What’s Viva about Vivaldi?

Pratima H

OSLO, NORWAY:

If you have read one of those who-dunnit-thrillers you would know instantly that the word ‘invisible’ means more than what it actually connotes.

“No Sir, I did not see anyone leaving or entering the building.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Unless?”

“What?”

“It was someone who would blend in with the background without popping out. Like a laundry guy, a postman…”

“A postman, yes of course, there was a postman as always. He brought in the mail around noon and left with the bag.”

“See what I am saying?”

And then, someone chuckles and snubs a cigar butt or whatever. The whole enchilada is pretty familiar in Technology plots too. Who cares about the invisibles, the silhouettes dotting the background, the cogs, the salt bottles, backyard iron, the browsers, the postmen?

They are supposed to do what they do and stay back-stage while all frills, flounces, gloss and whistles are hogged by the more saasy stars. Cameos seldom slip into headlines; just give them a spot when the credits roll and the world is as it should be - normal.

But what happens when supposedly inconspicuous browsers start stirring up this 'normal' and too many headlines, of all the things? When an Opera takes on ad-blocking in a never-before manner; when Firefox starts looking at niches like developers or when browsers become worthy of mention and consideration for seemingly orthogonal facets like power consumption, loading times, user intrusion, data snooping, ad management, etc.?

Or when someone sprinkles tiles, tabs, colorful features, new strokes and power-users in the drab space of browsers?

The last few days have seen a lot of attention going in a direction that usually does not move many needles. But when the new desktop browser Vivaldi got launched, and with it the word ‘power users’ became a meme of sorts, the background did change a bit and got something unprecedented - a spotlight!

The ex-CEO of Opera found himself fielding all kinds of questions, ifs, buts, why-s and how-s; and the idea that people can customize their browsers to a high extent and enjoy features, took a strong foothold, at least in the discussion alley.

It has a lot to be discussed after all – the so-said customization distinction; the opposite route of betting on features and personalization when others in the market are trying to go simple; the bolts that came with Google’s open-source version of Chrome, or the Chromium; new options of colors and shading at tab bars and toolbars; features like ‘Page Actions’ or viewing images at angles; and the possibility of "more than 1 million different ways to make Vivaldi your perfect browser", as Vivaldi claims it best.

It was in public development for about a year and has been now rolled as the first major release as a pioneering desktop browser: Vivaldi 1.0.  It touts features like Tab Stacks, Tab Stack Tiling, Sessions for better browser management, Notes and screen-shots’ capability for researchers, quick command interface, speed dials etc.

Like Vivaldi’s announcement elaborated: “...It’s the fastest way to reduce clutter and keep organized. And when you’re ready to switch between tabs, Vivaldi has a number of customizations for that too…. We like to say it’s the next best thing to a “Boss button” for the web.”

Its founder has underlined this poignantly at several moments: “Vivaldi adapts to you, not the other way around. We made Vivaldi the most customizable browser, all based on feedback from millions of users. In fact, there are more than 1 million different ways to make Vivaldi your perfect browser.”

So what is making discreet background crayons and postmen stand out? Specially when they are supposed to be fast, respectful of privacy, green-liveried, safe and yet exciting enough?

In an interaction here, Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Vivaldi helps us understand this attempt at shaking-up the otherwise dull-browser plateau along with all those new dilemmas, opportunities and ironies that browsers face – or the many answers to that one question - 'Can browsers have the 'thrill' factor again?'

Tell us something about what makes Vivaldi distinct in the space now (and a year from now may be)? Specially, in terms of gleanings from beta phase, comparisons with others and their claims (my browser the greenest -Microsoft, I have a browser for developers - Firefox, My browser comes with built-in ad blockers - Opera etc). 

All the mainstream browsers are competing to be as simple as possible, gradually removing functionality or even dumping it. Vivaldi is different. We believe we are all different and we have different needs.

Typically a user downloading Vivaldi will notice the fresh look and the colorful interface. After spending some time with Vivaldi, however, users are finding that Vivaldi has a lot of functionality and a lot of options leading to the user feeling that Vivaldi is made for him or her. It is all individual design. We believe you deserve a browser made for you and that is what we have made.

Elaborate?

Yes, let’s get more specific, though, and let’s look at some of the features that make Vivaldi special. Out of the box you will notice that Vivaldi is more colorful. We have chosen a color scheme where the color changes depending on the site you visit. A lot of our users love this. Others prefer less color changes, so there is a setting for that.

Vivaldi: A peek

Vivaldi has the most advanced tab handling of any browsers. There is a lot of detail to that: Like: Out of the box Vivaldi starts where you left off; You can undelete closed tabs (trash can on the right of the tab bar); You can stack tabs. Drag a tab onto another to see that. This enables more tabs with less clutter; you can tile tab stacks. By tiling a tab stacks, the tabs in the stack are rendered side by side; and multiple tab stack tiles is like having multiple desktops.

Also, you can have your tabs on the left, right, top or bottom or you can hide them. Users have very different views on how this should be done and we adapt. Vivaldi has panels too. For instance: Bookmarks, notes and downloads; or Web panels where you can add your favorite services in an easy to spot location. It also has an extensive bookmarks support. You can access your bookmarks through speed dials and speed dial groups, as well as bookmarks panel, bookmarks manager and bookmarks bar. Users have different requirements here and we aim to please. By offering a more visual representation of bookmarks, we make them more accessible and fun. Then, the page actions are great little tools to control the display of pages. Great for designers and just for a laugh.

Why the emphasis on customisation, power user and more features for cracking this market?

Vivaldi has a massive level of customization and it is not hidden. Plus, Vivaldi has a great community of users that give us feedback and help you as well. There is a lot more to it. People playing around with Vivaldi learn new things all the time. Vivaldi is a browser that grows with you.

Is it easy for browsers in this age to be lightweight, with fast loading times, UI-friendly, packed with features; and still be energy-friendly, ad-blocking-enabled, bug-free, safe, privacy-respectful (what about cookies and marketers' snooping), clutter-free, simple and easy to handle?

Making a browser is no easy. If it was, there would be a lot of them. Most people can at most list five browsers. We believe we have managed to make a browser in Vivaldi that has a lot of the things people really want.

What lessons, if any, from Opera experience may be seen being applied with Vivaldi?

Clearly building browsers for 17 years means that you learn something (smiles). We saw that people liked what we did at Opera. The idea of having a feature rich browser that had a lot of flexibility resonated with a lot of people. When Opera stopped doing that, threw away 19 years of hard work and made a stripped browser instead, we knew there was a need for something else and that is what we are delivering, a personal browser, a browser you can make

yours.

Do Web browsers struggle for relevance in a mobile-leaning, app-skewed, increasingly cross-platform, HTML5 world?

No.

What role are browsers donning in the wake of new security and privacy challenges? Specially with the rise of branded-vulnerabilities like Stagefright, Demon, Heartbleed, Badlock etc? Your views?

We must make sure that we keep our users safe, as well as we can. This means fixing vulnerabilities, but also warning users about dangerous sites. It is an ongoing battle to keep our users safe.

How have the users responded so far - specially to the concept of stacks and panels?

We have had a fantastic response! Clearly people love our tab stacks and tab stack tiling and the power and simplicity of our panels and web panels in particular. Being able to add much used services as a web panel is proving to be very useful. The notes panel function is getting a lot of attention as well. By selecting a text on a page and adding it as a note, you save both the text and a link to the page. You can even add a screen shot!

What’s it like under the hood? Any word on significance of openware in these times? How was the Chromium association and leverage of JavaScript or CSS as per your strategy for Vivaldi?

Vivaldi is a web browser built for – and with – the web. The UI uses React and JavaScript, as well as Node.js. The core of the browser uses Chromium, ensuring pages render quickly and accurately. The availability of the Chromium source code, which in turn is built on a number of other open source projects, has made it feasible for us to make Vivaldi with less resources and time. It is not feasible to build a browser from scratch at this time. Having said that, it requires a lot of work to work with this code as well as it is ever changing and quite complex. But we have the competence in our team to do so.

We chose to build the user interface in Vivaldi using web technology. This means that the browser is built on top of the browser. The benefit of working this way in very significant as we are able to work faster and see the results quickly. We are also able to get a more fluid user interface, something our users are clearly enjoying.

Where does this head to next? Your ambitions?

We are building a browser that is more personal and a browser that is clearly grabbing a lot of headlines. Our goal is to continue doing just that. We innovate and we listen to our users and by doing that we build a product that a lot of people appreciate.