Apple’s ecosystem is the best thing about owning their devices — the first-party apps do what they do best, and there are hardly any alternatives that can replace them. Take Safari, for instance: I used to think it was the best browser for my iPhone, and for years I’ve used it as my default because the other alternatives couldn’t even come close.
However, for the first time in all my years of owning an iPhone, I am finally considering switching from Safari. Vivaldi seems to do everything Safari does, but with the feel of using a desktop browser.
Why I never bothered switching from Safari
Safari is nearly perfect
Pankil Shah / MakeUseOf
Now, to say Safari is the perfect browser would be an overstatement — there are many things that it doesn’t get right, but regardless of that, the highs are hard to ignore. The browser is designed for iOS and, being deeply integrated with Apple’s ecosystem, syncs well across my other Apple devices.
Privacy is a big concern for me, and most browsers don’t get it right — Safari does. It automatically converts many connections to HTTPS, prevents third-party trackers, and has its own privacy report. Beyond that, Safari isn’t Chromium-based, so you can use it for longer sessions without a significant impact on your system resources, thereby conserving battery life.
Even so, Safari falls short due to its limited extension library, slower adoption of newer web platform features than other browsers, and fewer customization options overall, which makes it feel very linear and restrictive.
Vivaldi is an underrated browser that I finally considered moving to
Desktop-style tabs and automatic tracking protection? I’m in.
Vivaldi has been around for nearly a decade now, but it is only recently that the browser has begun to gain traction. Going from Safari to Vivaldi was like switching from a pocket knife to a Swiss Army knife — I can now adjust my tab positions, themes, and colors, and generally customize many of the browser’s elements to my liking.
Safari’s core features are also available in Vivaldi, which include tab groups, notes, and reading lists. Vivaldi will also give you the option to import all your data from Safari, so you don’t have to manually load up information from scratch. The desktop-style tabs and the ability to load extensions were a pleasant surprise for a mobile browser. The browser is also fighting against the AI search result takeover, which I really appreciate as a writer.
However, the best part about Vivaldi is its privacy and security-first approach, which is a major concern when switching to a different browser — alternatives can be good in performance and appearance, but they can end up invading your privacy by collecting data without your consent.
With Vivaldi, that’s not a concern — it is developed by Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner, co-founder of the Opera browser, who created it as a spiritual successor to Opera, with a more robust approach to power efficiency and security. Vivaldi will block all tracking requests, pop-ups, and ads by default, features you would normally need separate extensions to get. Furthermore, your bookmarks and passwords are end-to-end encrypted, which means Vivaldi doesn’t have access to them, making a breach nearly impossible.
Vivaldi does have its limitations
The battery drain issue is too big a concern
Pankil Shah/MakeUseOf
Despite its privacy protections and features, Vivaldi is, after all, a Chromium-based browser, which means it struggles with performance — at least compared to Safari, which is better for battery efficiency. Anyhow, the app can occasionally lag, and the UI frequently becomes unresponsive.
Even those bugs aside, battery drain is an issue hard to ignore. It’s not even that Vivaldi is harsh on the battery — Safari is just too efficient. Even other Chromium-based browsers, like Google Chrome, are better than Vivaldi at battery management. The ad-blocking experience is also subpar, and more often than not, my iPhone 14 overheats, so I have to take intermittent breaks from browsing.
In contrast, the desktop version of Vivaldi is miles better than the mobile application. Though that’s understandable, since the company’s scale is leaner than competitors’, which means slower advancements, particularly in the mobile segment, where it has a comparatively smaller user base than on the desktop.
So, did I make the switch?
For a while, I did consider making Vivaldi my default iPhone browser, but unfortunately, that won’t be happening. The browser’s strengths are there, but the cons are too prominent to ignore — poor battery life and resource utilization kill the experience for me, even though I love the desktop-style approach. Even so, Safari is just too good a browser for the iPhone and nearly irreplaceable, since even with all the additional features in Vivaldi, switching would mean I would have to give up iCloud Keychain integration, the handoff feature, Apple Pay, and generally every feature deeply rooted in iOS and the Apple ecosystem. So yes, Safari remains my main iPhone browser, but I will still use Vivaldi regularly for workspace and project-based tasks, e.g., research or study.
OS
Android, Windows, iOS
Developer
Vivaldi Technologies
Price model
Free
Vivaldi is a highly customizable, privacy-focused web browser packed with built-in productivity tools for power users. It features advanced tab management with stacking, tiling, and hibernation; a unified dashboard for mail, calendar, feeds, notes, and tasks; built-in ad and tracker blockers; integrated translation; and full UI customization including toolbars and themes.
