Vivaldi web browser has arrived on the Canonical Snap Store – officially.
This closed-source, Chromium-based web browser has been available on Linux since its debut in 2015, providing an official DEB package for Ubuntu users (which adds an APT repo for ongoing updates).
And last year it became possible to get Vivaldi on Flathub – though that Flatpak build is only semi-official: maintained and packaged by a Vivaldi engineer, but not a recommended or supported package by Vivaldi itself – not yet, anyway!
So to hear Vivaldi is embracing the Snap format is an interesting, albeit not surprising, move. It’s clearly a fan of ensuring Linux folks can snag the browser in the package format they prefer.
Vivaldi Comes to the Snap Store
Vivaldi’s CEO Jon von Tetzchner says the team is providing an official Vivaldi snap package because snaps are a universal packaging format that work across multiple Linux distributions. This makes it easier for them to get Vivaldi to the widest audience, irrespective of their distro choice.
In theory, at least.
It’s true snaps are universal and can run on most major Linux distributions, but there’s ample antipathy towards the format by most distro makers. Take Linux Mint, based on Ubuntu: it doesn’t just not use snaps, it prevents snaps from being installed without a config edit.
But hey: plenty of people (myself included, as much as it may shock some) do use snaps if/as/when needed. I care far more about the app than the format – if it works, I get the software I need, so I don’t really care how.
Vivaldi Snap or DEB?
Are you reading this (perhaps in Vivaldi) and wondering whether if there’s a compelling reason to switch from the Vivaldi DEB to the Vivaldi Snap package?
Tetzchner says users can ‘expect the same feature-rich, privacy-focused experience that Vivaldi is known for’ with the snap build, plus the added security benefits of running the app in a sandboxed environment.
And snaps update automatically in the background.
For Vivaldi, this means it can be sure that its users are (almost always) going to be running the latest version with the newest features, security, and bug fixes as soon as it’s released. It doesn’t need to wait for them to ‘manually update’.
However, in all honestly, there won’t be that much difference. The snap has pluses for hands-off updates and security reassurances, but quirks the DEB won’t due the sandbox nature, like patchy integration with some underlying services, and small issues in theming.
So the choice of snap vs DEB comes squarely down to your own preference for packaging format.
Vivaldi say the DEB (and APT repo that backs it) will be sticking around, so there’s no need to switch to keep getting updates.
Install the Vivaldi Snap
Vivaldi is free, proprietary software. In addition to the snap, it’s also available in traditional Linux packaging formats (including for Linux on ARM), and for macOS and Windows .
If you’ve not tried this browser before, there’s a lot to like about Vivaldi because, quite honestly, there is simply a lot in Vivaldi!
It has features – a lot of features (however niche), and settings too – a lot of settings (to control, modify and personalise the experience wholly).
Vivaldi is also big on privacy but, honestly, on Linux, which web browser isn’t?
Oh yeah, that one ;)
Anyway, if you’re as ‘thrilled’ by news of a Vivaldi snap as the team is to announce it’s made one, do go ahead and try it out — do pop back to let me know what you think of it (assuming Disqus loads better there than in Firefox), yeah?
• Get Vivaldi on the Snap Store
Appreciated Motang!