Starting from today, Vivaldi is the default browser on the Arch-based Linux distribution Manjaro on its Cinnamon edition. This is not the first time Manjaro has given us such a surprise. Most of you probably remember the Free Office case. However, the change goes official today for anyone doing a fresh installation of Manjaro’s Cinnamon Edition.
For starters, Vivaldi is intended for power users and provides an impressive level of control over the interface. Vivaldi is one of the lesser-known browsers, but it is actually a really good choice if you value customization and privacy above all else.
To give Vivaldi more attention than it deserves, I’ve decided to include it as the default browser in our popular Cinnamon Community Edition. With its remarkable browsing speed, exceptional customization and above all the way it values user privacy, Vivaldi is for me a perfect match for Manjaro Linux.
Bernhard Landauer, co-CEO of Manjaro GmbH & Co. KG
Vivaldi has been working closely with the Manjaro’s maintainers so that everything fits perfectly, and for this they have created a theme called “Manjaro-Cinnamon”. The theme is exclusively created for Manjaro to provide tighter integration between browser and OS.
Even though the Cinnamon version is a community edition, it is surprising that Mozilla Firefox dropped from a Linux distribution. The decision was received with mixed feelings by the Linux community, as Vivaldi is not open source software.
On the Linux community forums there is no shortage of negative comments from open source supporters like the ones below:
A partially proprietary application shipped as default while perfectly fine completely FOSS alternatives like Firefox exist. Lol what has gotten into them?
I mean… isn’t the Cinnamon version a community version anyway? If so, aren’t the community versions essentially up to the community maintainers to choose the packages of?
Bear in mind that Vivaldi will be the default browser only in Manjaro’s community-developed Cinnamon edition. Of course, the fans of Firefox can still install it and then make it default if they choose.
In conclusion one thing is certain: Manjaro is no stranger to making bold decisions.
I don’t know why FOSS is considered by you all to be the best solution. FOSS by its very nature is not “sustainable” because it lacks a business model and a regular revenue stream. FOSS products come and go as maintainers come and go with their time that they can devote or not devote to the product. Any product that brings in revenues will always last longer and be more updated and more innovative over time. Thus a non-FOSS product is more reliable for your workflow. As such Firefox is dying and Vivaldi has a good business model showing it will be around and they are innovating. Remember Sea Monkey? That dream basically died, even though it is still lightly maintained, 20 years ago. Yet here comes Vivaldi with a revenue stream and a good business model and they have redeveloped a browser with email built in and it works pretty well and it’s been brought online pretty quickly. FOSS is not the way forward for Linux. A paid model where people buy the OS and they buy their software is the way forward. Anything else is utopian dreaming and will fail. Have you wondered why Linux, after 20 years is still not on the desktop? Because there is no money in the development of the product. They concentrate on the corporate revenues that come from servicing servers. If you want Linux to succeed, it must have. a paid revenue stream. As it stands, it will always be lagging in innovation and always be buggy until that occurs.
Here’s another irony. Under the hood Cinnamon 5.2 uses Mozilla’s JavaScript engine Spidermonkey to perform JS/Gnome bindings.