Yesterday, Vivaldi Browser put out an article advocating for Windows 7 users to switch to Linux. In the article it described the process to make the switch and mentioned two Distros.. Ubuntu and Solus.

I think this is amazing news. 15% of Vivaldi's users run Linux. Not only is this company making a superb product upon which to browse the Web but they are helping people to understand the importance of the open-source community and helping people make the switch.

I enthusiastically suggest people not only try Vivaldi but consider signing up in their community at Vivaldi.net. I reached out to Vivaldi on Twitter about how I could help them and was given a personal response saying that I could just keep spreading the word.

When I contacted them I told them that if they were not already working with Solus that they should consider doing so. Seeing them mention Solus in such a high-profile fashion has definitely made me day!!

Thanks for making such a brilliant and reliable OS, Solus Team. Josh, you have been a strong and effective leader, and kyrios, Justin and DataDrake, you all have really been excellent facilitators in my Linux education whether you have realized it or not.

I check the Solus Discussion boards daily, sometimes hourly, as I work on tweaking this or that. From the bottom of my heart, THANKS, because Solus makes me feel happier, more secure, and capable of accomplishing things that Windows held me back from doing.

Nice find, nice of the viv people.
Win7 was the last bastion of matrix illusion for me but it worked. I read every word of 10's privacy policy and felt personally horrified. Then I was born again FOSS.
I share all yourSolus sentiments, except last time I used vivaldi not enough security extensions for me. Hope they work on that.
Great post. Happy holidays to all.

    brent What do you mean about security extensions? Anything you need as far as Chrome extensions can be downloaded from the Chrome store. I keep it to a bare minimum of Dark Reader, uBlock Origin, HTTPS Everywhere and Privacy Badger.

    It took a couple years but my home network is finally secured enough for me to feel safe from the majority of malicious attacks. Running Solus gives me even greater confidence because of the built-in security of using the Linux Kernel. On top of all that a VPN gives some level of confidence in the security of my online activities.

    The only issue as far as security that I ever had with Vivaldi was the WebRTC leakage but they included the option to turn it off. Once they did that I was able to enthusiastically migrate over.

    What other things do you think they need to include to make them more secure as a browser?

        Well then, I shall install and use Vivaldi, and tell everyone I meet to do the same.

        jrsilvey I went back to the old memory bank (I used Vivaldi this summer) and realized I mis-spoke. The browser's internal security configs/settings are zilch, nada, none that I remember except a lame built-in ad block.
        I stopped using it because I became google-phobic.
        And another thing I remember vividly:
        many security extensions I know, love, and use in Firefox are disturbingly absent in the chrome store. Why?
        And that made me more google (chrome) phobic.
        Visually light and fast, enjoyed it. But that was my experience.
        EDIT: just saying informed or misinformed, that was my impression only and I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed.

            brent Please don't consider my response a challenge to your memory! 😃 I just couldn't think of any security flaws but maybe I just wasn't aware of any. The beauty of Vivaldi is that for many, MANY things, like hibernating background tabs, creating tab sessions, taking notes, organizing bookmarks, keeping track of downloads, or taking screenshots, you need individual extensions on Chrome which on their own can lead to security issues.

            All of these features are built into Vivaldi which means I can do more while requiring on less third-party extensions which may or may not have professional staff handling security issues.

            Vivaldi is lacking when it comes to pop-up blockers and ad blockers, but the aforementioned set that I use (uBlock Origin, HTTPS Everywhere, and Privacy Badger) are available on the Chrome store.

            Chrome has recently worked very hard to strip out proprietary Google features such as Casting from Chromium so that they could remove the ability for Browsers such as Opera and Vivaldi from actually competing in their market share. I am moving away from Facebook/Google and have completely migrated away from Windows thanks to Solus so I get how you feel about using their platforms.

            I would base your trust for Vivaldi on your trust for Chromium, not Chrome, which have many of the same people working on them but one has a corporate agenda and one is an open-source project.

                Justin I have literally hundreds and hundreds of carefully curated Vivaldi captures and it is REALLY useful especially in their flawless freaking implementation of Vivaldi on Android.

                The initial naming structure of the Vivaldi Captures can be messy though. If you look for Webpages under the Settings panels you can find the above form that will allow you to change the naming structure. I was able to figure out the following structure that made my life way easier.

                $title-$host-$day/$month/$year

                Which would turn the names into the following format:

                Example Page Title-example.com-29/11/2019

                However since around October I found a TON of new (or maybe old ones I missed?) Budgie applets in the Software Center. Budgie's Screenshot applet not only made me move from using Gnome to Budgie full time but it replaced using Vivaldi's capture feature since I no longer have to depend on using Vivaldi to do it.


                (I made a Budgie Bar on the right hand side of my screen just for the amazing and useful tools that I use literally constantly. It has been hard to overcome hitting SUPER and typing Files to get to my File Manager but I am working to put Kangaroo and Places in my daily workflow. The rest of the applets are going to get worn out from such constant use though.)

                As much as I love Vivaldi there are many reasons I use Gnome Web. I like the way they wall off sites from one another if used as an application and Web is my default browser because it is quick and agile. If I accidentally click on a link I would prefer it opened in Gnome Web because sometimes Vivaldi can be clunky when it is first loaded. Once it is up and running though I routinely have anywhere from 10 to 40 tabs running at any time.

                If you like the screenshot ability you may grow to absolutely LOVE tab stacking. You should definitely check out the tab features in Vivaldi.

                    jrsilvey I usually don't have so many extensions but I wanted to try a few because I got a bit bored this week. 😛

                    I never tried Pocket before and I am testing Taskade. The green logo in the top right hand corner is for an extension called MindZip that is kind of like Zotero but WAY FREAKING BETTER.

                    Don't judge me!!

                    🤣

                      I found a related community forum post on Vivaldi.net that is quite lengthy related to the initial Vivaldi blog post. It started off as discussing general Linux use and Vivaldi but now that I found it most of the conversation has shifted to Solus.

                      Vivaldi.net offers free email and a free Wordpress powered blog with a strong community of users and testers. I have had an account there since 2015 and always regret not being more active on it.

                      Get to work making new Solus converts! 😃

                      jrsilvey Thank you for your reply and no challenge to my memory at all.
                      Sometimes if I don't frame my experiences & impressions with words like 'subjectively' and 'I'm not expert' then it sometimes invites hostile responses.
                      That did not happen with you, thank you🙂

                          brent That is more the fault of a close minded open-source community resistance to impure thoughts on nuanced and complex technical issues than it does to your memory or objective view of reality.

                          I mean seriously people who install Arch for fun are sadomasochists just looking to take their frustrations out on.

                          Amiright?