Manjaro is providing an unnecessary evil by default. If a user wanted to use Vivaldi, there is nothing wrong with providing it in the repo for them. But providing potential spyware on all Manjaro installs out of the box is not a good idea.
If you are combat the spyware argument, provide the actual source code to prove it instead of blogs. It’s very easy to take the Opera route of advertising how privacy friendly you are and then make millions selling your user’s data to advertisers. Fyi, Vivaldi was started by the co-founder and CEO of Opera Software. Not exactly the best look.
I’m pretty sure the Cinnamon spin has pamac installed so all one has to do is install firefox and delete vivaldi.I’ve never used it but thats the nice thing about linux one can change to suit there on needs.
How can you claim they are open when the very code making their product isn’t open? You’re taking them at their word. What proof do you have that they aren’t just good at PR?
With any user being able to customize their GNU/Linux install… layout, look/feel, apps, etc… I’m less concerned about what’s installed by default knowing that I get to choose what I use, change, install, and uninstall. If I want all “Free as in speech” applications, I can choose that… and/or make exceptions as I see fit along the way.
There’s little point in worrying about someone else’s choice/default… when you are fully empowered to make your own. Let’s celebrate the freedom to choose, and not get caught up in the minutia.
Mmm i’m not to happy about this change either, it would be better to leave it Firefox and let the user decide.
Or Give the user a choice in the installer.
Defaulting to a questionably Browser is not a good thing. @oberon Why did you make this choice?
I think this is again one of the signs that we need to make the browser selection more transparent to users. We moved the office software selection from calamares to Manjaro-hello because the interface was nicer, and added the browser selection there, but nobody seems to have found it, including all reviewers. Maybe making it in wizard style would make people notice it easier. The intention is that the user should make this choice.
Vivaldi is one of the browsers I like to use. Compared with Firefox, it performs faster and has awesome email client that I enjoy using. However, Firefox is the only browser that has pinch zoom on Linux, can be made to look like gnome app and is important to support because otherwise the whole internet is based on blink and controlled by Google. Each browser has their place in the ecosystem and is useful to some user. More choice is a good thing in my opinion.
I didn’t know about the Vivaldi collaboration, but I had suggested trying shipping also Vivaldi about a year ago or so. Mostly because I think it is a cool, and for me, that’s what linux distribution is fundamentally about: sharing cool things with community.
Yes
The choice of browser & office software should b in the installer. Also u can throw in installation option for lts-kernel & some useful softwares (gimp, kdenlive, blender, obs, vlc) during installation.
& Default browser of a Linux distribution should never b a proprietary software.
Btw I don’t hate proprietary software & use some proprietary softwares daily.
Absolutly true, it would even better if there was a list of most fundamental software in the installer Ubuntu server has this.
This list could include email , browsers, office, media player etc.
I didn’t know that the office software was moved to manjaro hello, i never use that
Given that Vivaldi made an entire blog post about it and a newspost with FOSSbytes website, we’ll have to see whether if the devs would make it a choice in their installer now.
No hate, but I would like to know why exactly they did this? is something wrong with Firefox now? did something happened?.
Also, I want to say that, if the new default browser is one that is open source, I wouldn’t have a problem with it, but being Vivaldi, not totally open source, and using chromium (which is a problem because monopoly and google)… that’s a problem for me, I suggest that Manjaro includes an option in the installation process to select either Firefox or Vivaldi, if all Manjaro flavors start to ship with Vivaldi by default with no way to change it before installing, I will have to stop recommending this disto to people who are really concerned about their privacy.
As already said, at 1st boot you can find a selection of diverse browsers to install into Manjaro Hello.
And you can there also uninstall Vivaldi without launching it once.
As also said Arch and Manjaro are pragmatic. There are other distros to choose to follow a pure GNU open source only ideology.
I honestly don’t get some of the excitement and almost hysteria on the topic.
The selection of software on an ISO is nothing more than a suggestion.
Everybody can remove and install whatever they want.
We even offer a dedicated tool manjaro-application-utility to do just that first thing when you install your system.
We also offer minimal ISOs for every single edition, with almost nothing but the desktop pre-installed. Well in the case of the browser you will still get midori on most (including the Cinnamon edition), since a live environment without any browser at all can be kind of difficult. You can of course remove that one, too.
I happened to like vivaldi when I recently gave it a thorough try and I thought hey, it’s a pity that it isn’t much more known and I also find it nice to vary a bit in what I use myself - I also do that with other applications if there are alternatives available. I really don’t see any harm in promoting something I find interesting or valuable as long as nobody is forced to use it.
It’s not like we are removing firefox from our repos
To answer those inquiries: If you actually read the announcement, I wrote exactly what I find cool about vivaldi with screenshots and all, so there you have it
I agree that something like the office-chooser module included in calamares is a very nice idea and it can be great for a lot of people - especially new users - to be presented with a selection of alternatives for several categories - on the other hand I am a huge fan of keeping the installation process quick and crisp and to the point and I would not want to have to click through a whole list of options during installation …
I decided to give vivaldi a try when Google pulled their sync from chromium. Like you I’ve been really impressed with it and can’t understand why it’s not more popular. I get the "open source " bit on linux but vivaldi runs on all platforms and really deserves more credit than it gets
Indeed, I guess most people, like me, instantly close Manjaro-Hello and never see it again… “documentation, support, project, ok close that”… It is not very clear in my opinion, this application button is hidden by the rest of the buttons in the window. Maybe automatically ‘click’ on it at first boot would be a good idea.
I’m all for (and have already multiple time suggested it in various posts) a lot more options in the installer, the more we can select during the installation for important things the better (browser, mail client, in particular, but also other programs like UFW, office suite, or other software that could be interesting for the users). I’m not talking about Cinnamon, but globally on all ISO.
