Vivaldi Social is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
Vivaldi Social is part of the Mastodon network and is hosted in Iceland by the makers of Vivaldi Browser. Everyone is welcome to join.

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Jon S. von Tetzchner

You are here. That makes you unique. You have made a good choice to take a step away from Big Tech. Now, get more people to join us. Help them with the initial process of setting things up.

If you have not done so already, download an alternative browser, such as Vivaldi as well. Consider whether you can move away from other Big Tech services. At Vivaldi, for example, we use Whereby for video conferences. Many of us have moved to Linux. Many of us use LibreOffice, instead of Microsoft office. There are options if you look for them. It is easy to go with Big Tech, but if you think the world would be better without them or if they had less power, know that you can make a difference.

@jon I was a Unix person, in the supercomputer era, but I’ve not paid much attention to Linux other than helping my daughter do some config stuff. As the push to MS 11 is getting annoying, do you have a Linux iteration you recommend?

@MissConstrue @jon

I use Debian extensively on my servers because it's rock solid.
But on my laptop I've got Kubuntu because there were some weird issues installing Debian.
And Plasma is pretty.
Typically folks recommend Mint to noobs coz it's most Windoze like, but you ain't a noob.
#linuxdistros

@n_dimension @jon Yeah, I’ve hesitated this long only because I have such an investment in legacy apps. I think I’m going to build air gapped win98 and a 7 box on some hardware I’ve got in the museum of tech that is my walk in closet, so I don’t have to worry about it.

@MissConstrue @jon

If you're not running legacy 24/7
Consider spinning up VirtualBox and run the legacy virtualised.
Only an issue if you have fancy I/O

@n_dimension @jon Believe it or not, I have code that requires dongles. Hand to god, hardware. I haven’t run it in years, cause … dongle! It only runs on a computer that may be a 386. I mostly keep it just to prove such a thing existed. 🤣. And 5” floppy disks. And a modem where you hung up your phone. I may be old. 🧙‍♀️

@n_dimension @jon The only modern stuff I’d really be worried about are illustrating apps and authoring app, and I think scrivener has a Linux distro. I already use open office.

@MissConstrue @jon I use Nobara, which is a fork of Fedora that is focused on gaming. However I have heard Mint is really good, especially for people wanting something user friendly and for transitioning over from Windows. I have not tried it, however I am considering swapping over to it.

@jon leaving the megacorp walled gardens isn't easy but it's worth it, but i wouldn't recommend vivaldi, it's still chromium so you're basically jumping from the fire into the pan, librewolf should be the go-to until ladybird is ready

@jon been trying out Vivaldi as for my sins I also use Windows and it would be nice for my browsers to all sync nicely with all my Apple devices.
One thing I've noticed with the iPad version is it's still got the horizontal tabs - I was hoping it would have a vertical tab bar like the desktop. Hoping this is something that's already been asked before 😇

@jon The problem with Vivaldi is it's not a good fit if you really like Firefox (at least the Firefox UI). AFAIK you can't even get rid of that sidebar on the left, or move it to the top. For many people Vivaldi is just too big a change; you take one look at it and instantly dislike it (and that sidebar is at least 50% of the problem).

@maple

You can toggle the sidebar with one key...

That being said, sometimes it is worth trying out new things. It may take a while to get used to, but there is a lot of functionality there that you just do not find anywhere else. Of course, I am biased, but this has been my experience with people trying us out.

@jon I don't want more functionality. And why should I have to remember some obscure key combination to turn off that sidebar? Why isn't there a setting to turn it off permanently? If it come down to a choice of 1. Having to be annoyed every time I open my browser by a sidebar that I don't want, and needing to look up the key combination to turn it off, or 2. Just not using Vivaldi, 2 will always be my choice. I truly wish developers would understand that not everyone has a good memory, it probably took me five to ten years to remember Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V for copying and pasting text (and I was a lot younger then). EVERYTHING else I have to look up.

I came close to failing so many classes in school because I was so terrible at memorization, if I hadn't figured out kind of a "cheat" for taking multiple choice tests I probably would have never graduated (no, it was not copying the answers from the person next to me).

@maple

There is a button in the lower left corner. Just click it. There is a menu item as well. Then there is the keyboard shortcut (F4).

I believe everyone has the right to get things their way. Thus this can be changed easily.

Now, there is a reason why most all other browsers have copied our idea with having a panel, but I also respect your right to not like it.

@jon Well I think this falls into kind of the same category as Linux users who like Vim or Vi rather than nano. They can talk until they are blue in the face but if a user's first exposure to an editor is that they can't close it without rebooting the system (or killing the process if they have any idea how to do that) then for most that will be the last time they ever use that editor. They will use nano for the rest of their lives. People are just like that (and I am one of those people).

With a browser, if something really annoys you (and sidebars do for some people) you really don't want to have to click an icon or press a key combination or make a menu selection to get rid of it. You just don't want it to be there at all. You want a setting to turn it off, and you kind of resent that it was shoved in your face in the first place.

And I don't know what browsers have copied that but I haven't seen it in either Firefox or Chromium (or certain variants I have tried).

@maple

You must simply have missed it. There is a setting for it. When I open up Vivaldi it opens up in the state I closed it, which includes the sidebar for specific workspaces even. In some workspaces I have both the sidebar and the ribbon “off”, on another workspace I have the ribbon but not the sidebar, and in another I have the sidebar out, defaulting to show my Fediverse account right next to my browsing so I can keep track of multiple things at the same time. If you don’t like that, just turn it off. It will stay turned off. :)

@jon

@maple @jon I tried Vivaldi a few months ago and said "bleh, too different!" And uninstalled it. Then something made me try again. This time I made an effort to use it and within a few days was sold on the UI. Now when I use Firefox I'm like "bleh!". For panel, hit F4 or in settings check Show Panel Toggle and click the little arrow that appears left side of panel. But it's nice once you realize how customizable it is.

@rspfau @jon Well, as far as I am concerned, if there is no way to permanently disable that sidebar then it is not customizable enough. And also, I really am not looking to have to learn another different way of doing things. I LIKE the way Firefox works, for the most part, but what I don't like is some of the things Mozilla has done (and don't get me started on Chrome, they can rot in hell for killing uBlock Origin). That is the only reason I would even consider looking at alternatives.

@maple Ah, then just don't use Vivaldi! I don't think it was designed to be a clone of Firefox.

@rspfau Okay, fair enough, I seriously doubt I ever will use it.

@maple There's lots of things I'll never use!

@jon If you want me to start using Vivaldi, you need to ditch WebKit first. AFAIK that is now possible in the EU with the latest iOS?

Already using Vivaldi on all my computers tho

@jm2c

Our goal is to not use Webkit on iOS, just like on all other platforms. That is still not possible to do.

We are hoping things will improve, but clearly Apple is fighting this.

@jon appreciate your work! Keep it up, I will keep using and recommending Vivaldi

@jon, are there any plans to open source Vivaldi?

@jon I use it as a backup browser in case Firefox have some issues with a site (recently Twitch freezes a lot). I was also a fan of the 'old' Opera (used the last 12.** until it became borderline unusable). Still waiting for you to swim across the Atlantic Ocean. 😂