Vivaldi explains how it managed to speed up the browser
Vivaldi Technologies released version 3.7 of its Vivaldi web browser recently. Vivaldi 3.7 included major performance boosts, specifically in regards to tabs and windows in the browser. Performance benchmarks released by the company suggest that the browser opens tabs twice as fast as before now and that windows open 26% faster than before.
One question that arose from this was how Vivaldi's engineers managed to integrate the speed improvements in the browser, considering that it is based on Chromium, the same core that many other browsers, including Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Brave and Opera use.
The company published a blog post on its site explaining how it integrated the improvements in the browser:
We have essentially reworked the PageStore, a component we like to think of as the beating heart of the Vivaldi UI. The PageStore is where tabs store information about their state so that they can access the information later.
Engineers changed the logic of PageStore, a major component that is part of Vivaldi. The improved PageStore will ignore change scenarios that don't change anything effectively; this reliefs the user interface from having to react to these changes and that in turn improves the performance.
Vivaldi Technologies made the changes to the parts of the browser that are specific to the Vivaldi browser, and not to the Chromium core. If the improvements would have been made to the Chromium core, all browsers based on Chromium would benefit from these improvements.
By focusing on improving the performance of these unique parts of the browser, Vivaldi Technologies managed to give the browser a performance boost that is significant and only applies to it and not to other Chromium-based browsers.
One criticism that Vivaldi faced in recent years was that it was a bit slower than other Chromium-based browsers. While it is still very fast, it is probably the Chromium-based browser with the highest level of customization options, and that impacts performance somewhat.
Vivaldi users will benefit from the improvements made to the performance of the web browser, and the changes, implemented in Vivaldi 3.7 and future changes, may attract more users to the browser as well.
Now You: have you tried the recent version of Vivaldi? Did you notice any performance improvements?
@Michael: Isn’t uMatrix on indefinite hiatus? I’m pretty sure it’s no longer being actively developed, at least for the time being. In Pale Moon I use a fork (eMatrix) that still *is* being actively developed, but I’m not up to date on alternative script-blockers for other browsers. I see that Tor Browser (based on Firefox ESR) still uses NoScript (in its WebExtension incarnation), but I don’t know how the WebExtension version rates compared to the legacy-extension version. Anyway, I’m just saying that even if the last uMatrix release still works fine, it might not continue to do so indefinitely.
All these “let’s spend thousands of man-hours in optimizations, remove essential browser features, send already compiled code by Cloudflare, … to be 2% faster” or even worse “let’s preload pages that are linked in the current one or let’s channel all web traffic through our servers for great speed” from browser vendors are a disease.
When user interest could be combined with much more significant performance improvements simply by… blocking all the useless and nefarious junk pages load.
Ublock origin on a browser that supports it. All other “performance” promises are to be comparatively ignored or treated as hiding something hostile.
‘ll try out Vivaldi3.8 snapshot but i just dont love this bloatware enough to use it permanently, if im gonna use a Chromium based browser i’d prefer Microsoft Edge, i have tried Brave. it was OK.
Its still slower than Cent Browser and Firefox on my machine, out of the box without any extensions.
@Tom Hawack: While I don’t disagree, this is the new normal for nearly all websites. Sorry, but I don’t think we’ll sway the website owners here or anywhere with our arguments. I gave up on eBay today because they’ve made it too hard to place an order (lots of 3rd party connections to enable and still didn’t get the payment link working). IF you don’t already use one or more, you need a good content blocker (uBlock and uMatrix for example). It’s extra work to screen the connections, but it’s the only sane way to browse for people who care. And while I hate the new orange home page here, the latest posts page is a good substitute to bookmark.
” I gave up on eBay today because they’ve made it too hard to place an order (lots of 3rd party connections to enable and still didn’t get the payment link working). ”
Not sure why it’s so hard for you to place an order an Ebay, I never have that problem. If your worried about tracking or some such, just do what I do, which is to configure a browser(any will do) to delete all cookies on closing(do this after every purchase) and use that browser only for any online purchases. Done.
@Michael, you “don’t think we’ll sway the website owners here or anywhere with our arguments.” and I don’t either, especially when exasperation as mine is expressed as such rather than with arguments.
Individually we take actions, those you mention and many others allows a privacy-committed user to avoid the worst, at least the worst. But I admit that I happen to feel revolted even when I manage, personally, to not be directly concerned, precisely because of counter privacy invasion put in place, the place being a connected device. Above all I happen to feel desperate maybe less by the bad guys than by the good ones who surrender without fighting, and that is today’s web lot, unfortunately. The moral could be, pragmatically speaking, why did I ever comment this exasperation given it obviously will appear as unproductive? Emotion, my friend, what remains when the battle is lost. Not to mention I was totally off-topic. We could call that a bug in one’s rationalist constellation.
Great news. The best browser gets better.
No, I did not notice anything. But it’s nice to see they are trying to address the biggest complain of their users.
It doesn’t matter to me what they do UNTIL they allow installing it on an external drive (app and profile). My C: drive is almost full just with Windows. So one of those is all I can stand.
https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/install-update/standalone-version-of-vivaldi/ (or even https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=2869 or https://portableappz.blogspot.com/2015/01/vivaldi-108338-multilingual-tech-preview.html)
@Michael
Vivaldi can be installed in ‘Portable’ mode using the installer – select standalone and therefore be placed on an external drive.
Ghacks dot net is taking increasing time to open
Moreover The Markup reports [https://themarkup.org/blacklight?url=ghacks.net] :
”
7 Ad trackers found on this site.
13 Third-party cookies were found.
This site allows Google Analytics to follow you across the internet.
This site uses Google Analytics and seems to use its â€remarketing audiences†feature that enables user tracking for targeted advertising across the internet. This feature allows a website to build custom audiences based on how a user interacts with this particular site and then follow those users across the internet and target them with advertising on other sites using Google Ads and Display & Video 360. A Google spokesperson told The Markup that site operators are supposed to inform visitors when data collected with this feature is used to connect this browsing data with someone’s real-world identity. You know when those shoes you were looking at follow you around the internet? This is one of the trackers leading to that. This feature appeared in fifty percent of popular websites when we scanned them in September 2020
”
I’ve been a Ghacks user perhaps practically ever since it was launched but once sold, the new owner is slowly but surely bringing this one honorable place to a blend of quality articles as before with a junkyard of privacy issues.
I think enough is enough, we’re on the line here. No offense Martin, this comment is dedicated to the owners.
Martin,
Break free!
Start another blog :-)
@Break free: Ghax0r.net! It’s available! ;-)
I keep trying this browser, and there is a lot to love. But that’s sort of the problem. At heart I’m a minimalist who hates having to root through unnecessary pages, options and dialog boxes for the few things I actually need in a browser. When I do need something more I’ll usually add an extension. When I need a Crome-based browser I use Brave, although I wish it would stop using that awful, partially-implemented QR-code synchronization. For all its warts my go-to browser remains Firefox.
Much faster than olderversion. Impressive.
Been using Vivaldi for months now and really like its customization possibilities. The 3.7 speed up is indeed noticeable.
However, the update also killed the possibility to rearrange tabs in private mode and I’m not the only one complaining about it https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/58358/restore-old-animation-of-moving-tabs.
In essence vivaldi is not really a browser but a webapp.A bundled add on used in conjunction with chromium.They have sped up their “interface app” which to be truthful should of been done from the start.
Brave browser used to use something similar,the “electron app” but brave developers realised this came with a huge performance hit,so they reverted to the vanilla chromium interface.
Vivaldi developers are trying to cram extensions into the browser.It is essentially bloating it out.
I have truly attempted to like this browser on linux but there are too many niggles and bugs to be considered stable.
@computer,
@ShintoPlasm,
I agree too.
My friends and I had high hopes for Vivaldi, which was a fresh start from Opera, which was taken over by the Chinese capital. And we’ve been quite involved in the Vivaldi community forums. Over the years, it has become clear to us that they have no ability to develop a real browser, and are just a “web app” that adds niche features to Chromium. As such, it never improves performance and continues to bloat with “unsolvable bugs”.
Even more disgusting is the addition of “é–¢è¥¿å¼ – Japanese (Kansai)” to Japanese, and local languages such as “bokmÃ¥l” and “nynorsk” to Norwegian, advancing specifications that increase the risk on fingerprinting.
They were seen as a problem in the forums, but eventually none of us used Vivaldi anymore because it would not change with no questions asked.
At first glance, Vivaldi looks “interesting” and you may want to try it, but many people will stop using it after a year. The user base is destined to “up to down (move forward, but also move backward), never expand, and eventually become jittery”.
I like “Brave” for Chromium, but for real-world use, I’m back to Firefox ESR, where Tree Style Tab is available.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/
Sentence correction:
Wrong
At first glance, Vivaldi looks “interesting†and you may want to try it, but many people will stop using it after a year. The user base is destined to “up to down (move forward, but also move backward), never expand, and eventually become jitteryâ€.
Correct
At first glance, Vivaldi looks “interesting†and you may want to try it, but many people will stop using it after a year. The user base is destined to “even if it goes up, it will eventually come down (move forward, but also move backward), never expand, and eventually become jitteryâ€.
Agree with your description.
Vivaldi is still awesome because of how feature-rich and customizable it is. I hope they never abandon it even though it is not as popular. The world needs at least one browser that isn’t dumbed down.
> it is probably the Chromium-based browser with the highest level of customization options, and that impacts performance somewhat.
Loading pages in Vivaldi is not slower (in some significant values) than in Сhromium / other Chromium-based browsers. The performance problem is the speed (responsiveness) of the interface.
I believe that the performance problem of the Vivaldi is not in the number of settings (highest level of customization options), but in the selected technology stack on which Vivaldi’s interface is built. After all, the interface is built on HTML/CSS/JS.
Interestingly, yes I did notice that tabs were opening faster, but I didn’t know why until I read your article.
I love this browser. Especialy in work and on tablet. Great features and functions.
“that windows open 26% faster than before”
Wow! So windows open in 1 blink of an eye instead of two.
What a waste of time. Browser speed shouldn’t be an issue for most anyone these days with modern computers.
Why not work on something more meaningful, like new browser functionality or UI’s? Maybe 3d browsing? Cube browsing?
What a weird way of self-praise or self-promotion. Their browser is still significantly slower compared to other Chromium browsers and Widevine doesn’t even work properly. I tried using Vivaldi again, but when I realized Widevine doesn’t work, I gave up on it.
* [Editor: URL removed]
Try this (on Vivaldi) and see if it works for you. It doesn’t work for me. Out of all the Chromium browsers that I tried, it only worked on Brave and Chrome, nothing else.
You have a problem with your distrib.
And don’t ask me how I knew you were a Linux user.
Information you don’t need: they have a solution on their website.
Didn’t know Windows 10 was a Linux distro. xD
Yes, I tried the new Vivaldi 3.7. And indeed for my feeling it is substantially faster than my default Firefox browser. Have not measured the timings, so it is only for my feeling but still.
My main problem with Vivaldi is it difficult handling of tabs, bookmarks, possibility of 2nd tab row, (which is reducing the vertical size of a useful window and thus very much disadvantages on nowadays wide screen formats) and filling of a bookmark toolbar.
Further more Vivaldi does its work and the standard adguard and anti tracker feature is much welcome.