# Vivaldi 134 Hacker News commenters recommended Vivaldi and 85 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 2 years (13 owners). **Verdict:** A highly customizable Chromium browser with vertical tabs, tab tiling and a built-in ad blocker; critics cite bugs, affiliate bookmarks and search deals, and a closed-source UI. ## Why people recommend it - Deep customization (6 comments): "I was drawn to it by the amount of personalization it offers and after spending a bit of time setting it up to my liking it is now my daily browser." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46310063)) "its customizability is incredible and once I fixed the omnibars annoying default search settings I was good" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49880577)) "Vivaldi is based on the Chrome codebase, but I really love all the extra customization options." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47488924)) - Built-in ad blocking (4 comments): "It's the only browser for me, that reliably filters out all ads with ublock origin while working on all websites without any problems." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48219344)) "it has a built-in ad blocker that in my few years experience works exactly the same as ubo out of the box" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47224049)) "Displaying non-personalized ads (which are trivial to completely avoid in Vivaldi) is not that." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48226771)) - Vertical tabs and tab groups (3 comments): "vertical tabs mean each tab takes about 40 vertical pixels of height, so I can skim through the titles of each tab" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46534313)) "The Vivaldi web browser tab groups are a killer feature. It's my main browser because of this." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45799029)) "I mainly use Vivaldi because it has the best vertical tabs experience among the browsers." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48226515)) - Tiling split view (2 comments): "Vivaldi has had tiling for a while now. It's not quite free form mdi, but it beats opening two windows next to each other" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46177318)) "Vivaldi has included split view for years (called tiles). I use this regularly on HN." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49091103)) ## What people warn about - Affiliate bookmarks and search promotion (3 comments): "Vivaldi makes money by promoting search engines and bookmarks to their users via their closed source, secret, Chromium fork." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48220304)) "They have affiliate bookmarks and as well as links that are injected when you type things in the address bar." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48226607)) "How are integrated ads and dispatch of user data to third-parties sustainable sources of income?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48220715)) - Bugs and site breakage (4 comments): "It's my daily browser. Small glitches occasionally and can lag chrome releases, but the best absolute non-adware browser with powerful features." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48226324)) "it was always slower and more clunkier than Chrome/Chromium but it had its advantages" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48242423)) "There are some very annoying bugs or quirks unfixed since years. I tried very hard to like Vivaldi, but it is impossible to use it as a web developer." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48232970)) - Extension and Manifest V2 limits (3 comments): "If an extension is not in the Chrome Web store Vivaldi will not be able to install it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49222751)) "content_scripts and popups generally work, but anything touching the chrome.* API beyond storage/tabs gets awkward" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49522047)) "I appreciate the intention to protect my privacy. How does that square with Manifest V2 deprecation" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48219328)) - Still Chromium, partly closed source (4 comments): "Vivaldi makes money by promoting search engines and bookmarks to their users via their closed source, secret, Chromium fork." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48220304)) "they're all little more than reconfigurations and reskins of Chromium when you look at the entire code base" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47900019)) "They're built on Chromium, they still reinforce the Chromium monoculture and expand Google's influence." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48557643)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Google Chrome](https://hackerapproved.com/p/google-chrome.md): 503 recommend - [Zen Browser](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zen-browser.md): 141 recommend - [Microsoft Edge](https://hackerapproved.com/p/microsoft-edge.md): 102 recommend - [qutebrowser](https://hackerapproved.com/p/qutebrowser.md): 11 recommend - [Perplexity Comet](https://hackerapproved.com/p/comet.md): 9 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Vivaldi", https://hackerapproved.com/p/vivaldi-browser/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).