It’s been several years since I considered a different web browser. I’ve used Firefox and Mullvad as my main desktop browsers for a while.
Firefox Focus and Tor have been my mobile browsers of choice.
More than three years ago, I stopped using the Chrome browser.
But news about Mullvad as well as online conversations had me considering my browser choices. And taking a look at privacy-focused browsers.
First browser which came to my mind was Vivaldi.
I think my last time using Vivaldi was 10 years ago, spurred on by my friend, the late Molly Holzschlag, joining their team.
Quick Thoughts on Vivaldi
Today is a gray, rainy day in Michigan, so I decided what better day to check out a new browser?
I’ve only spent a couple hours using Vivaldi, customizing features, and reading through help files.
What I immediately liked was the minimal user interface. Which I could customize to hide features I found distracting.
Here are more quick thoughts.
- Installation was fast. I downloaded the installer package, saved the file to my computer, opened it, agreed to their license agreement, and installed it.
- After installation, Vivaldi opened quickly and greeted me with a welcome screen and a button that took me through customization steps
- First up, and one of the most important features for me to set, was for tracking and blocking ads
- Next step was an option to import bookmarks, passwords, history, etc. from my existing browser. I don’t save passwords in my browser, but importing my saved bookmarks was helpful.
- I ignored the various colorful themes available and chose the Vivaldi theme. It’s basic, minimal, and doesn’t get in my way.
- After setting tabs to display on top, I skipped over the settings for mail and calendar and finished configuring settings from their walkthrough
When I checked my browser bookmarks, I found a number of bookmarks Vivaldi added by default (resources, shopping, etc.). I deleted those from my setup.
Selecting Settings (gear icon in lower right of the screen), I customized my settings for search engine, privacy, security, downloads, and widgets on my Start page.
Talking about the Start page, I liked the Privacy widget statistics showing ads and trackers blocked as well as bandwidth saved.
Summary
Vivaldi offers a clean user interface, with dozens of customizable options. I was able to quickly add and hide features, navigate the interface, and configure the browser for my needs.
I still have more customizations to set and plan to explore the side panels more. Having quick access to Downloads from the side panel makes it easy to find that file I downloaded last week (but forgot about!)
