DEV Community: Olga Apostolova

Fall in love with this great Safari alternative on your Mac

Olga Apostolova — Thu, 25 Mar 2021 09:04:15 +0000

Mac is a great platform to get your work done, and, for me, being able to help build Vivaldi for the Mac is a privilege. Unlike Windows, where the standard browser used to be the worst browser in the world (no offense), the Mac has always shipped with the adequate Safari browser.

For many, Safari is enough to get by. But if you are a pro Mac user or would like to be one, there are good reasons to explore Safari alternatives for your Mac. If nothing else, this will rekindle your love for creativity and customization.

Yes, you can fall in love with your browser, again.

Disclaimer: As a longtime Vivaldi user, there is going to be some bias here. Keep that in mind!

What Safari does well

Let me begin by praising what Safari does well. Apple has worked hard on the basic browsing experience. And make no mistake, the basics are important. If you open a website in Safari, most of the time it will “just work”.

Safari has also pioneered cool privacy technology, which rarely breaks websites.

Lastly, the iCloud integration lets you take your browsing with you onto your other Apple devices (when it works that is – it has been buggy for me as of late).

So it’s all 🍑? Not quite. If you have always been a Safari user, you may not be aware of all the productivity goodness you are missing out on. Here are some things in Vivaldi browser that stand out to me and make Vivaldi the best Safari alternative for your Mac.

Explore Safari alternatives: Mouse Gestures

When I think about Safari alternatives for the Mac, I can’t count the number of times I zip back and forth with Mouse Gestures in Vivaldi. My fancy MX Master mouse has a dedicated back button, but I still prefer the Mouse Gestures. It is simply a better way to browse on the Mac.

If you are not using Mouse Gestures already, you are in for a treat. In Vivaldi, they are on by default. Simply press the right mouse button down, keep it pressed while moving the mouse left, about 1 centimeter. Then release. After a bit of practice, I bet this will be your preference too!

Vivaldi supports a wide selection of gestures by default. I recommend learning at least the basics – such as Back, Forward, and Reload. Yet it doesn’t stop there. You can draw your own gesture and assign any of Vivaldi’s custom commands. I have one set up to move in and out of full-screen. It’s such a time saver. Read more about Mouse Gestures on the help pages.

Meet the Window Panel in Vivaldi browser

A cluttered Tab Bar is worse than a cluttered desk. But when researching something, tabs seem to …magically appear. And then later, I don’t want to haphazardly close something important. With a full Tab Bar, it’s not easy to scan through the titles. Safari has a pretty neat Tab Overview feature which I recommend.

But still, it doesn’t hold a candle to the efficiency of the Window Panel in Vivaldi browser. Looking at all the favicons and titles together, multi-selecting (with ⌘ or ⇧ modifiers) and hitting ⌫ (delete) is a piece of cake. With all those pages gone, you’re free to start filling up with tabs from the next project! 👀

By all means, take a look also at Vivaldi’s Tab Stacks, and especially the Two-Level Tab Stacks.

Extensions, extensions, extensions

I’m not a big fan of extensions. They can inject things into the webpage, wreaking havoc with the DOM or slowing down page loads. But it is good to have the option. I currently live and die by an extension for hiding my typing in Slack. I’m sure my colleagues also appreciate it – as I tend to take my sweet time editing responses.

There are extensions in Safari too, yet their extension store is a barren land compared to the vast options available with Vivaldi through the Chrome Extension Store. On Windows, I tend to use the iCloud extension to have access to my keychain passwords.

Built-in Tab Tiling

macOS offers the ability to tile fullscreen windows, which is a powerful feature. I sometimes used that when commuting to work (remember those days 😂). Now that train travel is replaced with video conferencing, I often attend meetings in the browser.

Typically, the meeting will consist of team members from one of our Slack channels. Vivaldi lets me ⌘(command)-click the tabs, hit the tile button and then I can attend the video meeting while keeping an eye on the chat. Perfect for following up in private with one of the team members.

Another great use case is to split the video chat with Figma, or split three ways with Slack, Figma, and the conference call in the third. While you can do much of this with window management in macOS, it takes more effort. I have moved the Tab Tiling button from the Status Bar to the Address Bar for easy access. This is one of the strongest endorsements I can give – in the Address Bar, I keep only Back, Reload, and Tab Tiling.

The Panel in Vivaldi is a much better alternative to Safari’s

There is a Side Panel in Safari, but I have never liked it. When opened, it seems to stay open – and reopen unexpectedly after closing (I am not ruling out that it is haunted 👻). The Safari Panel offers a list of Bookmarks and the Reading List. I used to be a fan of the ability to save articles offline and read them later. Later, I discovered that this functionality often becomes a list of articles that you should read, but never actually read. In practice, I never use the Panel in Safari, but instead, use the Bookmark menu. This keeps the Panel ghosts away.

By contrast, the Panel in Vivaldi never bothers me. If I close it, it stays closed. I usually keep it minimized. That way it’s easy to click to open, and I can see notification bubbles if anything requires my attention. I use it for the Window Panel, Downloads, Web Panels, and… Mail. Yes, we are building a Mail client, and the Panel is at the core of the workflow. Having Mail in the Panel makes it easy to keep an eye on your inbox while browsing.

Search shortcuts in Vivaldi are a great Safari alternative

There are many ways to search in Vivaldi, but my favorite by far is through search shortcuts (Search Engine Nicknames). You can add a search engine to Vivaldi, and I have added several, such as designer favorites Unsplash and Dribbble. The best part is that you can assign single-key nicknames. Now, when I open a tab in Vivaldi, I can type “u happy face” to see some happy faces on Unsplash.

Safari does have the same feature, but without nicknames. So you need to enter the URL of the site to search. While this may not sound like a big task, the difference is night and day. The feature might as well not exist in Safari. I just never use it. Whereas in Vivaldi, I am a search wizard. Or at least a search novice. By default, there are keywords set for several search engines. For example, I type “w macOS” to search Wikipedia for my operating system of choice. ♂

Media support in Safari

With the release of macOS 11, the state of media support on the Mac has improved (you can even play .flac in the Finder these days!). But if you’re like me, you may still have an older Mac that can’t be upgraded to the latest version. With older macOS versions, the popular format WebP doesn’t work. And underground favorites Matroska, WebM and Ogg still won’t open or play. While browsing with Safari I always need a secondary browser in case someone shares a file in one of these formats.

For those on Macs with ARM-based M1 processors

I don’t want to speak of older macOS versions without mentioning the newest. If you are lucky enough to have an M1-powered Mac, rest assured – Vivaldi is now available for Apple’s new Macs with ARM-based M1 processors. This development was much-awaited by some of Vivaldi’s Mac users and we have delivered.

Those of you lucky enough to have M1 Mac Mini, Macbook Air, or Macbook Pro systems will find Vivaldi twice as fast as before.

Now that Vivaldi runs natively on M1 Macs, it’s become an even more attractive Safari alternative.

Final thoughts on Vivaldi browser as a Safari alternative

So with all of this, is it time to find a Safari alternative and replace Safari? The answer is no! If nothing else, Safari is not possible to remove. The WebKit engine is a core component of macOS. The upside of that is that the Safari executable doesn’t consume much disk space.

Running Vivaldi alongside Safari is the perfect way to try it out. Let links open in Safari, and then use Vivaldi for research and work. That way you can keep the “stray tabs” out of Vivaldi, and rely on Vivaldi’s organizational power to keep your tabs structured.

Another great way to use Vivaldi along with Safari is to keep your work in Vivaldi. When working from home, being able to contain all work communication in one app makes it easier to separate it from your private life. Having everything in one app makes drawing that line just a tiny bit easier.

To sum it up – Vivaldi is an upgrade from Safari in many ways, in terms of vast utility and improved workflows. My recommendation is that you download Vivaldi and run it alongside Safari. If you later feel that the unique Safari features aren’t necessary, tick the preference checkbox and make Vivaldi your default browser.

Welcome to the world of Safari alternatives and to a better way to surf on the Mac!

I hope you fall in love with your browser, again.

21 tab tricks to get you started in 2021

Olga Apostolova — Mon, 01 Feb 2021 08:32:29 +0000

Do you use tabs? Of course, you do.

Need a few ideas on how to manage them in Vivaldi?

Here’s a list of 21 useful tab management hacks to master this year.

Watch the video below. The text follows. 👇

#1 Experiment with vertical tabs

If you use a lot of tabs, it can get confusing. Before you know it, you aren’t able to view the titles of your tabs and that can get you into all sorts of trouble.

That’s the reason we built into Vivaldi browser the option to display your tabs vertically.

In Vivaldi, you can display your Tab Bar on the top, bottom, left, or right. Just go to Settings > Tabs > Tab Bar Position.

If you choose to display tabs left or right, they will display vertically. There are many advantages to that, one of them being that you will be able to read the titles of your open tabs.

For many of our users, tabs on the side are one of the most useful Vivaldi browser features.

#2 Stack tabs

In Vivaldi, you can organize your numerous tabs by grouping them together in tab stacks.

Basically, when you stack tabs, you get to keep them in one place and you get to manage them as a group.

To group two tabs in a Tab Stack, drag a tab over another tab until it becomes darker, and drop it.

If you want to group more tabs, select them on the Tab Bar using either the Ctrl or Shift key. The Ctrl key will select individual tabs. The Shift key will select a range of tabs.

Once you have selected the tabs you want to stack, right-click and select New Tab Stack with Selection (# Tabs) from the context menu.

To keep your tabs organized, you can rename tab stacks. First, enable this option in settings – it’s not enabled by default. Then right-click on a tab stack and choose ‘’Rename Tab Stack’’ from the menu.

Renaming can come in especially handy when you are browsing websites with similar content, for example, travel, shopping, or social media.

And if you enable auto-stacking, links opened in the active tab will automatically be added to a Tab Stack. Go to Settings > Tabs > New Tab Position and tick “As Tab Stack With Related Tabs” to enable auto-stacking.

#3 Manage tabs in Two-Level Tab Stacks

In Vivaldi, you can display the tabs in a stack on one level – the so-called Compact View – or on two levels.

The second level comes in useful if you want the stacked tabs to display in full size. This works whether you have your tabs on the top, side, or bottom.

The second level makes reorganizing stacks or creating new tabs within a stack easier, and gives you all the other benefits of normal-sized tabs, like easier to read page titles, tab notifications, and (if you enable them) tab thumbnails.

In addition, you can lock the second level, which avoids changing the page view height when switching between tabs, and makes it simpler to create new stacks from any single tab.

#4 Tile tabs

In Vivaldi, you can also view multiple sites next to each other by tiling tabs. The ability to tile tabs – or create a split-screen view of several websites – is one of the most loved features of Vivaldi browser.

You can “tile” any number of tabs.

Browsing several sites at once can come in extremely handy if, for instance, you need to keep all your reference material for a research article open, while you write. It also comes in useful if you want to view several videos at the same time.

Just select the tabs you want to view and choose “Tile Tabs” from the context menu. You can pick between tile layouts via the Status Bar at the bottom right of the browser window.

You can also resize the tiles to get each one to show what you need.

When you tile your tabs, you won’t have to switch tabs every few seconds and that is very helpful.

#5 Round – or not – those corners

Before we move on to more hard-hitting stuff, we want to show you something really fun you can do with your tabs.

Have you ever thought about this: Do you like your tabs looking more rounded or more angular? If you go to Settings > Themes > Edit theme you can play around with the corner rounding.

In fact, this little tool will round the corners of the entire user interface, not just the tabs. For example, you’ll notice that suddenly your tabs, the address and search fields, the speed dials – all go very round. Play around with this tool and see what you like best.

#6 Have fun with the Tab Bar background

And since we are talking about fun things to do with the appearance of your tabs, how about this?

In Vivaldi, you can do a number of things with the Tab Bar background. One of them is to upload a custom window background image. You do this by going to Settings > Appearance > Window Background Image.

#7 Tweak the width of the active tab

Here’s one more fun thing which can actually impact your workflow. Under Tabs > Tab Display, you can choose the width of the active tab. If you make your active tab very wide, you’ll be able to see the title of that tab much better. In addition to seeing the title, a wider width will help you locate the active tab quickly. This comes in handy when you have many tabs open.

If it makes a difference to you, play around with this setting.

#8 View and manage tabs in Window Panel

Let’s say you want to get a tree-style view of your open tabs. All you need to do is open the Window Panel. Click on the window icon in the Panel and you will have a tree-style view of all your open tabs on one side of your browser window.

From the Window Panel, you can drag tabs to change their order. Click on the tab you’d like to move. Hold the left mouse button and move the tab to a new location. Drop the tab and release the mouse.

From here, you can also create a Tab Stack. Click on the tab you’d like to add to a group. Hold the left mouse button and move and place the tab on top of another tab. Release the mouse – you have now created a Tab Stack.

In fact, you can even tile tab stacks in the Window Panel to view them side-by-side. Just right-click the Tab Stack and select “Tile from the drop-down menu”.

If you want to hide the Tab Bar, the Window Panel is a good way to manage your tabs.

#9 Get quick with Quick Commands

When it comes to tab switching, we want you to know that you aren’t limited to clicking a tab. There are multiple ways of navigating between tabs.

A user favorite is Quick Commands. It is, in fact, absolutely essential for many of our users.

Open Quick Commands using F2 on Windows and Linux, and ⌘E on a Mac.

It will list all the open tabs in the current window. If you have a large number of tabs, you will want to filter down the list. Start typing the page title or the domain, and the list gets shorter. Select the tab you want to switch to.

If you want to hide the Tab Bar, Quick Commands is a good way to go about managing your tabs.

#10 Save sessions

If you are one of those people who end up with a zillion tabs no matter what you do, try naming and saving your tabs as a session.

In Vivaldi, you can save a selection of opened tabs (or all of them) as a named “session” and open them with a click later.

This means that you can research any topic, opening as many tabs as you like, safe in the knowledge that you can save them as a session later. For example, you can have a session with research on places to visit once it’s possible to travel again.

To create a session, use Ctrl or Shift to make a selection, then right-click on one of the selected tabs to open the context menu, and select “Save Selected Tabs as Session”.

You can also start typing “Save Selected Tabs as Session” in Quick Commands.

When you come back to your research later, you can open the set of session tabs with one click. Just click on File > Open Saved Session or start typing “Open Saved Sessions” in Quick Commands.

#11 Place tabs in Web Panels

In Vivaldi browser, we have a secret tab management tool called Web Panels.

This is a slide-out sidebar that gives you extra space for your favorite websites and tools.

By default, your Panel has your Bookmarks, Downloads, Notes, History, and Window Panel.

But the real joy comes from adding custom Panels. And you can add any website! You are not restricted to a handful of built-in websites.

If your favorite tabs and tools clutter your Tab Bar, place them in a Web Panel. Maybe you are using a translation tool all the time, or a stock photostream, or a messenger app – add them as Web Panels.

If you haven’t added Web Panels before, getting started is easy.

Any page can be added if you right-click anywhere on the page and choose “Add Page to Web Panel” from the context menu.

Another way to do it is by clicking the “+” icon in the sidebar and inputting the web address.

The Panel uses the mobile view of websites by default. But some sites work better in their desktop version. You can quickly switch to the desktop version with the context menu, and you can as quickly switch back to the mobile version from the same place.

#12 Navigate with Tab Cycling

If you keep a lot of tabs open, navigating between them can become a little slow and you might be looking for ways to reduce your scrolling time. Enter Vivaldi’s Tab Cycling.

With Tab Cycling, you use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Tab to cycle through your open tabs.

Basically, to switch tabs you won’t need to click with your mouse on the Tab Bar.

You can enable Tab Cycling in Settings > Tabs > Tab Features > Tab Cycling. Here, you should also decide the order in which tabs are cycled. Currently, you can choose between “Cycle in recently used order” and “Cycle in tab order”. You can experiment to see which order works best for you.

There’s actually more to Tab Cycling.

You can choose how to display your tabs in the tab cycler. They can appear as thumbnails (the horizontal cycler), or as a list of titles (the vertical cycler).

We have two ways of displaying tabs in the cycler because we believe that some people work better choosing between images and others prefer looking through a text-based list.

#13 View tab thumbnails

Speaking of tab thumbnails, you may want to take a look at the Tab Thumbnails option under Tab Display. If you enable this option, you will see tab thumbnails for each tab in your Tabs Bar. This will make each tab easier to find.

Double-click on the line between the Tab and Address Bar or drag down or up from the same line to show or hide the thumbnails.

Try this out and see if it helps you keep on top of your tabs.

#14 Use keyboard shortcuts

In Vivaldi, you have many pre-set keyboard shortcuts for tab-related commands, for instance, to move and select individual tabs. You’ll find these under Settings > Keyboard > Tab.

In addition, you can set any amount of custom keyboard shortcuts.

To add or edit shortcuts, go to Settings > Keyboard. To delete a keyboard shortcut, hover the mouse cursor over the shortcut and click the “Clear Shortcut” button to the right of the input field. To edit a shortcut, place the cursor in the input field and enter the preferred key sequence. To reset the default keyboard shortcut, hover over the shortcut and click on the reload button to restore the default shortcut.

If you forget a shortcut, go to the Cheat Sheet in Help > Keyboard Cheat Sheet or find it with Quick Commands.

#15 Navigate with mouse gestures

Mouse Gestures let you speed up navigation and perform useful actions with quick movements of the mouse. You can edit existing gestures and add your own to match your browsing style.

To enable gestures go to Settings > Mouse and tick the Allow Gestures box.

To view the default gestures, go to Settings > Mouse > Gesture Mapping.

To perform your own gesture, click and hold the right mouse button (or press and hold the ALT key). Move the pointer to perform an action. You can also perform gestures using other input devices, such as trackpads or touchpads.

#16 Try our six ways to open and close tabs

When you have many tabs open, you can save a lot of time by finding your perfect way of opening and closing tabs.

In Vivaldi, you are not short on options.

Let’s take a look at closing tabs.

✔️ You can click the Close button that appears when you hover your mouse pointer over the Tab.

✔️ You can right-click on a Tab and select Close Tab.

✔️ You can go to the Vivaldi menu button > File > Close Tab.

✔️ You can use a Keyboard Shortcut such as the pre-set Ctrl+W to close the active Tab.

✔️ You can perform the Close Tab Mouse Gesture: right-click + draw an L shape.

✔️ You can double-click on the tab. Enable the option in Settings > Tabs > Tab Handling.

#17 Jump to the previous tab by clicking the current tab

You can save a lot of time by using clever tricks like the one we’re about to reveal.

In Vivaldi, you can jump to the previously opened tab with one click.

To enable this option go to Settings > Tabs > Tab Features > Tab Cycling > Minimize Active Tab.

When you have it checked, clicking on the active tab will take you to the previously opened tab.

Our users say that this is a great way to save time.

#18 Quickly recover tabs

In Vivaldi, you can recover accidentally closed tabs – and even windows – with the click of a button. Spot the trash icon at the very end of your Tab Bar. Click on that and you’ll see the last 100 closed tabs. It can be a lifesaver. 😍

#19 Mute tab audio

No matter how many tabs you have open and what the web throws at you, in Vivaldi you have the power to control which audio plays and which doesn’t.

Imagine you are browsing the web at home, at work, or in a public space and trying to be quiet. But suddenly loud audio starts blasting from an open tab, auto-playing some video.

In Vivaldi, it’s easy to find which tab is making noise and turn it off quickly. Just look for the speaker icon which shows up when a tab is playing audio, and click on it.

If you want to see what other sound controls we’ve built into Vivaldi, go to the audio settings in Settings > Tabs > Tab Features > Tab Muting.

✔️ The default option, “Play All Audio”, allows audio to play from all tabs at all times. However, this may not be ideal for every situation as it can lead to an avalanche of unwanted noise.

✔️ Choose “Play Only In Active Tab” and you are already bringing some order in your browser space. It ensures that background tabs with audio will stay muted.

✔️ The third option, “Prioritize Active Tab”, is for situations where you are working in one tab, but want to listen to music or a podcast in another tab. Background tabs with audio will play even if your active tab has no audio.

#20 Manage tab notifications

Tab notifications let you know which of your tabs have new content waiting for you. Notifications will display on both pinned and regular tabs. An overlay icon on the tab will notify you of new emails or messages coming through social media websites.

To enable “Detect Page Title Notifications”, go to Settings > Tabs > Tab Display.

#21 Hibernate tabs

Having hundreds of tabs open can be a drag on any machine. Save resources by hibernating tabs.

Use Tab Hibernation to put a tab (or a group of tabs) to sleep until you need it. Right-click on the active tab and select the option “Hibernate Background Tabs”. Whenever a tab gains focus, it will be loaded.

* * *

There, do you feel like a Tab Master now?

Edge on Linux: Thoughts from a Linux user

Olga Apostolova — Mon, 02 Nov 2020 08:24:53 +0000

Since there has been a lot of fuss about the new Linux entry to the market – the Edge browser on Linux – and being a bit of a browser geek myself, I thought I would give it a spin. It’s always great to have an interesting addition to the Linux browser landscape.

Now, of course, I will be biased – for me, Vivaldi is the best browser for Linux. That bias is hard for me to avoid but nonetheless here are my initial thoughts and feelings after playing with the new Edge browser for half an hour.

Distribution support of Edge on Linux

As a long-term user of Slackware, I was not totally surprised to find that (according to the official announcement) only Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, and openSUSE distributions are currently supported by Edge on Linux, which means only .deb and .rpm packages.

Essentially this would appear to be the same as Vivaldi, although while we only offer these package types “officially”, we have long encouraged maintainers of distros using other packaging formats to repackage for their users. We don’t really care so much about alternative installation options being provided, so long as nothing nefarious is done and the contents of the packages are not modified before distribution (outside of minor mods to allow the build to run or conform to distribution file-system layouts).

We also gladly consider bugs from users of any distro that is still supported by upstream for desktop usage. Thus you will find active Vivaldi users on Arch, Gentoo, Solus, Slackware, and many others.

It’ll be interesting to see how Microsoft treats users of other distros and if they will allow repackaging (Google actually prohibit redistribution for Chrome, which is problematic for those that need to repackage).

I was, however, able to test Edge on my Slackware system without issues by extracting out the contents of the deb and running the main executable directly. I was very pleased to see that they have not alternated the dependencies from standard Chromium, thus assuming that repackaging is not prevented, Edge should work for most Linux desktop users, no matter their distribution.

My other observation is that only 64bit (amd64/x64) packages are provided. This is in line with most other commercial Chromium-based browsers for Linux (Chrome, Brave and Opera, etc.). If you want to run a modern version of Chromium and you are on i686, ARM, or ARM64 only a vanilla Chromium (typically compiled and supplied by your distro) or Vivaldi will work. That said, it is early days, so maybe they will surprise us when they go final but I would not hold out much hope! 😉

Is Edge on Linux open source?

Edge is partially open source in that it is largely based on Chromium. However much like Chrome, Opera, and Vivaldi, parts of the codebase in the officially distributed products are under other licenses, so it is not possible to compile your own complete copy of Edge. They are contributing some of their stuff upstream however in the form of fixes and features, thus benefiting all browsers based on Chromium.

Find out more on what code is and what code isn’t open source in Vivaldi browser.

Privacy

One of Edge’s proposed selling points is a promoted commitment to privacy. For me selling the idea of privacy requires trust in the company promoting it. Traditionally Microsoft has not had a great reputation for being trustworthy, especially amongst the open source and Linux communities. Furthermore, having worked at browser companies for more than a decade (first Opera and now Vivaldi), I have also experienced first hand how Microsoft has historically treated competitors. So I am somewhat suspicious.

That said, in recent years Microsoft has seemingly improved and become more favorable to working with others, including Linux and open source communities that were once famously described as “cancer” by then Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, back in 2001.

These changes might only be because they have lost some of their control and power to upstarts like Google and Amazon and a massively re-invigorated Apple. But motivations aside, there does appear to be improvements. Like Apple (who has been building a privacy reputation), they also have the benefit of not being an advertising company (unlike, say, Google).

Since their profits are not so strongly tied to the advertising business, it makes it easier to at least trust that they might consider the browser user to be their customer, rather than the advertiser. So yes, I can give them some level of my trust for privacy features, even if I still suspect they might have a hidden agenda in supporting Linux.

The standout Edge privacy feature appears to be their tracker prevention options. From the outside, this looks somewhat similar to the ad and tracker blocker in Vivaldi browser with multiple levels of strictness, albeit with fewer user controls, such as being able to add and tweak which individual blocker sources are used. I also miss being able to quickly see if the tracker blocker is enabled or disabled on a site by site basis (in Vivaldi our Address bar shield allows you to see this).

Collections

Collections showing a note and selected/highlighted text in Edge on Linux browser.

Collections are another signature feature of Edge. They appear in a panel and provide a way for you to “collect” tabs, highlight sections of text from pages, and write basic notes. These notes can be notes in their own right or notes appended to one of the tabs you collected. You can also sync these to other devices (in theory – sync doesn’t yet work on Linux) where you have Edge installed, share them with Microsoft apps and services, or re-open all the pages listed within a collection, long after the tabs themselves are closed.

I recognize some of the use cases and potential workflows here from features found in Vivaldi, e.g. Notes and Saved sessions, and to an extent even bookmarks. In some ways combining these concepts might potentially make things easier. On the other hand, I felt like the notes functionality was subpar, given you cannot add screenshots (pages change after all) and the formatting options were much more limited. They are also missing a full-page notes editor. Still, I am not going to be too critical. It is certainly something different and feels like there might be some interesting innovations there, if I was to spend more time playing with it and understanding it.

Start page of Edge on Linux

The new tab/start page in Edge on Linux browser.

One of the first and most obvious differences between browsers is often how they handle the new tab/start page. Initially, Edge is largely reminiscent of the default Chromium start page but there are changes. The search engine is Bing rather than Google (more on that later).

They also have a news feed section at the bottom of the page (or the middle of it if you configure this via the settings). This does nothing for me personally and feels like spam. Particularly because it pops up with a red banner from below occasionally, when there is “breaking news”.

This feature could in fact lead you to question the privacy commitment. Their start page loads lots of external resources on opening, both external Javascript libraries and content of the news sources. These external resources may not be used to track the user but they could potentially be, which may be a concern for some. You can switch the news stuff off but it is fairly buried in custom/advanced start page layout settings.

While Vivaldi bundles default Speed Dials on our new tab/start page, they are not automatically loaded and can be deleted by the user without having to hunt through settings. Your best bet would probably be to use an extension to replace the new tab page entirely if you were to use this browser.

Search engines

Unsurprisingly the default search engine provided by Edge is Bing. Other than changing this default, it didn’t initially seem like they have done much to differentiate or improve how search works. However, after digging a little deeper I realized there was at least a setting to disable search suggestions (it just wasn’t immediately obvious). Unless I have missed it, this is not something I have seen in Chrome. Suggestions make tracking by the search engines much easier, as they are able to see pretty much everything you type in your address field when they are enabled. Vivaldi disables search engine suggestions by default, though they can easily be enabled for those that are willing to compromise privacy for convenience.

They are however missing several of other search features I hoped might be present, particularly in a browser that promotes its privacy credentials. There is no way to set a different/dedicated search engine for private windows. Vivaldi allows this and even starts you off with DuckDuckGo by default when you open a private window.

The thinking being that if you have gone to the trouble of opening a private window, you are already in a mindset where preventing tracking is especially important at that moment, and here a privacy-focused (non-tracking) search engine would be beneficial.

I also could not find a way to set the start page search engine and address bar to different engines, unless I left the start page search as Bing. Again this can be useful if you work with multiple search engines. Sure, Chromium’s search engine nicknames are supported but these are less convenient. When you attempt to use them the option to select your nicknamed search appears at the very bottom of the address field drop-down results.

Finally, like Chrome, you cannot set search requests to use ‘post’ rather than ‘get’ requests. This is a feature not all search engines support but privacy-minded search engines like Startpage do. Using a post request means that your search terms are not stored in your local URL history (one less thing to be seen by prying eyes sharing your computer), and it allows for additional protection against your query being passed to sites you subsequently visit via the “referer” header (yes, many search engines strip or alter the “referer” but you are left trusting this will always be true).

Proprietary Media and Encrypted Media Extensions (Widevine) support

Edge supports all common media types found on the web out of the box. This is not a surprise given the size of the company, their software patent coverage, and thus their ability to negotiate a good deal to handle the costly H.264 and AAC codecs that are used on so many websites.

In addition to supporting a wide range of codecs, many popular media sites such as Netflix also make use of a form of Digital Rights Management (DRM) called Encrypted Media Extensions. Chromium browsers typically handle this with Widevine, though Microsoft has their own EME system, called PlayReady.

Interestingly they are not using PlayReady (or at least not for the test build they have provided thus far) with Edge on Linux. Widevine is used.

Even more curious, a copy of Widevine is bundled with Edge. The reason I find this strange, is that it is not something I have seen any other Chromium-based browser do (besides Chrome) because the license agreement with Google/Widevine does not appear to allow it.

And yet another oddity, the Chromium component that updates Widevine seems to be non-functional or disabled. We can probably put this down to mistakes or teething problems with a dev version but it is something to keep an eye on because it could also mean that Microsoft has some special deal with Google, or perhaps that Widevine is only a stopgap and they will move to PlayReady.

Final thoughts

There are other changes that Microsoft has made but nothing else immediately jumped out at me or seemed significantly different or better, within the short time frame I spent looking.

Certainly it is nothing like as feature rich as Vivaldi. Nonetheless, I think it is an interesting addition to the Linux browser landscape and I actually really welcome it. Competition pushes us all further, something Microsoft forgot in the past when “embrace and extinguish” was their focus.

Also by pushing fixes and improvements upstream, all Chromium-based browsers benefit. They have a large team of developers, so there could be nice improvements to the engine in the future. Additionally, if they are truly serious about privacy, having another company on board certainly helps.

Would I use Edge on Linux myself? Unsurprisingly, the answer is no. It is missing too many of the features I love about Vivaldi, such as our very advanced tab management, and I think we have a much stronger privacy story.

But in an alternate dimension where Vivaldi didn’t exist, I suspect I would at least consider it before Chrome, and that is not something I would have imagined saying back when Google promoted “Don’t be evil!” and Microsoft was the antithesis of the Linux community. So, yeah… well done Microsoft. 😉

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