Vivaldi Browser for Power Users

Serge Y. Stroobandt

Copyright 2015–2018, licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

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Decline of Firefox

: Have you had it with the Mozilla Firefox browser? You are certainly in good company. After many years of loyal Firefox usage, I could no longer stand the frequent and pointless user interface regressions. For some time, I managed to circumvent these user interface shortcomings with a long list of browser add-ons. When that list grew too long and complicated, I had a brief affair with Pale Moon, a Firefox decoction stalled at Pale Moon is painstakingly put together by a single Dutchman. A one-man show browser is certainly a risk factor requiring contemplation when betting on a new browser for fulltime adoption.

When I read over at dedoimedo.com that add-ons were on their way out, I knew the time had come to bid Firefox farewell for good. Sorry Firefox, this is what happens for becoming greedy and firing a visionary CEO and first-hour Javascript developer over a personal and hence irrelevant political viewpoint!

Vivaldi

: Vivaldi is proprietary freeware with open-source components.

story
Vivaldi source code is indirectly available for audit.
Operating system Windows, OS X, Linux
Engine Blink
Platform IA-32, x64
Available in many languages
Much functionality is built-in, hence there is less need for extensions.

Warning: An enormous number of browser extensions are spying on you! This is why only open source browser extensions are listed below. Only such extensions can be audited for security and privacy.

Essential extensions, audited for security

Most browsers come out of the box with poor privacy settings. Vivaldi forms no exception to this. Rendering this or any other Blink-based browser respectful towards your privacy, absolutely requires applying the following crucial configuration settings under Tools → Settings → Privacy:

Unselect all 🞎 Third Party Services options.
Select 🗹 Do Not Track.
For Accept Cookies, choose 🞊 Session Only.
Select 🗹 Block Third-Party Cookies.

Secure extensions for privacy
extension	security audit of the extension	use
Cookie Autodelete	This extension is open source software. Auto-cleaning of cookies needs to be manually enabled by clicking the extension button!	After manually enabling, cookies from untrusted web sites will be automatically deleted on tab closure. Cookies from trusted web sites may be white listed. This extension is the counterpart of the famous Self Destructing Cookies extension for Firefox.
HTTPS Everywhere	This extension is open source software from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.	This extension automatically switches thousands of URLs from insecure `http` to secure `https`. By doing so, it protects against many forms of surveillance and account hijacking, and some forms of censorship.
Privacy Badger	This extension is open source software from the Electronic Frontier Foundation	Self-learning blocker of invisible trackers. Blocking starts once the same tracker was seen on three different websites.
uBlock Origin	This extension is open source software.	An efficient ad blocker: easy on memory and CPU footprint, and yet can load and enforce thousands more filters than other popular blockers out there.

Secure extensions for web development
icon	extension	security audit of the extension	use
	LivePage	This extension is open source software.	Reloads website resources (HTML, CSS & JavaScript) as these change.
	Web Developer	This extension is open source software. However, in August 2017, the extension got once hijacked when the developer fell for a phishing attack.	Adds a toolbar button with various web developer tools. This is the official port of the homonymous extension for Firefox.

MHT becomes MHTML

vivaldi://flags/#save-page-as-mhtml

Open PDFs externally

vivaldi://plugins

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution‑NonCommercial‑ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Other licensing available on request.

Unless otherwise stated, all originally authored software on this site is licensed under the terms of GNU GPL version 3.

This static web site has no backend database.
Hence, no personal data is collected and GDPR compliance is met.
Moreover, this domain does not set any first party cookies.

All Google ads shown on this web site are, irrespective of your location,
restricted in data processing to meet compliance with the CCPA and GDPR.
However, Google AdSense may set third party cookies for traffic analysis and
use JavaScript to obtain a unique set of browser data.
Your browser can be configured to block third party cookies.
Furthermore, installing an ad blocker like EFF's Privacy Badger
will block the JavaScript of ads.
Google's ad policies can be found here.

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