Jon von Tetzchner, CEO and founder of Vivaldi Technologies, refuses to integrate AI features in its browser and wants human engineers, not AI, to write its code.
Imagine that tomorrow Tetschner goes crazy and starts dating a Chinese spy. Or joins the Trumpist sect…
If we ignore privacy and open-source considerations for a moment, Vivaldi has been one of my favorite browsers. They embraced vertical tabs, they offer customizability instead of forcing everyone into the same mold, and it doesn’t have all the anti-features (AI specifically) that some other browsers have.
I’m gonna give them a high five while continuing to use LibreWolf/IronFox.
I think AI should be a choice, not something every browser has to push on its users. Everyone has their own preferences.
So just the way Firefox does it? Only local models, all configurable?
The recent controversy on House House makes me (only a little) worried that for the next century, most people will be hardline 100% never-AI, instead of just “Stop shoving it everywhere, stop copying artwork”. As people like Bernie have said, it’s an automation technology that can have nice effects should those use cases receive careful consideration. We just don’t often get that consideration.
I will never understand why the push to AI was so freaking AGGRESSIVE. Like, take it, shove it down your throat, avoidance of AI is BANNED, type of bullshit. It should speak for itself when it works.
Im never leaving zen, its been stable for a while now, was so ass when I started using it, now I never lose anything, forgot it used to be rough
Does the vimium plugin work on zen yet? That was the only pain point that was holding me back from switching last time I tried it.
For anyone saying it’s Chromium based as a reason to not use it: how is Mozilla any better at this point? Can you point to anything notable and positive that Mozilla has done in the past idk 10 years or so? They won’t even include adblocking with their browser our of fear they lose Google’s support.
Ad-blocker extensions aren’t crippled, browsers are fully open source including cloud services instead of Google’s open core model and Mozilla has a better track record on this sort of stuff. Also technically Firefox does have built-in ad blocking capabilities now but for some reason there isn’t a UI for it yet.
I’d consider not making adblocking built in part of the browser to be crippling the browser, who wants that? But if Mozilla did include it they’d lose millions in funding from guess who.
If you go to
about:configand enableprivacy.trackingprotection.content.protection.enabled, then you can add the blocklists toprivacy.trackingprotection.content.protection.test_list_urlsand use the built-in adblocker. I think Waterfox also builts a UI on top of this.
Maintaining a viable cross platform 3rd party browser with proper extensions support including Ublock and strict tracking controls?
It’s not “proper extensions support” if they don’t work half the time, and start working only after the website is loaded. Breaks gestures support completely, for instance.
Firefox is great, don’t get me wrong, but there’s A LOT wrong with its extensions system.
None of that is unique to Firefox though. Vivaldi has all those features too and adblock don’t even require an extension its just built in, Mozilla doesn’t even include adblocking by default.
An additional engine is important because otherwise the implementation becomes the standard instead of the engine following the standard. That is a risk to further competition. We saw that when IE won too hard over Netscape.
HIRE THIS MAN
Yeah, loved Vivaldi until it started randomly corrupting my profiles after not starting up correctly. Now I’m back on Firefox -_-
remember when they let Homer design a car?
same shit happens when users get to design software.
based af. I’m installing Vivaldi right now, holy shit.
It’s Chromium based.
I’m uninstalling it right now!
I kinda find this idea cool like theres other browsers like Firefox that makes AI optional to choose
I use AI on a daily basis and I don’t want AI in my browser. The desire to integrate AI into everything is not smart.
They’re right. Vivaldi is based
…on chromium
the superior browser engine sorry not sorry (i’ve had way too much trouble with everything gecko-based even though i want to support it, the technical issues make it nearly impossible)
Bro looked at steams pro consumer behavior and thought “hmm, I wonder if I could do that too?”
also, yall stop fighting about web browsers because all web browsers capable of the bloated standards are de facto corporate controlled
I just vibe code my own browser, with blackjack and hookers.
