The last time we left off the browsers saga, I was trying Zen on my Mac, which started to annoy me pretty fast, so I got back to Safari. Meanwhile, on my Linux Desktop, Zen was my browser until a couple of days ago.

Zen has been working nicely, but over time I’ve become more aware of its glitches. Most of those are unique to me, as I like to overcomplicate things.

The main issue I’ve had with Zen is Flatpak. Usually it’s a good way to install apps, but with something as integrated with your system as a browser, this can cause problems. Case in point: KeePassXC, my password manager of choice. KeePassXC requires integration that flatpak blocks by design. To get around that, I tried to install Zen directly from a tarball. This is a manual installation, which means I need to download and upgrade my browser manually. Browsers get updated very often; I simply stopped updating Zen, and that’s just plain bad.

From there, things started to feel a bit flaky. For example, I never got my tabs, bookmarks, and passwords to fully sync between the Mac (when I had it installed) and Linux. It seemed to always freeze halfway, with some items synced and others not. Meanwhile, when I wanted to start using my Linux environment for writing and blogging more, I just couldn’t get Grammarly to work on Zen. It refused to show the sign-in pop-up window, no matter what I tried, from allowing pop-ups to reducing security to basically zero.

Meanwhile, its main features (like spaces) didn’t interest me. On Linux, I have this problem resolved with activities, and for work, Edge works best. I have Edge on my Linux desktop too if I need to use it, and it works better on Linux than it does on the Mac.

It feels like Zen is meant to be a Safari replacement, but I don’t need one. Where I need organization and a browser running in full screen with tabs organized is Linux, which is why I kept putting up with Zen until I tried Vivaldi.

Vivaldi has a .deb installer that you can integrate into apt so it updates smoothly with everything else. Meanwhile, Grammarly worked as soon as I installed it, and KeePassXC has a dedicated Vivaldi extension that integrates without a hitch. That’s already three strikes against Zen without even breaking a sweat. But what really made me smile were its tab stacks.

Tab stacks (or tab containers, or tab groups, or whatever you want to call them) exist in different browsers, but Vivaldi lets me use a CSS file to customize these containers with the color and fonts I want, along with whatever CSS decorations I want. It feels a little bit like a hack, but it’s not: you need to turn on the flag to allow you to change Vivaldi with your own CSS, and then you just create the CSS file with the choices you want. It might be a bit of an overkill, but having a tab stack dedicated to my blog and Micro.blog with my blog colors is a very nice touch. This CSS option exists for every part in Vivaldi, if I feel like customizing something else.

While workplaces got deleted fast (a simple right-click on Zen; it was a flag hack), other features I thought I wouldn’t care about, like the built-in email client in the browser, are getting more interesting. It’s actually nice to have the same email interface for my several email accounts without the heaviness of Thunderbird, and I think using their calendar might come next. It’s easy to add and remove buttons I don’t need, so that Kagi’s assistant has a dedicated button, for example, while something they think I need to use (like Notes) is gone with a quick right click. I appreciate applications that let me decide what I want instead of deciding for me even more these days.

Vivaldi also has an official Android version, where I actually need a better browser (I’ve been using DDG’s browser, which is meh), which means I could sync tabs between my desktop and my Android if I want to. It’s not that I really miss these features, but it’s a nice head nod, a way to make things a bit easier.

So, we will see how this holds up. Maybe I’ll go back to Firefox in 6 months…? Who knows. For now, Vivaldi is my default browser on Linux.