Since I first found the World Wide Web (some thirty odd years ago) I always believed its potential for the betterment of humanity. It has the ability to bring people together, offer a soapbox to express and debate ideas, to teach and provide information and to simply learn about the world around us (that some of us are unable to see) or simply to help one another. When I read this morning on the BBC News site that the man who did a great deal to create the Web was worried that the Web was now on the decline, almost to the extent of becoming dysfunctional (there is a brief Video to go along with the article). The rampant collection of personal data and more expressly poor collection and storage methods and blatant misuse of such data (by companies and unscrupulous app developers) are prime reasons for his worries. But also he mentions the widespread use of "Clickjacking" by companies/sites and also the civility of users. To attempt to reverse this direction he has created A Contract For the Web which covers the (ideal) use of the Web by Governments, companies and we Users. This is something for which, I feel, the Vivaldi Community would be an ideal fit. Yes, some the worst offenders have signed up (Microsoft, who Jon has called out more than once, Facebook and Google to name a few) but hopefully they have good intentions (who knows?) and will use their massive Web presence to help turn things around and make it a better place, a safer place to be. So, to Jon and the principals at Vivaldi, should we not contribute? This diverse, dynamic, respectful community could become a moving  force behind the contract. The Vivaldi Community already seems to be inline with the principles of this document and, I feel, we should sign up (if we have not already). We could be a voice in improving the Web. I say not that we each must sign up (I have) and if you agree to the contract's principles please feel free to. If you do not, there should be no pressure to do so (even if the Vivaldi Community as as whole decides to join)...

Travelling to Vivaldi Heart Today I want to introduce Vivaldi Hacking, basically are optimizations to improve the Web experience. In other words, we will see the heart or engine that makes to the Vivaldi Web browser beat. I have designed it both for high-end Desktops and for low-performance Desktops, and therefore I have omitted certain adjustments for graphic improvements. We opens the page “vivaldi://flags”. On the right side you will see options to enable and disable. And look’s you the following settings: chrome://flags/#enable-webrtc-hide-local-ips-with-mdns – Prevent IP filtration through WebRTC. chrome://flags/#enable-fast-unload – When Enabled, we activate the fast closing of tabs. chrome://flags/#smooth-scrolling – By disabling it, we save milliseconds on navigation. chrome://flags/#enable-quic – When we enable it, we activate the new TCP protocol. chrome://flags/#enable-framebusting-needs-sameorigin-or-usergesture – Enabling it avoids opening redirected pop-ups. chrome://flags/#enable-nostate-prefetch – Deactivating it saves milliseconds of navigation. chrome://flags/#reduced-referrer-granularity – Activating it reduces your browser's ID headers. chrome://flags/#save-page-as-mhtml – By activating it you save web pages in Mhtml format. chrome://flags/#enable-offline-auto-reload – Disables offline page reloading. chrome://flags/#enable-offline-auto-reload-visible-only – When enabled, you reload only visible tabs. chrome://flags/#tls13-variant – When enabled, we activate the latest TLS security protocol. chrome://flags/#autoplay-policy – By activating it in Document user activation is required. You disable autoplay. chrome://flags/#enable-parallel-downloading – Activating it in parallel downloads files, at the cost of greater recurrence in the router. chrome://flags/#proactive-tab-freeze-and-discard – Enable tabs hibernation. chrome://flags/#enable-font-cache-scaling – Reused a cache web chrome://flags/#safe-search-url-reporting – Disable sending data to Google chrome://flags/#default-tile-width – Value of 256 is for 1GB memory. Value of 512 is for 2GB memory. Value of 1024 is for 4GB memory. chrome://flags/#load-media-router-component-extension – Disable these, if you don’t use chromecast. chrome://flags/#disable-hyperlink-auditing – Disable. Blocks sending audit pings of hyperlinks. chrome://flags/#top-sites-from-site-engagement – Disable. Prevents google from tracking our favorite sites...

Saturday morning thoughts (after the third cup of black tea) when I search for "Vivaldi" on Google, second and third link are about Vivaldi-the-composer. With some nice videos of his music (Four Seasons etc.), to boot. When I search for "Chrome", it's videos about security issues in Google Chrome. Wise name choice, @vivaldibrowser. 🙂

For those who have read any of these rantings, I'm a bit indecisive (read: I can't make up my damn mind). I seem to have found a forever distribution (Manjaro Linux in Xfce) despite all of my attempts. This seems to be one decision that has stuck, even though I have wandering eyes. My latest dalliance was a whole day with Solus on the laptop.  I like the simplicity, the overall appearance, and the concept. It... was... just... a...