Unfortunately Vivaldi remains a closed-source chromium browser, so no, thanks.
Edit: Never mind, just realized what community this got posted to.
As always the recurrent theme, yes, Vivaldi isn’t fully OpenSource, because 5% of the script, related to its unique UI is proprietary but full auditable and even moddeable by the user, the rest is a full de-googled Chromium, no data goes to Google. Vivaldi has less relations with Google than Firefox, especially if you sync with Mozilla, which now with inbuild AI also isn’t full OpenSource. No logs, no tracking, ee2e no-knowledge sync, more additional services than any other browser (e-mail, own user blog, Vivaldi Social on Mastodon, mail client, feed reader, calendar…). Vivaldi is an european employee owned cooperative from Norway, founded by Jon von Tetzchner, without any third party investors to remain independent.
Vivaldi source code for the peace of mind of our FOSS fans https://vivaldi.com/source/
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No, only soft with great ethics respect users give peace of mind, independend of FOSS or not. FOSS as such isn’t a guarantee of this, it depends only on the devs/company themselfs. Most APIs and a lot of soft from Google, M$, Fakebook, Amazon and even the worst malware are FOSS. It’s a big mistake to think that FOSS/FLOSS is sinonym of privacy and security. it isn’t the sense and proposit of the existence of OpenSource. The sense is to make easier to develope a new product as anybody can contribuite to it, but this in a market of almost 100 browsers and other 70 browsers more, already discontinued, don’t make sense anymore. More if they all based on only three OpenSource browser engines + 2 forks of it (Gecko, Blink, Webkit, Goanna and QT as their forks), exepting some exotic render engines from text only browsers. That means all existing browsers, FOSS or not, only depends on 3 US companies and Gecko from Mozilla depends also on Google, without it’s support Mozilla wouldn’t even survive. This is the current panorama in the browser market and their independence, despite that all, without exception, use an FLOSS engine, even Chrome and EDGE itself. Blink and WebKit apart are forks from the German KHTML engine from KDE, used by the discontinued Konqueror browser from this company.
My peace of mind isn’t related to this 5% proprietary open UI script of Vivaldi, certainly not.
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Chromium, Gecko, WebKit are free and OpenSource software, but it’s irrelevant for your privacy and security if those which use these are not. That is the point. Even Freeware proprietary can be more safe and private, for Example the SSuite is freeware proprietary and has the best and shortest PP/TOS I know, it’s because it is an Hobby Project of two electricians, which make money with their instalation workshop, no economic or other interests of their SSuite (donations if you want). As said, the license of an soft or service respect of security and privacy is irrelevant, only the interests and ethics of the author is what counts, nothing else.
Vivaldi is an european employee owned cooperative from Norway
This is blatantly and easily verifiably false - Jon von Tetzchner owns 81% of the company via Vivaldi Invest AS
I just hope you’re genuinely uninformed and aren’t intentionally misleading people but this makes me mistrust everything you’ve written.
Yes, and look who are the owners of the shares of Vivaldi Invest, formed by Jon von Tetzchner with his own money, al the revenue is shared between the employees, as shareholders, corresponding to their tasks and participation, see the complete list of the employees in this page, all with their participation in the Vivaldi Investment font, this 81% is Jon von Tetzchners own money used to found the company, and used to finance the Vivaldi project. He is the founder, but Vivaldi is a cooperative and owned by it’s employees with their shares and revenues of it. nothing wrong with it.
Aren’t this 2 pretty much different things?
GMail is a web front-end/web mail and also provider (including storage)
Vivaldi is just another mail client and doesn’t host anything.
How is this a comparison?
Comparing it with Thunderbird, Outlook & Co would make much more senseTech writers are often techies; as in consumer of tech products not cute technicians.
So, I guess the real question is, will you be switching to this underrated browser ?
No. It’s Chrome based.
As for its email client, it may be very slick but it’s not an email service so it is not a replacement for Gmail. People first need to find a privacy respecting email service.
Once that is done then you choose an email client if you want to manage them outside a Web interface. Vivaldi email is therefore competing with Thunderbird and Outlook, amongst others. A comparison with Thunderbird would be more useful to make a decision.
Personally I want my browser to be completely unconnected and unrelated to Google, Chrome, Chromium, and Blink. So no Vivaldi here either.
No, Vivaldi is Blink based and has nothing more to do with Chrome, it has maybe to do with an improved de-googled Chromium fork, if you want a definition.
At that point why not just use a fully FOSS project like ungoogled-chromium and avoid doing free advertising for a company that makes money off Amazon kickbacks?
Well, it only receive revenue if you use this links, with it the page see the data from Vivaldi, not the user, which stay anonymous, exept if he interact with the visited page (eg.buying someting in Amazon). You are free to delete all these links if you don`t use these. That is the business model needed to pay the bills and way more ethical as making money selling user data to third parties (surveillance advertising) as other do, Vivaldi don’t track or log your activity, nor send your data to any third party company.
It’s the only way to create the needed incomming (employees, infrastructure, servers, etc) without to compromise the user data and privacy. Vivaldi don’t has extern investors, like others and even Mozilla, supported by Google and another advertising company, or Brave by Facebook and crypto-companies, because won’t lose their independency. Meanwhile there isn’t any NGO or others which work for love of humanity which release a browser for free with all the features Vivaldi has, there isn’t any other system without converting the user itself in a product like other do. Well un-googled Chromiun is FOSS and can be maintaned by the community, they only have to strip out the Google APIs, not more, they dont have to pay servers for Sync, a free user mail and blog, they do not need to pay the server for the own Mastodon instance which Vivaldi has, developing and maintan all the features it has for 6 different OS, etc…, that can`t be done for free.
Not the same an simple fork of an engine with small minor changes and putting an own logo, it can`t be compared.
I know vivaldi at least used to have their own email service as well. I had an account on there when I used to use vivaldi years ago
Vivaldi apart of the inbuild mail client also offers an an free e-mail direction to the user (after reaching a certain reputation, to avoid spam) as also an free blog for your own use with your account, the account is also valid to participate in the Vivaldi Mastodon instance, apart of the forum, also to sync your data with an extra encryption password, stored locally !!!if yo lose or forget it, you lose your synced data!!! no encryption password recovering possible. The price of privacy
@Zerush @BananaTrifleViolin Is the free #Vivaldi blog still using #WordPress for the software?
Yes, the user blog is from Wordpress, for forum and other they use ActivityPub.
@Zerush WP gives me headaches … :)
