Brief: Vivaldi web browser has released an experimental version for Linux based ARM devices. This means that you can now use it on your Raspberry Pi.
The Vivaldi web browser can now be used on recent models of Raspberry Pi and on other popular single-board devices like ASUS Tinker Board and CubieBoard. It is an experimental build that will work with Linux-based ARM devices. This information was released in a blog post by Ruarí Ødegaard:
“Today, we are thrilled to roll out an experimental build for Linux based ARM devices, including the increasingly popular Raspberry Pi.”
What’s Vivaldi, again?
If you didn’t know already, Vivaldi is a Chromium-based web browser that was developed by the founder of Opera, Jon von Tetzchner. This means that you get all those loved features of Opera and many more additional features. It’s not very clear though if Vivaldi is open source.
It’s an experimental release
According to the release information, the builds were made to be tried out on mobile and ARM devices that the team had. They decided not to keep it all for themselves, but share with users of popular ARM boards like Raspberry Pi.
“Rather than keep all the fun stuff to ourselves, it makes sense for us to share them with you the community, to see how and where you could use them,” it said.
Anyhow, the experimental Vivaldi builds will NOT be “fully supported” though it will exist alongside the official packages. Hence users are allowed to give feedback on problems encountered to the team, even though it will not hold down the regular release cycle.
The release offers a list of customization options that help users to personalize it to their feel. You can turn off animated GIFs or switch to advance Reader View to force pages to load faster. Other features of the Vivaldi for Raspberry Pi includes the function of tab grouping, Notes and Image properties as well as the screen-shot capture tool.
Download Vivaldi
For those who want to try out the Vivaldi web browser for Raspberry Pi and other Linux based ARM devices, you can download Vivaldi for Linux ARM. For those using a non-Debian based Linux distro, check out this page for help.
Win a Raspberry Pi 3 from Vivaldi
Vivaldi Technologies has also put up a fun contest for all those that will try Vivaldi on Raspberry Pi. All you need to do to take part in the contest is to share your “next Pi project” plans in the comment section of the blog post. Five winners will be selected and will take home a Raspberry Pi Model 3 with a custom case, power supply, a 16GB Vivaldi preinstalled micro-SD card and other Vivaldi goodies.
Your say
Have you tried out the Vivaldi web browser for Raspberry Pi and Linux-based ARM devices? If yes, share with us your experience in the comment section below.
I may get a list of examples why Vivaldi (etc.) need to exist but before you post check if there’s a Chrome or Firefox extension that already does the same thing. I’ve tried Vivaldi, Iron, Brave, Comodo Dragon every now and then of the past 5 years or so (and whatever other ones pop up) I’ve never found a feature that really justified an entirely new browser instead of simply an extension.
Vivaldi, Brave Browser, Comodo Dragon, Iron etc. seem like strange pieces of software to me. It kind of reminds of the fact some people “make” there own Linux distribution because they have no actual coding knowledge and it’s one hundred times easier to put together an entire MeBuntu Ultimate ISO than code a good piece of basic software from scratch. I can see why someone would want to release a de-Googled version of Chrome but that’s called Chromium and is already on every platform, it just hasn’t been made available in a convenient way for Windows, Android and MacOS.
It may seem insulting and may be totally incorrect but it seems like these browsers are driven by money or ego. As most of the coding is already done for them they can produce what seems like a lot in very little time. What do they offer add-ons/extensions can’t? I don’t see another explanation.