What features does Vivaldi have that don’t exist in a FF extension?
And using a WebKit based browser is still better than using a chromium fork.
narc0tic_bird@lemm.ee 10 months ago
My main problem is that I prefer other frontends to Firefox. I mostly use Vivaldi and think it’s great, but of course it’s Chromium based. I read somewhere that it’s just way easier to base a browser on Chrome than it is to base one on Firefox. It would be great if the frontend and backend were separated with a unified API and you could simply choose a frontend/interface (Vivaldi) with whatever backend/engine (Gecko). That’s not how it (currently) works though.
There are Firefox forks, but they’re just that: forks with slight modifications. Vivaldi and Arc are basically completely different browsers. Even Orion isn’t based on Gecko, it’s based on WebKit.
Add to that small compatibility issues with certain websites/web apps that aren’t Firefox’ fault, but rather developers targeting Chrome instead of “100 % web standards”. Still, as a user you’ll likely into (small) issues from time to time.
People saying “just use Firefox” have a very narrow view on how any of this works and I sometimes feel like it’s some form of elitism where the cool kids use Firefox and everybody using anything else are “lesser people”. In reality, people have different requirements and priorities. It’s similar to people posting “just use Linux” under every article talking about problems with Windows.
Yes, Chrome and Google sucks, I agree, but there isn’t a single universal solution to this problem.
nixcamic@lemmy.world 10 months ago
narc0tic_bird@lemm.ee 10 months ago
I don’t know. I still prefer having vertical tabs, tab grouping, workspaces, web panels, proper loading information, full page screenshots and way more integrated in my browser instead of having to rely on possibly dozens of different extensions that in my testing never provided nearly as good of an experience.
Implementation details matter.
clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
Also mouse gestures and tab tiling. Vivaldi has so many useful features baked in that I don’t want to give up.
AVengefulAxolotl@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Vertical tabs: Sidebery. It might actually be better than the Vivaldi native. I havent used vivaldi with vertical tabs that much, its just a work/secondary browser for me.
Gestures: Gesturify. This is just better than the vivaldi native one.
Tab tiling: well you got me on this one. This is actually pretty neat.
To be clear, I like vivaldi as well, it is my chromium of choice but with the above two extensions firefox is chefs kiss.
Samueru@lemmy.world 10 months ago
You can get vertical tabs on firefox with custom userChrome.css but it is a nightmare to setup and mozilla is only interested on breaking userChrome with every update lol.
delta@lemmy.world 10 months ago
tell me about it! literally the ONE thing keeping me from FF at the moment. vertical tabs are too vital to my workflow at this point to sacrifice.
delta@lemmy.world 10 months ago
check out Floorp: floorp.app/en/
uiiiq@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Why is using WebKit-based browser “better” than Chromium-based one? Neither supports Google’s monopoly. Vivaldi is not just a skin for Google Chrome, it continues to support manifest v2 extensions and proper adblockers. And the company is owned by the workers, which is super cool
nixcamic@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Because they foster a web monoculture where the only thing that works are Chromium based browsers. For better or worse Google controls Chromium which means that they will continue to keep pushing it in the direction they want.
epchris@programming.dev 10 months ago
I could never get hardware accelerated video working with Firefox on my Linux laptop, and Google Meet (used for work) doesn’t work well ( but I guess I blame Google for that).
FinalRemix@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Google meet sucks hard on every browser and piece of hardware I’ve thrown at it.
hersh@literature.cafe 10 months ago
It would be great if the frontend and backend were separated with a unified API and you could simply choose a frontend/interface (Vivaldi) with whatever backend/engine (Gecko). That’s not how it (currently) works though.
Arc has floated this idea. Currently Arc is Chromium-based, but they say they’ve designed it to allow for swapping engines in the future.
IIRC, Edge had a similar feature for a while, allowing you to run legacy Internet Explorer tabs if a site required it. Not sure if that still exists.
narc0tic_bird@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Let me add that support for passkeys is becoming more and more important and Firefox doesn’t support passkeys. Yes, it supports forms of WebAuthn (YubiKey and the likes), but not “scan this QR code with your smartphone and use biometric authentication to sign in”.
stealth_cookies@lemmy.ca 10 months ago
I tried really hard to use Floorp which fixes most of my problems with stock Firefox but even that just showed me how excellent Vivaldi is compared to other browsers.
flicker@lemmy.world 10 months ago
You admit in the opening of your comment that your issue is preference and then go on to say there’s no single universal solution.
There absolutely is a single universal solution. Either adapt your preference and use a different browser until you’re familiar enough with it to prefer it, or adapt your preference to admitting that you don’t care that Google is getting your data more than you care about being ever-so-slightly inconvenienced. It’s pretty simple.
ferralcat@monyet.cc 10 months ago
Writing a new ff UI is pretty easy. The entire UI is written in html at this point. I’m not sure why people would say it’s “hard” to change.
Embedding gecko into something requires work (even that isn’t that hard really, you just have to hand it a gl surface and pass through inputs)
deweydecibel@lemmy.world 10 months ago
No, not at all. I understand perfectly. Your concerns are valid.
Our point is not supporting Chrome is more important in the long run.
There is no front end in the world that will make up for the loss of true ad blocking.
narc0tic_bird@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Well, you’re not saying just use Firefox, you actually bring up valid points and reasoning. Just look at the top comment of this post stating “Not using Chrome is so easy” when it’s not.
Let me clarify that I don’t hate Firefox, it’s my second most used browser on the desktop after Vivaldi, I just don’t think it’s a great browser with its current feature set. Mind you, as soon as ad blocking becomes infeasible with Chrome and forks I’ll instantly bite the bullet and fully switch to Firefox. But as it stands right now, Firefox is lacking features (some of them almost essential if you ask me, see my comment about passkeys) and compatibility (rarely Firefox’ fault, but rather a result of the Chrome semi-monopoly).
The main problem is that Firefox is the only alternative to a Chromium browser on non-Apple platforms, but it’s not the solution to everyone’s problems. Let’s see if and when Orion is going to get ported to Windows/Linux.
delta@lemmy.world 10 months ago
super excited about the future of Orion!!