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Man, I really miss the skins in Opera 12, there were some gorgeous ones. I agree that the email client is not necessarily a priority, however

> Every other major browser opens the link in a background tab, keeping the focus in the tab you're currently on.

Oh wow, that's pretty bad for every other major browser. We have two use cases: 1) I want to open the link in a new tab and switch focus (presumably to read right now). 2) I want to open the link in a new tab and not switch focus (presumably to read later). In Vivaldi you can achieve (1) by "open link in new tab", and (2) by "open link in background tab". In Chrome you can achieve (2) but no way of achieving (1) without touching the keyboard. And even when using the keyboard the shortcuts are clunkier (ctrl+shit+click vs shift+click in Vivaldi), which is probably not even relevant since I regularly observe Chrome users (programmers nonetheless) using "open link in new tab" and then clicking the new tab. We should keep in mind that most browser users are not power users. Which leads me to

> but Chrome has acclimated us to some slightly different default behaviors

It's the wrong default behaviors, and ~8 years ago I could have listed you a dozen epic failures of Chrome/Firefox usability. I sincerely doubt there's some elaborate reasoning for why they behaved badly, most likely it was just inertia and "works good enough". One of my pet peeves is that Chrome/Firefox don't restore your last tab session by default, which I find extremely annoying: a regular user who doesn't even know how to open the browser options will always have to reopen the previous tabs when restarting the PC.

Nowadays I rarely use Chrome/Firefox so I can't make a detailed browser comparison anymore, but from what I've been seeing there's no reason to think they're anywhere near as good as Opera 12 used to be. I agree that the usability changes could be a shock for new Vivaldi users but it shouldn't be too hard to adapt to a better way of doing things.

Indeed, you CAN get to the common behavior by clicking an item further down on the context menu... or by pressing some unholy keyboard combination.

But to be frank, it's clunky and I'm simply not going to bother so long as Opera is being actively developed. If Opera did stop, or turned into Chinese malware or something, then I would probably just jump over to Firefox and use plugins for the most Opera-like experience possible. Because sync is a must-have (including desktop and mobile)... and we'll just have disagree on whether 99.8% of the browser market has made "incorrect" UX choices on how to open a link.

This reaction IS what I was talking about, and does seem at odds with Vivaldi's branding and marketing. The website slogans include, "It's your web. Surf it the way you want!", " A million ways to customize everything!", etc. But suggest letting users customize Vivaldi so that common new tab behavior is the default, and ancient Opera behavior is the one requiring extra clicks... and suddenly customization is bad, and the way people want to surf the web is objectively wrong.

Come ON. Figure out what the purpose of Vivaldi is, and proceed accordingly. If the purpose is to re-implement Opera 12 out of spite toward a former employer, then that's fine... but don't have the marketing revolve around customization. If the purpose really IS customization, then don't be so hostile or dismissive when users request customization options that depart from Opera 12.

All disagreements aside, I would really like understand why you feel "open in new tab" should not focus the new tab (apart from habit). In my experience Chrome users click "open in new tab" and then click the newly opened tab anyway, which is one extra mouse click and more mouse movement than in Vivaldi/Opera12 where you only have to click 'open in new tab' (fewer clicks and less mouse movement overall, it's obviously more efficient). I'm pretty sure you don't intend to argue that non-power users will employ the ctrl+shift+click shortcut. And if you don't want to focus the tab then you can simply use the middle mouse button (same results on all browsers), or you can go 15 pixels lower and click 'open in background tab'.

Funny that I also came up with the 15 pixels value in my answer to steveperkins, though I second guessed myself and replaced it by "few" pixels.

Is it 15 pixels really a valid approximation ?

This is how teachers spot cheaters on tests. And no, 30 pixels is a better approximation.

Probably just a coincidence (in my case it might be related to how 14 used to be a common font size in my documents). On my current monitor (2560x1600) the value is more like 25-30 pixels.

If I want to shift focus to a different page immediately, then I simply click the link. Then use the "back" button when I want to return.

If I'm right-clicking to open in a new tab, then it's usually because I want to open multiple links on a page while scrolling through it. So I want those loaded up in the background, and I want to remain on the original page until I've finished reading the material there.

Yes, you CAN do these things in Vivaldi... by using three-finger keyboard shortcuts, scrolling further down in a context menu, or using a wonky middle mouse button that most non-Solaris users never use.

I'm a bit perplexed by the response, though. This is Hacker News. We nod in approval as people reject text editors over the most obscure and trivial of UX preferences. We anticipate that when a blog link is posted, half of the discussion will revolve around its font kerning rather than its content. Etc.

So here you have a web browser, the application that most of us spend the overwhelming majority of our computer-time using. It's primary marketing pitch is extensive support for customization. It has some UX quirks that are out of step with the other major browsers, and it's baffled that anyone might want to customize that.

Hey, implement the suggestion or not, that's their call. But dismissing a customization out-of-hand as "incorrect" sure does cut against its own marketing. I think that's a bigger deal than my 15 pixels. It's an indication that the real goal is creating the perfect successor for Opera 12 die-hards. Which is awesome for that tiny group of individuals, but I don't think it's going to lead to any serious traction beyond them.

> a wonky middle mouse button that most non-Solaris users never use.

I've read through your other comments in this thread, and while most of them contain some form of generalization or another, to me this is the most baffling.

As I read his replies, I was immediately thinking "why not just use middle click"?

Then I saw that line and was just confused. Maybe he has a mouse with a really terrible scroll wheel and has assumed that all scroll wheels are terrible and that no one ever middle clicks?

> Yes, you CAN do these things in Vivaldi... by using three-finger keyboard shortcuts, scrolling further down in a context menu, or using a wonky middle mouse button that most non-Solaris users never use.

Ummm, the middle mouse button is the way to open links in a background tab (the right button is for opening up a context menu, with links as with anything else on the computer). AFAIK, every modern mouse comes with a middle mouse button, disguised as the scroll wheel.

What perplexes me is why anyone would want anything else.

> If I want to shift focus to a different page immediately, then I simply click the link. Then use the "back" button when I want to return.

There are lots of cases where you want to keep your original tab and the new tab, e.g. reading an article which contains references to other articles, going through a list of tickets in a bug tracker (the list pattern can be applied to anything - games, amazon items, whatever). I also keep the original tab because I might not be finished reading it or because I want to use it for a later reference, and opening a new page in the same tab might make me forget that I was reading another page to begin with.

> It has some UX quirks that are out of step with the other major browsers, and it's baffled that anyone might want to customize that.

I'm not against customization, just saying that for most people the Vivaldi/Opera way might make more sense. I can see why you in particular would dislike this work flow, and it makes sense there should be a checkbox allowing you to maintain your way of using the browser.

> It's an indication that the real goal is creating the perfect successor for Opera 12 die-hards.

I think it actually might be their official goal, as the browsers on the market don't offer what Opera 12 used to. And it's probably the right thing to do as a business too, since it's unlikely anyone would pay attention to a Chrome/Firefox clone.

> but I don't think it's going to lead to any serious traction beyond them.

It won't, but that has nothing to do with the product's intrinsic quality. Unless Vivaldi's marketing budget matches Google's I don't see their market share getting into double digits. But you know what? That's ok. Opera 12 used to do relatively fine with 3-4%.

Sorry, this turned into a typical 90s flame war. I think you have a valid point that Vivaldi should provide options despite what you and I might think are the correct defaults.

> or using a wonky middle mouse button that most non-Solaris users never use

.... What?

I've always used windows, OSX and occasionally linux (have never used solaris) and I've always found middle click to open links in the background to be incredibly convenient, and I highly doubt that it's as rarely used as you're implying (especially considering that every single browser I can think of implements that behavior, I doubt they would bother if no one used it).

Middle clicking to close tabs is also incredibly convenient.

I wonder what you are talking about, Opera did stop and turned into a Chrome clone which brought vivaldi and otter into existence to close the gap it left.

I don't get Where the extra click you are talking about is, either click on open in new tab or open in background tab, same number of click.

I'm not sure what kind of customization you are asking for, you want to remove the choice of opening in background tab ?

What is this common / default behavior you are talking about ? AFAIK the common, default, standard behavior of right clicking has always been to bring up the contextual menu. Where is it not like that ?

I am not aware of vivaldi users requesting a change of the expected behavior to be more chrome like, AFAIK it is the other way around: keep the old opera goodness and keep catering to power users and provide choice.

> I don't get Where the extra click you are talking about is, either click on open in new tab or open in background tab, same number of click.

Vivaldi: right click -> "Open in new tab" = two clicks

Chrome: right click -> "Open in new tab" -> click the newly opened tab = three clicks

If you're only opening a single link, then sure.

But if you're only opening a single link, then why use a new tab to begin with? Just click the link ("one click!"), and go back to the previous page if and when you want. If I'm opening links in new tabs, its generally because I'm reading a page, and queuing up things to read after I finish that initial page.

Some of the old-Opera diehards in this thread are acting like 99% of the browser market has made an objectively "incorrect" UX choice. That is absolute nonsense. You guys don't prefer the old-Opera new tab behavior because of some objective truth, you prefer it simply because that was the old-Opera behavior and you're used to it.

Objectively speaking, it is already the behavior of a default single-click to change focus. So if users take extra steps to open links in some different manner, then it's actually kinda weird to expect them to want the same focus-change behavior as if they hadn't taken those extra steps. Which is probably why every other browser has gone in that direction over the past decade. But I can acknowledge that preferences may vary.

Are you sure you replied to the right comment? I was correcting a misconception that three clicks equals two clicks, not stating an opinion about the issue. It takes me 30 seconds at most to readjust to a different browser's context menu, and I don't complain about it. I'm certainly not an "old-Opera diehard" as you suggested; I haven't used that browser in over a decade and the only thing I ever liked about it was the email integration, as I stated in another comment.

As an aside, what is a "power user" of a web browser? Almost everyone these days in any kind of office job makes very heavy use of the web for research and apps. People proclaiming themselves as "power users" are just trying to imagine that they have some sort of weird superiority because of their idiosyncratic UI preferences. What a strange thing to be proud of.

You obviously never used Opera 12 :) power user in a browser has the same meaning as everywhere else - someone who is more skilled at using a tool than the average user. For example a regular user will go back to the previous page by pressing the 'back' button, or 'backspace' if they're keyboard inclined. A power user would use the "hold right click - press left click" mouse gesture (or a different variant that involves holding right click down and moving the mouse), which shaves some time off from the whole operation. Same for switching tabs (hold right click + scroll mouse wheel), opening new tabs (mouse gesture), customizing tabs (e.g. on the left side if you have the screen space) and generally knowing what options and features your browser offers. This basically means that as a power user you can do whatever a regular user can do, but more efficiently.

It's not a thing to be proud of, or some sort of weird imagined superiority as you put it, it's a fact that in a browser I can do stuff much more efficiently than most of my peers. Of course, this doesn't really matter unless your job revolves around a browser, in which case you could probably shave 10 or more minutes per day (relevant when juggling with tabs a lot, for managers/P.O.s/Scrum masters and such).

Of course, the term "power user" doesn't make sense when talking about barebones browsers (like the old IE), just like it doesn't make sense in Git (where everywhere needs to be a power user, you can't just casually use it like in Hg, without spending lots of time learning it).

This reaction IS what I was talking about, and does seem at odds with Vivaldi's branding and marketing. The website slogans include, "It's your web. Surf it the way you want!", " A million ways to customize everything!", etc. But suggest letting users customize Vivaldi so that common new tab behavior is the default, and ancient Opera behavior is the one requiring extra clicks... and suddenly customization is bad, and the way people want to surf the web is objectively wrong.

I don't think the Vivaldi team has said anything against letting you customize that option. Probably that customization is just not implemented yet.

>I want to open the link in a new tab and switch focus (presumably to read right now)

So click the link and read it - if you want to go back use the back button. I think 2) is by far more common for me and makes sense as a default - but maybe that's just because I got used to it.

GP: and the response from the devs is simply to grumble that old-school Opera was best and all other browsers today have bad defaults

P: It's the wrong default behaviors

You're talking past each other.

Almost everyone I know using email for business uses a desktop client - usually Mac Mail, sometimes thunderbird.

A new client that isn't quite so neglected would be very welcome.

My circle of Friends and Family contains a few Outlook[0] diehards as well.

I sympathize, as I was an Evolution loyalist for a very long time. It started crashing under the load of multi-GB folders, so I migrated to GMail.

I was considering switching to Thunderbird when they dissolved Mozilla Messaging[1]. Now my G-Suite storage is running up against the free limits, so I will probably be looking at migrating email back to the desktop this year.

[0] No, not Outlook Express (with it's support for NNTP), I mean the version of Outlook that is part of Office.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Messaging

I'm using Thunderbird and I can't wait for a mail client comparable to the old Opera's to switch. It would be fantastic.

it would be nice if Trojita was ready for everyday use.

Another use case is someone like me. I absolutely love Fastmail's web client, it's better than any other web client I've used including Gmail. However, I also have a few email addresses for domains that I own, and I don't want to deal with clunky forwarding; I prefer to use them as-is. For those it's much, much easier to use a good desktop client rather than set up and maintain Roundcube or even SquirrelMail on my servers.

Windows 10's Mail app is not quite up to the task; it's fine for Outlook.com webmail but I need something much more powerful on Windows without having to buy Outlook proper (on Linux this obviously isn't an issue, there is a wealth of good desktop email clients for X and the console). So far I've been doing well with Thunderbird, but I'm tempted to give Vivaldi a shot since I was always a fan of Opera's email integration.

Check out polymail.co

> the Vivaldi guys insist on pouring resources into an integrated desktop email client instead, because that was a signature feature of Opera back in the day.

Really? That's dumb. Why would I want my browser to check my email? That should be another program, or just a webpage. The browser browses the internet.

Perhaps I'm not the audience, as I've always liked the Unix "do one thing and do it well" approach.

> The browser browses the internet.

You mean 'the World Wide Web' [1] since 'the Internet' includes other protocols than HTTP(S) such as SMTP, POP3, and IMAP.

Nowadays, Node is everywhere. Slack, using JavaScript, is replacing IRC. One of the best e-mail clients is Nylas N1 which uses JavaScript under the hood. Hyper is a terminal using JavaScript. Discord is becoming the defacto standard for VoIP gaming, and uses JavaScript under the hood. In a way, the WWW -via JavaScript- is invading the space of the traditional protocols.

You may find that bloat, but all of the above applications provide an excellent user experience. The UIs work very well.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web

> The UIs work very well.

Maybe on your top-of-the-line computer. On my two-year-old Macbook Air, browsing the web is pure frustration, because everything is slow. Don't even get me started on how inferior Slack is compared to a local IRC client.

Kind of off-topic, but is a two year old Mackbook Air having problems with just browsing the web? Because if it's not a "top-of-the-line computer", it sure costs more than one.

This thread spurred me to do some testing, and it turned out that the "HTTPS everywhere" extension was slowing down pageloads in Firefox by MULTIPLE SECONDS. https://www.tithess.gr/ loaded in 1.3 seconds in Chrome and 6.8 in Firefox. Disabling HTTPS everywhere brought them to parity, but I'm going to switch to Vivaldi, I think.

I've been having problems with slowness for years with this. I dreaded having to open the browser every time. Hopefully now it will be a better, and it's looking much better so far...

> Maybe on your top-of-the-line computer. On my two-year-old Macbook Air, browsing the web is pure frustration, because everything is slow.

I recently replaced my 15" MBP 2010 with a 15" MBP 2015, but that wasn't because of the speed of applications.

Try to use some browser addons to make the web work quicker, like uBlock.

> Don't even get me started on how inferior Slack is compared to a local IRC client.

Slack is just one example. Personally, I'm not a proponent of a proprietary software client based on open standards (stuff like Electron, JS, etc). IRC is just a protocol, with many clients available.

I'm not sure about the excellent user experience and UIs working well.

Im my experience of fixing computers for everyday people with not so fast DSL connections, those javascript based things usually have terrible performance and causes problems by breaking basic web browser functionalities such as history and bookmarks that those people rely on.

Then there are the UI issue of too small resolution, or increased font size to help with bad vision and many other accessibility concerns.

But I suppose that if you are using a recent computer, on a large flat screen, on high speed internet connection, and do not use privacy related features such as ublock, noscript or policy control you probably enjoy a flawless experience.

To me relying only on javascript for your web service or site is akin to answering the customer phone line 0.5% of the time by saying "f* ck you * ssh* le, I sh*t on your ugly face".

Fair enough regarding websites, but I was talking about rich feature clients for usage other than the WWW ie. other protocols than HTTP(S).

If you prefer, you're free to use more lightweight applications.

I could mention you're free to put JS off, but I know that isn't always feasible. I agree w/you that this sucks. Majorly.

> Another example is right-clicking a link in Vivaldi, to open it in a new tab.

I've always used the middle click to open a new tab in background. Vivaldi has the same behavior in this regard.

>I just don't WANT a re-implementation of Opera from 15 years ago. I'm sorry, but desktop email is dead for most of us.

Well, those "most of you" clearly are not the target audience. And you're not the majority either, I should add.

Sounds like you just want Chrome, to be frank.

Nope. Like I said, I use Opera:

* It still has a more impressive array of power user features than Chrome or Firefoxv

* It's sync service is more reliable than the other two.

* It works with Chrome extensions, and has no compatibility issues with websites (unless a site is stupid enough to check with User-Agent headers, and those can be spoofed with an extension in the worst-case).

* Last but not least, Opera has the best mobile browser on the planet (something that isn't even on Vivaldi's radar yet), supporting sync between your desktop and mobile instances.

Basically, it's the perfect blend of power and acknowledgment of contemporary reality today.

Now don't get me wrong... I'm nervous about Opera's recent sale to China, and I certainly could be swayed toward something else. But Vivaldi feels like little more than a "protest" of Opera changes since ver. 12, and I believe that the protesters are in the minority of what is already a small community to begin with.

I wish them well, but would love to see them be something truly different. Go truly open source, instead of making your code publicly visible yet still proprietary. Give more customization options, so users can choose between old-Opera or modern-browser behaviors. No one seriously expects you to "take over the world", but don't just be Opera 12.1 forever out of spite.

From what you say, it seems to me you don't use opera, but the chrome skin they decided to keep the name of the actual browser for marketing reasons.

I use opera since version 8.5 and I had to pin the v12.16 package to keep using it, which I still do today because there is no alternative to the features it had. And I have no idea what you are talking about, the whole opera supporters who supported it through the years pretty much agree the blink based opera sucks really hard and are happy to have vivaldi as an attempt to get back the awesomeness opera lost when it switched to making profit first.

Hey man, Opera has a tremendous legacy of innovation in the WWW, and I'm honestly glad that some entity is carrying on the old Opera spirit for you guys. You're a tiny community, but a passionate one.

I'm just saying that it's not realistic to expect Vivaldi to significantly influence the industry today, the way that old Opera did 15 years ago. If you desire serious adoption, then you're making choices that set you up for a battle you're not going to win.

If you don't care whether Vivaldi gets any traction at all, and are just glad that someone's keeping Opera 12.x going, then that's cool too. But I dunno... if Opera 12.x wasn't a viable business model, then how is Vivaldi going to financially sustain itself over the long term either?

>I use Opera

You might want to be more specific than that. Are you using version 12 or earlier, or 15 and later (currently sitting at about 43)?

>Opera has the best mobile browser on the planet

I haven't checked recently, but last I remember you couldn't disable Opera Turbo.

>don't just be Opera 12.1 forever out of spite

Well, Vivaldi already has some features O12 does not have, while at the same time not having some features O12 does have (Dragonfly, IRC, nice page info, etc.) and probably never getting those...

Again, you don't seem like the audience Vivaldi targets to.

From the context of everything I've been saying, obviously I'm using the current Blink-based version of Opera. Not deliberately using an older version, for which you have search Google to even find a download link. I suspect that Vivaldi's target audience is limited to the niche of people who would think to ask.

BTW, you can disable Turbo in the current versions of both desktop and mobile.

> However, it's probably no exaggeration to say that most users haven't used a desktop email client in over a decade.

Almost everyone that uses macOS uses Apple Mail. Actually, I prefer that from having to (keep ) open a tab for Gmail.

I even use Postbox

I also use Postbox, it'll take quite a lot to get me away from it.

I love Postbox as a mail client but the lack of calendar integration with meeting invitation support is a deal breaker for my work with corporate clients. I got by with the Lightning plug in for a while but it looks like they've discontinued it. I'm planning on moving back to outlook, sadly.

I wonder if there are actual statistics about this. I only know one person who uses Apple Mail.

I don't think it's something that anyone's tried to quantify, no. I know a few people who use Apple Mail, though, including people who are pretty technically savvy. I don't (in my last job I used MailPlane, and at home I was using Postbox but recently switched to Spark), but my impression is that for many people Mail is in the "good enough" category.

If you run a mailing list on Mailchimp, it provides stats on the email clients that subscribers are using, presumably detected from the User-Agent that HTML email clients send when downloading images.

My tiny email list (at indieconference.com) has 8% of my subscribers using Apple Mail, and 75% still use desktop/laptop for checking email.

Email Client Marketshare also shows Apple Mail with 7% marketshare as of 1 January 2017: https://emailclientmarketshare.com/

My tiny email list (at indieconference.com) has 8% of my subscribers using Apple Mail, and 75% still use desktop/laptop for checking email.

Does this breakdown take into account the OS? Is that 8% of macOS subscribers running Apple Mail, or of all subscribers? I'm unfamiliar with what data you have avialable, so I'm not sure if this is even possible.

Thanks for the link to emailclientmarketshare.com. As you noted, Apple Mail is at 8%. The Apple iPhone figure is pretty amazing, at 33%!

Oh, I meant 8% of all subscribers use Apple Mail. It isn't 8% of macOS users, but 8% of any device. So the percentage of Mac users with Apple Mail would be higher than 8%.

You could try calculating something similar with the Email Client Marketshare figures: remove all the iPhone / iPad / Android / Windows clients and calculate from what's left. If I do that I estimate 15 - 20% of macOS folks using Apple Mail, with the rest mostly using Gmail.

That's what I suspected. Thanks for confirming!

> remove all the iPhone / iPad / Android / Windows clients and calculate from what's left

Does it say anywhere if "Gmail" refers to only the web app, or if that includes the native apps for iOS and Android?

Edit: This blog post explains the grouping. All native email clients on the iPhone count as "iPhone", not just Apple Mail.

https://litmus.com/blog/mobile-holds-at-56-for-october-email...

In my corporation people usually use Outlook.

And on windows 10, I now use the built-in Mail app, which is almost there for home/casual use (except notably that we still can't right-click on a file and Send to Mail. Really, Microsoft!?).

I usually open the browser for better searching, such as email and google talk logs with a certain person, and somehow I doubt a third-party will implement that feature as well as gmail does.

> I keep waiting for bookmark sync, which today is a fundamental browser feature rather than a nice-to-have.

Is it really ? I have not used bookmarks since del.icio.us and never need any bookmarks sync as my bookmarks are not in the browser but in my wallabag.

> it's probably no exaggeration to say that most users haven't used a desktop email client in over a decade. So why is such a retro throwback feature prioritized so high?

my grandma, my grandpa, my mum, my dad, ... well everyone but my little cousin who only use a smartphone uses an email client, mostly thunderbird. This feature is prioritized so high because it is one, if not the most requested feature through user feedback

> Another example is right-clicking a link in Vivaldi, to open it in a new tab.

I don't know what you are talking about. Just click a few pixels below on "open link in a background tab" instead of "open link in a new tab", problem solved.

> I just don't WANT Opera from 15 years ago. (...) I want other browsers to mirror Chrome.

Well then Vivaldi is not for you, just use any other browser. What I like about vivaldi is that it does not try to be like chrome and instead cater to power users like me and try to fulfill needs that other browser do not because they are too busy trying to be like chrome (which I dislike and never used on my boxes).

>never need any bookmarks sync as my bookmarks are not in the browser but in my wallabag

Most people have never even heard of "wallabag" and yes, having your bookmarks synced across browser instances on various devices is a fundamental feature. If I bookmark something on a mobile device or a laptop, I want it to be available on my desktop (and vice-versa), without having to use third party tools.

Bookmark sync should be provided by an add-on (so that it can sync cross-browser as well). There's Xmarks and given that Vivaldi has some compatibility with Chrome Addons, this should work (if it doesn't, improving addon compat should be top priority).

Right click -> open in background tab has been in Vivaldi for as long as I can remember. Sure it's the SECOND menu item but so?

Background tab is middle click, all browsers support it and it was in Opera for ages.