Used to do tech support for Vivaldi on Reddit before I left. It is a highly configurable chromium based browser that does everything it can to secure and take most of Google out of the browser. It has its own profile system and sync servers before it was enforced, blocks Ads and Tracking outside of the Manifest system, and is highly configurable with its own per profile settings, and has a user editable theming system. It’s adblock system isn’t uBlock level yet but it can use many of the same blocklists and blocks ads on the intake so similar to how uBlock does it now. It has a Mail, RSS, Mastodon Client, and Calendar. It has also done a codebase rewrite of the Chromium engine to optimize its performance. They literally also follow their previous commitments they made during the days of Opera where they have patents, but only to protect themselves and not to restrain others from using them. Back when they were making Opera they and the Mozilla Foundation used to send each other cake at major releases because they were both strong web standards organizations and shared patents at no charge.
And the thing is it is an Iterative release. They have about 50 people, and only 30 are devs. They have browsers on Linux, MacOS, iOS, Android, and Windows. They release more basic versions of the product and grow them then building an in depth product.
So why not go Open Source. Their size. Any company could take their large amounts of work, build on it and release it before they have time to react and it would mean an almost instant loss of control. They are pro-federation, anti crypto, E2EE Sync, and despite what the Brave Employee says on PrivacyTests.org, highly (but not purely) privacy focused browser.
Understanding that the browser is based on an Open Source Browser, and uses Web Standards, and you distribute freely, then why not just be Open Source? Many Open Source Advocates have accepted it as Open Source Adjacent and have even become a release on some less strict Open Source people. So why not? Their CEO answered this that it is basically a function of their size and the large amounts of custom code that they have had to make to the browser. If they went Open Source, which they discussed and tried to find a way they could, but any of the MUCH larger teams could just take their product whole cloth, put a minimal amount of work in and have a better browser and they would be shortly out of business.
For those who are all business is bad, remember that here is a group of people who through several companies and one under attack from Microsoft, managed to survive the original browser wars while supporting Open Source Browsers and Projects. The one bad thing you can say is that they originally planned to go up against Google and Chrome’s Manifest v3, but they couldn’t and couldn’t find co-operation from other Chromium Based browsers once they saw the exact form Manifest v3 was going to take. Outside of that they are working to get their ad block tech up to a near uBlock version, but they won’t just do to uBlock what they fear could be done to themselves if they were Open Source.
TL;DR
It is a free browser that has a very friendly set up process so if you want to see the features, download it and install it. If you are on Mobile I will warn you they are still having UX/UI design issues there.
Used to do tech support for Vivaldi on Reddit before I left. It is a highly configurable chromium based browser that does everything it can to secure and take most of Google out of the browser. It has its own profile system and sync servers before it was enforced, blocks Ads and Tracking outside of the Manifest system, and is highly configurable with its own per profile settings, and has a user editable theming system. It’s adblock system isn’t uBlock level yet but it can use many of the same blocklists and blocks ads on the intake so similar to how uBlock does it now. It has a Mail, RSS, Mastodon Client, and Calendar. It has also done a codebase rewrite of the Chromium engine to optimize its performance. They literally also follow their previous commitments they made during the days of Opera where they have patents, but only to protect themselves and not to restrain others from using them. Back when they were making Opera they and the Mozilla Foundation used to send each other cake at major releases because they were both strong web standards organizations and shared patents at no charge.
And the thing is it is an Iterative release. They have about 50 people, and only 30 are devs. They have browsers on Linux, MacOS, iOS, Android, and Windows. They release more basic versions of the product and grow them then building an in depth product.
So why not go Open Source. Their size. Any company could take their large amounts of work, build on it and release it before they have time to react and it would mean an almost instant loss of control. They are pro-federation, anti crypto, E2EE Sync, and despite what the Brave Employee says on PrivacyTests.org, highly (but not purely) privacy focused browser.
Understanding that the browser is based on an Open Source Browser, and uses Web Standards, and you distribute freely, then why not just be Open Source? Many Open Source Advocates have accepted it as Open Source Adjacent and have even become a release on some less strict Open Source people. So why not? Their CEO answered this that it is basically a function of their size and the large amounts of custom code that they have had to make to the browser. If they went Open Source, which they discussed and tried to find a way they could, but any of the MUCH larger teams could just take their product whole cloth, put a minimal amount of work in and have a better browser and they would be shortly out of business.
For those who are all business is bad, remember that here is a group of people who through several companies and one under attack from Microsoft, managed to survive the original browser wars while supporting Open Source Browsers and Projects. The one bad thing you can say is that they originally planned to go up against Google and Chrome’s Manifest v3, but they couldn’t and couldn’t find co-operation from other Chromium Based browsers once they saw the exact form Manifest v3 was going to take. Outside of that they are working to get their ad block tech up to a near uBlock version, but they won’t just do to uBlock what they fear could be done to themselves if they were Open Source.
TL;DR It is a free browser that has a very friendly set up process so if you want to see the features, download it and install it. If you are on Mobile I will warn you they are still having UX/UI design issues there.