[show_post_categories show=”category” hyperlink=”yes”]<\/p>\n
[show_post_categories show=”tag” hyperlink=”yes”]<\/p>\n
Commentary (Jun 11, 2018<\/em>)<\/strong>: For over 8 months, I have not been able to upgrade Vivaldi on my old Linux (Ubuntu-derived LXLE). There is a file that is needed but not updated in the distribution. So far, I could still use Vivaldi without any issue but am afraid that as more security updates come along, I will have to switch from Vivaldi if I cannot use Gmail etc.<\/em><\/p>\n I have been using Firefox as my main browser since Google decided that it would not be supporting Google Chrome for Linux \u00a0about a year or so ago. I am a Linux user by choice and am writing this piece using my son\u2019s hand-me-down, a Dell Inspiron 1520 of 2007 vintage. I use LXLE, a lightweight distribution of the famed Ubuntu (which itself has grown very heavy for older personal computers) which is very suited for “ancient” personal computers.<\/p>\n I tried Google\u2019s open source browser, Chromium which is still being maintained for Linux. For some reasons that I could not figure out, it refused to run after installation on my other \u201cyounger\u201d laptop, a Toshiba Protege T210 (a couple of years younger than the Dell Inspiron) which is also powered by\u00a0LXLE.<\/p>\n The reason for me wanting to use the latest Google Chrome is simple, a lot of modern websites just do not load properly or render well in older version of the browser. Although Firefox was good, lately it has become sluggish and often crashed. As I do most of my work, especially writing using Google Docs and data crunching using Google Sheets, Firefox had become very unreliable lately.<\/p>\n I tried using Opera. It somehow does not have full compatibility with Google Chrome and some of the websites and web apps just did not work well and like Firefox, it got to be very sluggish at times. I knew if I wanted to keep up my productivity, I would need to find a solution to my browser problem and do so fast!<\/p>\n Then I found (or rather rediscovered) Vivaldi Browser which I briefly heard of in 2015. Unlike Opera which has some issues with full Google Chrome \/ Chromium compatibility in terms of rendering some websites with heavy scripts and apps, I found Vivaldi intuitive, fast, and easy to use.<\/p>\n Vivaldi which was launched in March 2015 by Jon von Tetzchner<\/a>, Opera\u2019s former CEO, has a lot of features for people like me, those who open 10 – 15 tabs at one go and doing lots of research, writing, number crunching etc. fully online, aka the power users!<\/p>\n Although I still experience periodic slow response from my mouse and keyboard while \u201cVivaldi-ing\u201d when I have more than 10 tabs opened, it is a darn sight better than the fully unresponsiveness I encounter when using Firefox or Opera. The full Chrome pedigree of Vivaldi means that anything that works on Google Chrome Store will be game for Vivaldi. So if you fancy any extension that you had been using on Google Chrome, it should work on Vivaldi.<\/p>\n For the very \u201ctech\u201d focused readers, there is a blow-by-blow \u201cOpera vs Vivaldi\u201d<\/a> by Slant. I just learned from Slant\u2019s article that Vivaldi allows one to stack up tabs which is handy when doing research by putting related content etc. together for ease of reference and location. Another Vivaldi\u2019s feature that is great for people doing lots of research online is the \u201cNote<\/a>\u201d function which allows you to take notes about a site you are visiting, copy the link, copy selected area and even take a snapshot of the site.<\/p>\n One\u00a0feature of Vivaldi that Windows users may not be excited\u00a0about but Linux users like me will, is the \u201cScreen Capture\u201d function at the bottom right of Vivaldi\u2019s panel. It comes in very handy when you want to capture stuff you see online that you need for your research. The feature picture of this article was captured using this function and I got a choice of doing the entire page or just the selected area. In this case, I had chosen the latter. Now there is no need for me to run an external screen capture software then do an “Alt-Tab” to make sure I get back to my browser to do a F11 (full size) then repeat “Alt-Tab” to set up screen capture software to work. I did install some third party’s extension to do screen capture which worked. \u00a0But this extension also added on additional weight to Firefox (and slowed it down). For Vivaldi, I do not think I need to install any extension at this stage!<\/p>\n The ability for me to see how a site I am visiting is loading on the status bar which is no longer present in many other browsers is yet another\u00a0feature of Vivaldi that I like. It tells you how big a chunk of data you are consuming and how much of it you are loading. Also, when using Vivaldi, you will not be bombarded with advertisements like some other browsers.<\/p>\n You can download Vivaldi at its website<\/a>. Vivaldi has cross platform compatibility which means that you can run it on Windows, Mac and Linux. It is just too bad for Android users that there is not yet an Android version for Vivaldi! If you signup for an account, you will also be given an email account from Vivaldi that allows you access to many of the community postings etc. that were the “key features” which were taken off from Opera. One article said that Vivaldi\u2019s service which is rolled out of Iceland, a country that\u00a0has one of the world\u2019s toughest privacy protection<\/a> law. The@vivaldi.net\u00a0domain by itself offers a very attractive feature for users who seek to protect their privacy while sending and receiving\u00a0emails!<\/p>\n Let us hope that I will not need to revise this article often and that Vivaldi as a project will continue to bring work efficiency for users like me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Vivaldi is a fast, features-packed Google Chrome derived browser that is great for power users who opens 10 -15 tabs at once anytime!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1804,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[75,175,256,264,320,351,392,527],"class_list":["post-1281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-learning","category-others","tag-chromium","tag-google-chrome","tag-linux","tag-lxle","tag-opera","tag-power-users","tag-research","tag-vivaldi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}