The First Web Browser With Real Potential To Be Better Than Chrome?

Megalith

Megalith

24-bit/48kHz
Staff member
Joined
Aug 20, 2006
Messages
13,003
I gave this a quick spin the other day and liked the aesthetics and myriad options but felt that loading speeds seemed slower than competing browsers.

Vivaldi was created by a team led by Opera Software cofounder Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner and the level of polish shown in their just-released first version is quite impressive. Among other things, I’ve never had the level of customization on a browser than what I’ve seen on Vivaldi so far. Do you like having your tabs at the bottom or sides of the page instead of the top? Vivaldi can do that. Would you like the ability to open and close new tabs using only gestures? It’s got you covered there as well. Or maybe you’d like to have the ability to close tabs just by double clicking — you guessed it, Vivaldi can do that as well.
 
Ironically...Vivaldi is based on an engine that is basically Chromium with some bells and whistles.
 
Never really cared for Chrome myself. So, I guess better is subjective.
 
Any browser that doesn't corrupt video when hardware acceleration is enabled is better... and as far as I know, there aren't any.

Still, Chrome works better on some pages, FF better on some, and IE on some.

It is still all a huge massive cluster thanks to browsers and web developers not following coding standards for web content.

Ever try to get a page to display on a number of different browsers? Not happening. Even with custom coding for the different browsers you will always be a couple pixels off when compared between browsers.

And some stuff just will not work in some browsers.
 
Osirus said:
There is already no shortage of browsers out there that fit this criteria.
Click to expand...

It really is subjective. I love chrome, myself: But I'm also not at all afraid of Big Brother: Chrome saves my most visited sites and autocompletes my forms and queries across multiple machines etc. I love that: but I could understand if some people are scurrd by this idea.
 
What exactly makes 1 browser better then any other? Each have their own characteristics, but to say it's better then one or the other? I use IE, Chrome, Firefox and Safari. Of those Safari has the most compatibility issues, but I can still surf the web in all 4 with little fuss.

Usually people refer to benchmarks as some litmus test, but what are we talking about here? Milliseconds?

I prefer IE for normal browsing. I like the plugins in Firefox. Chrome is the only browser that works 100% with Mega's downloading technique. And if I'm on OSX I use Safari without concern.
 
KazeoHin said:
It really is subjective. I love chrome, myself: But I'm also not at all afraid of Big Brother: Chrome saves my most visited sites and autocompletes my forms and queries across multiple machines etc. I love that: but I could understand if some people are scurrd by this idea.
Click to expand...
This... I don't use chrome because is the fastest or the most bug free.. I use it because it's the most convenient..
 
I only use Chrome for chrome casting my music server. Otherwise, I mostly use firefox. Occasionally I use Edge and if that fails, then I'll go to IE. I don't even have Chrome on my desktop or laptop.
 
Tried Vivaldi, didn't find it very appealing personally, and now I have high hopes for Brave created by the co-founder of Mozilla, Brendan Eich. It's in development of course but if they can make it work well enough, and at this point it has no extension support which will be a crucial aspect (especially for me and many others) but so far it's promising. It's damned fast too, based on Webkit iirc, and has built in ad-blocking (much to the chagrin of many), built-in HTTPSEverywhere, and some other things that will appear as development continues.

Will keep an eye on Vivaldi but because of the Opera heritage I may not end up using it at all. Nothing wrong with Opera, I remember using that when it first appeared long ago and was blown away by how fast it was compared to the competition but after Firefox appeared and addons/extensions came into play, that was it for Opera (and yes I know it has extension support nowadays and has for a while but nothing compares to what Firefox has built up).

Always something new to check out. ;)
 
Ugly interface colors with even worse alternative choice and no tab focusing means uninstall. Not even a frigging option to focus on newly opened tabs. A waste of my time. Firefox remains the browser of choice for me.
 
Megalith said:
I’ve never had the level of customization on a browser than what I’ve seen on Vivaldi so far. Do you like having your tabs at the bottom or sides of the page instead of the top? Vivaldi can do that. Would you like the ability to open and close new tabs using only gestures? It’s got you covered there as well. Or maybe you’d like to have the ability to close tabs just by double clicking — you guessed it, Vivaldi can do that as well.
Click to expand...
That level of out of the box customization sounds like the old opera 12.5
jojo69 said:
premise flawed, firefox has been better than chrome for years
Click to expand...
At being a huge security hole
Skripka said:
Ironically...Vivaldi is based on an engine that is basically Chromium with some bells and whistles.
Click to expand...
Sounds about right irrc Pretso was dropped because of cost of making, maintaining, updating their own engine.
 
KazeoHin said:
It really is subjective. I love chrome, myself: But I'm also not at all afraid of Big Brother: Chrome saves my most visited sites and autocompletes my forms and queries across multiple machines etc. I love that: but I could understand if some people are scurrd by this idea.
Click to expand...
I'm so annoyed by that. I inherently use my different devices at different places and for different purposes. So it's ridicilous when the porn sites I visited at home show up on my phone. Or the youtube videos I watched at home show up at work when viewing promo materials. There is no reason for a cross-device internet history. Or anything cross device for that matter. Imagine how outraged I was when the photos I took with my phone at private parties showed up on the cloud. I know technically noone else should be able to view them. But it's enough that I leave my work computer on, for someone to access my entire google account, then including the photos on my phone. That's more than enough to give me pause. And don't be preaching about security. There would be no need for any security if google wasn't insisting on collecting all your personal data. Back in the day if you lost your phone, nothing happened. Now they can access your entire life and every detail of your life is in danger of being exposed or exploited.

There is a point where privacy should trump convenience, and we left that point behind long ago as far as I'm concerned. Everything that exposes and interconnects devices and puts you out there, should be strictly opt in.
 
I gave the Vivaldi release a test just now, ran some benchmarks like JetStream and Octane and it did perform slightly better than my daily runner (Firefox ESR 45.0.1), quite a bit better than Safari (latest update, not the developer preview), but then as I was about to test out Brave 0.9.0 they dropped a notice that an update was available so, I ran the same benchmarks with 0.9.0 first then installed the 0.9.1 update and was surprised at a rather substantial jump in scores compared to Vivaldi.

I know browsers aren't all about Javascript performance so take this info with a grain of salt (and I'm using OSX El Capitan 10.11.4 as well), but in the long run no matter how fast any competition gets, Firefox remains the choice for me because I have it so customized from use over the years. I have like 23 addons/extensions that I use almost every time I use it daily and even with those installed it's still fast as hell overall - the addon and extension potential is what makes Firefox so unique and while I can't customize it as easily as I could years ago (without having to resort to using something like Classic Theme Restorer) it's still the best browser for me personally because of just how customized I've been able to make it.

But Vivaldi's release version ain't bad, it will improve as time passes I'm sure and I'll keep an eye on it but it's certainly not going to make me just walk away from Firefox after nearly a decade of using it. As for Chrome, never liked it, still don't, and it's not because of the rather small pool of addons and extensions or the so called "botnet" aspects whether they exist or not, it's that some aspects of it just can't seem to be disabled or adjusted at all - the damned download notification bar is still there and stays there till I have to manually remove it. Nearly 50 versions of that damned browser and that still hasn't been added as an option, I mean really, what the fuck man. :confused:
 
Customization is not new. I have used K-Meleon for years. I am not a developer, just a user. I have more than 100 macros for K-Meleon. Any other browser letting users customize? Not so many.
 
The article talks about how much resources Chrome "gobbles up" in the first paragraph, leading the reader to believe Vivaldi actually manages to be resource light. Does not talk about memory usage of Vivaldi in the article. Nothing talked about in the article is something I want in a browser.

This is what I want from a browser:
1. Use minimal RAM
2. Good support for video playback, no need for 3rd party plugins
3. Add-on support for blocking advertisements, or ideally built-in adblocking
 
My main issue with Chrome is that the keep changing major UI elements in the hope that you'll just use Google search instead of bookmarks/history/etc.
They also really, really want you to do everything with a universal Google account, too.
I get why, but it's getting a little old.
 
Quix said:
Firefox is demonstrably slower than Chrome at everything and uses more RAM. That's why I switched.
Click to expand...

In ms? Sure. RAM usage has been an afterthought for me and I would bet many here for a long, long time. Sure back in the day when browsers were using up half your RAM you took notice, but like my desktop and laptop running 32GB of RAM, it's not really something I even think about, after all, I bought the RAM to use it.

The biggest issues are how convenient is it? From the start that has been FF (for me), because of add ons and the like, IE has not even been in the running for this, Chrome was coming along and I used it for a while, but never really found anything better and add on support always seemed to be better on FF. And then we have other browsers that just try and do everything and end up being useless, they try to do so much they forget what they are trying to do. Which is sort of what this feels like to me.
 
Quix said:
Firefox is demonstrably slower than Chrome at everything and uses more RAM. That's why I switched.
Click to expand...

Maybe you haven't tried Firefox in a span of time, I don't know, but it's far from slower than Chrome anymore. Now, given that some people "see" that Chrome is fast, and it is in terms of the visual aspects, when it gets right down to the guts Firefox can and does hold its own and even bests Chrome in many respects. But it's that whole world of addons and extensions that make it so useful to so many folks.

I was going to point you to a recent benchmark comparison against the major browsers but the idiot that made it says "Chrome is the best overall because it has "the largest and most useful selection of apps and extensions" which is utter fucking hogwash if I ever saw it in print - Firefox has like 50x the number of addons/extensions and a vast swath of support. This guy is looking at a handful of 'em like ABP and some others and declaring Chrome "the best overall" even though it didn't beat Firefox in most of the benchmarks he even did, go figure.

Anyway, browsers are personal choices more so than anything else - not everyone needs or wants the framework that Firefox actually is that can be customized into whatever you happen to want from a browser. I happen to be one of those folk that does customize the hell out of it, with addons and extensions that can and do some pretty amazing things that no other browser happens to be capable of for that very reason: the ability to customize it so much and I don't just mean dragging buttons from here to there either.

As far as RAM usage, it's better in that respect on my machine too - even with all the addons/extensions I have, starting it up and loading 10 bookmarks uses like 300MB less RAM than Chrome does to do the same thing. That multi-process BS with Chrome and every tab having it's own process is where RAM goes, I know Firefox is working on that E10/multi-process crap but when I test it the no-E10 mode is way way faster and more stable but that's just me and my testing on my hardware. YMMV as is always the case with such things.

But Firefox ain't slow anymore, hasn't been for quite some time. ;)
 
Just weighing in with my shitty opinion. I just switched back to Chrome from Firefox. Firefox has some sort of bug that drives me nuts... When im playing a game on one monitor i will sometimes watch youtube on my second monitor depending on the game and for a while now FF has issues with that making it pretty unwatchable while no other browser has this issue. Otherwise i would still be using firefox.

If you are still going on about ram usage in 2016 go take your geritol and take a fucking nap. This old obsession with ram usage is stupid. Ram is plentiful, USE IT!
 
M76 said:
I'm so annoyed by that. I inherently use my different devices at different places and for different purposes. So it's ridicilous when the porn sites I visited at home show up on my phone. Or the youtube videos I watched at home show up at work when viewing promo materials. There is no reason for a cross-device internet history. Or anything cross device for that matter. Imagine how outraged I was when the photos I took with my phone at private parties showed up on the cloud.
Click to expand...

If you don't login to Chrome with a Google ID none of these issues will occur.

Alternatively, just create a second Google ID for your work PC/Phone.
 
I've used them all and I just don't see why a knowledgeable user wouldn't use Firefox. There are lots of outstanding plugins that you just can't get in other browsers.
 
DeathFromBelow said:
I've used them all and I just don't see why a knowledgeable user wouldn't use Firefox. There are lots of outstanding plugins that you just can't get in other browsers.
Click to expand...

For me:
Firefox has sync issues that Chrome doesn't.
Firefox has Flash issues that Chrome has less of.
Firefox has more performance issues than Chrome and IE in my experience.
Firefox flat out does not work properly with some sites that Chrome and IE don't have issues with.

I would consider those all valid reasons for a knowledgeable user to not use Firefox. This coming from a 10 year Firefox user switching to Chrome about 6 months ago.
 
Anyone here use waterfox, I used to use palemoon but I don't know what happened to it
 
jojo69 said:
premise flawed, firefox has been better than chrome for years
Click to expand...
So that means you can watch netflix in linux using Firefox with out having to jump through hoops, guess not, but you can with chrome.
 
Ieldra said:
Anyone here use waterfox, I used to use palemoon but I don't know what happened to it
Click to expand...

I'm using Palemoon to read your comment about Palemoon. It's my job to be the only one on the internet to use Palemoon and monitor for the Palemoon keyword and take appropriate action. Because I enjoy exclusivity, please don't go here: The Pale Moon Project homepage and download Palemoon like the thousands of others I've warned. ;-)

Also use Firefox, Waterfox, Chrome, Opera, Vivaldi, IE (under threat of bank software dev), Safari (under threat of being hipster) and Comodo Dragon (because it has the word Dragon in it).
 
Megalith said:
I gave this a quick spin the other day and liked the aesthetics and myriad options but felt that loading speeds seemed slower than competing browsers.

Vivaldi was created by a team led by Opera Software cofounder Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner and the level of polish shown in their just-released first version is quite impressive. Among other things, I’ve never had the level of customization on a browser than what I’ve seen on Vivaldi so far. Do you like having your tabs at the bottom or sides of the page instead of the top? Vivaldi can do that. Would you like the ability to open and close new tabs using only gestures? It’s got you covered there as well. Or maybe you’d like to have the ability to close tabs just by double clicking — you guessed it, Vivaldi can do that as well.
Click to expand...


Sooooo...... It's opera then?


Pretty sure opera had all those features in 05.
 
clockdogg said:
I'm using Palemoon to read your comment about Palemoon. It's my job to be the only one on the internet to use Palemoon and monitor for the Palemoon keyword and take appropriate action. Because I enjoy exclusivity, please don't go here: The Pale Moon Project homepage and download Palemoon like the thousands of others I've warned. ;-)

Also use Firefox, Waterfox, Chrome, Opera, Vivaldi, IE (under threat of bank software dev), Safari (under threat of being hipster) and Comodo Dragon (because it has the word Dragon in it).
Click to expand...
I don't remember what problem I had with palemoon that forced me to migrate back to waterfox, I've been alternating between the two for years.

There was also another gecko based distro with ISA specific compilers that promised to be on the bleeding edge of performance, forgot what it's name was
 
Ieldra said:
I don't remember what problem I had with palemoon that forced me to migrate back to waterfox, I've been alternating between the two for years.

There was also another gecko based distro with ISA specific compilers that promised to be on the bleeding edge of performance, forgot what it's name was
Click to expand...
Swiftfox? K-Meleon?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top