As I mentioned previously, Vivaldi’s 3.7 stable release has sealed it as my primary browser, and that has not changed since then. I use it 99% of the time for work and personal use. The performance improvements and the customizable context menus have taken Vivaldi to another level. It’s not perfect, and no browser is, but I’ve finally been able to stop looking at and considerably using other browsers also for now.
I don’t need to switch to another browser to do my work that involves developer tools because of the addition of customizable web page context menus, specifically. The team still should provide a proper resolution for the related issue on their end. Still, the days where I browsed various sources to follow browsers’ development and see if they could somehow replicate what I believe are Vivaldi’s crucial features while avoiding its various UI issues are almost completely gone. I occasionally still check others more so as the tech enthusiast that I already have been and not also as a dissatisfied user. As I thought, I knew if Vivaldi could at least offer a workaround for the webpage right-click menu’s problematic reload option, I would be more content.
It has some crucial power features I’ve used and no other browser provides with or without extensions, and after getting used to them, I’ve wondered why other mainstream browsers don’t have them. I know there is the consistent rebuttal of bloat and less useful features, and I don’t necessarily disagree with that argument. Although, the team basically has explained that should not be the point because all users have different needs. I’m talking about more quintessential features such as tab control options. It does not really seem to make sense that nearly all mainstream browsers don’t give the choice to be able to open a new tab next to the current tab or at the end of all tabs through built-in settings. I’m not saying one is always inherently better than the other, but having the options and then being able to easily switch between them when needed would be great to have in any browser. Anyone who has used Tab Mix Plus (which, like Vivaldi, goes further beyond than what I just described) like I have should know what I mean.
So then, if Vivaldi’s performance now is more on par with other mainstream browsers, what is still preventing some people who’ve at least heard about it from using it?
Reputation of the browser itself is one of if not the largest aspect.
Vivaldi has had a reputation of being slower and more bloated to some with the two points often going hand-in-hand. I can only speculate as to what exactly makes Vivaldi slower other than it uses web technologies rather than a native build, but I think it more so was because the team had to try to balance maintaining performance and adding features. Version 3.7 has shown that they are able to make significant improvements in this aspect as another mainstream browser built on web technologies has done. The features themselves didn’t always necessarily make the browser slower. Instead, Vivaldi’s UI wasn’t as optimized as some would have liked to begin with. It seems that Vivaldi’s many features were not what was affecting UI performance based on a recent, official blog post. Unfortunately, it has taken the team years to address this in a way that has started to satisfy longer-term critics, and some within this group would consider these improvements as a potential bait and switch because of that. They could make the argument that it took the team more than five years to meaningfully address this issue, which is not a satisfying realization. They could reasonably say Vivaldi is not the browser you use for consistent, high performance based on its track record.
Related to that point, it also generally takes a while for the team to fix bugs. My major pet bug currently has a workaround, not a fix, but that doesn’t mean others’ major pet bugs have either option. “How many more months or years will it take for our pet bugs to be resolved?” There is only so much that the team can do when they are much smaller in comparison to the other mainstream browsers’ development teams. There seems to have been a knock-on effect. Vivaldi is not yet profitable. It has to have a total of about five million or more active users to be profitable according to CEO Jon von Tetzchner who has graciously been providing most if not all of Vivaldi’s funding. The team could continue to expand in that period, but it would be almost guaranteed to really expand once the browser is no longer a financial loss. Unfortunately yet understandably, they do not accept outside investments of any kind, not even user donations. Once the team does have more resources, they can focus more on fixing long-term bugs.
This leads into my last point for now: Some people won’t use Vivaldi until some other people start using it first. I recently have seen commenters refer to even the stable version as being a “beta” that users are helping the team to “test”. Regardless of whatever truth there is to that, it creates an impression that the browser is not ready for stable use and it won’t be until it is further developed and tested. Vivaldi’s team probably does not necessarily agree with that because they have a stable release channel, after all. Still, it goes like this: Tentative users will not use Vivaldi until other such users do so first and help make the browser more profitable so that the team can expand and fix whatever personal issues they have with it. Even so, as some have pointed out, actual users get frustrated with issues not getting fixed and use Vivaldi less or not at all. I can understand why being that I felt that way until about three months ago when my workflow-breaking bug had a confirmed workaround, not fix, available starting in the snapshot (the actual beta) release channel. I personally waited well over a year for that. That is a long time, technologically speaking.
Some would say that Vivaldi is a great browser and company on paper, but it stumbles somewhat in practice. The team’s mission and community are amazing, but there is not much point in using a browser that does not work for them, they would add. That probably is the double-edged sword of using a browser for power users, and I understand. I don’t really want to use a browser that does not work with a crucial part of my workflow anymore either. If Vivaldi wants to become profitable, this is a challenge that they will have to overcome.
