and also I just feel independently, whether you need it or want it, it doesn’t really matter,” he said. Then, as now, he feels that choices like these should not be dictated by the browser. When I asked von Tetzchner about the philosophy that led to the versatility in Vivaldi, he pointed to his father, a professor in psychology who focuses on children with disabilities, which encouraged a direction that he emphasizes goes back to the days of Opera, a browser he helped develop while working at a Norwegian telecommunications company in the mid-90s. It evokes an era of tools where there was three ways to basically do everything. And in many ways, that makes it kind of a rare beast in the modern world of technology. Vivaldi is not just a power-user web browser-it is built from the ground up as a tool that adapts to the user. Perhaps you need a super-obscure key command because you want to pin tabs on the fly? Yep, it’s possible. Want a preview of the window in the tab? Vivaldi can do that too. Want a preview of the window before you click that tab? Done. If you want to put your tabs on the side, go for it. “If you want to try to measure that kind of speed or showing pages and like that, yes, there will be differences,” von Tetzchner told me, “but I think think that usability is a bigger deal.”Īnd this focus on usability is an idea seen throughout Vivaldi, a browser that basically lets you reinvent the interface to your heart’s content. Which means that browsers have to innovate in other ways. Many modern web browsers, Opera and Vivaldi included, rely on a Chromium base-meaning that browsers have become something of a monoculture, where engines largely follow standards and generally work the same. Now, we’re down to just three primary ones: Webkit, upon which Apple’s Safari is based Gecko, which primarily drives Firefox and Blink, the engine at the center of the Google Chrome browser that is also a descendant of Webkit. In the browser field, this meant ongoing innovation as browser developers would implement new features for their respective user bases, but for web developers, this meant inconsistencies, as web standards were not as closely followed as they are today. Over the past few decades, we’ve seen a lot of browser engines, from the Trident engine that drove Internet Explorer for many years to the Presto engine that for many years differentiated Opera from the pack. The web browser, over time, has gone through dozens of iterations, as different engines pushed and pulled the web into different directions. (Vivaldi Technolgies) Why user interface has become the differentiating factor for the modern web browser We look forward to the EU following up on this malpractice.Vivaldi’s Speed Tabs interface. They continue to try to make it harder to switch to and use other browsers. Microsoft should make it as easy for all users to use other browsers, as it is to use Edge, and stop abusing their power to push Edge onto users. This should apply to all users, not just the ones who are technically competent enough to realize that they need to install an optional update, and know how to actually do so. While they have made an attempt, the fact that it has been done the way it has leads to the assumption that it is only being done to avoid being prosecuted for anticompetitive behavior, not to actually solve the underlying problem. The co-founder and CEO of Vivaldi, Jon von Tetzchner, offered the following statement to The Register regarding the development. Things have changed since then as recently, with the optional cumulative update under KB5011563, the firm added a one-click option to set your default browser.ĭespite this though, Vivaldi is still not fully pleased with Microsoft's effort. Back in December of last year, Vivaldi had slammed Microsoft for the way the Windows 11 maker for seemingly trying to make the selection of default browsers more difficult and bothersome.
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