I recently discovered I couldn’t set a static “new tab” page on Chrome or Firefox (or Opera) without installing a 3rd party extension. I could set a new homepage pointing to a local file on browser startup, but not for each new tab.
Enter Vivaldi. Beyond pure configurability, it’s a great compliment to i3, and that’s the main motivation for this post. I still encourage you to give Vivaldi a spin regardless of your environment — it can be tailored to any workflow and I’d be surprised if mainstream browsers don’t start borrowing from it soon.
I tinkered with Firefox keyboard navigation extensions a few years ago, but the value-add was never worth the spotty functionality or cost of learning keybinds. I can’t say whether things have improved since then, but Vivaldi’s element-wise navigation is a killer feature for me. Shift+arrow key lets you jump between any and all page elements:
Everything — from the status bar contents to the tab layout to the preferred datetime format - is fair game for customization. This may be a turnoff for some, but if you’re running i3 or some other lightweight DE/WM I’ll assume you’re not among that cohort. I’m a big fan of the desktop-style previewed tab switching:
Vivaldi’s launcher is rofi/dmenu for the browser. So far it’s been able to handle any action I throw at it, to include:
The same plethora of actions available in the launcher can be tied to mouse gestures:
Keep your cherished screen real estate without switching to a tiling WM:
Vivaldi’s wealth of options and functionality risks drowning users. It offers three browser flavors to head this problem off: Essential, Classic, and Fully Loaded. Still, even in Fully Loaded, features like Command Chains (imho) are tempting but overengineered diversions.
I’m more simple contrarian than I am browser guru, so it could very well be that I’m missing features in established browsers, or missing other browsers/solutions entirely. I’ll be forever indebted if anyone can explain why the officially recommended (Mozilla blessed?) New Tab Override extension isn’t just a feature in Firefox