Vivaldi Sync: Answers to Questions

Hello!

Not so long ago, one of the developers of Vivaldi, Julien Pikalous, conducted a session of "live programming" with browser users. In the process of a five-hour dialogue with users, Julien answered a lot of questions about what he is working on now. And he is working on the synchronization feature Vivaldi. Below you can read his answers to the most popular questions about synchronization.

Question: What data will be synchronized after the first stable release of this function of the Vivaldi browser?
Answer: At the moment, we plan first of all to synchronize such data as bookmarks, passwords, settings (for the time being only related to Chromium, and not to Vivaldi), form auto-completion data, history of entered addresses, extensions, notes and tabs. Some of this will not have full functionality when you first start synchronization, but we will try to bring this service to full functionality as quickly as possible, as well as add other data to synchronization.

Question: What data do you plan to add to synchronization after the first launch?
Answer: Vivaldi's own settings, including themes.
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Question: What about your own bookmarks in the Express panels and background images?
Answer: The express panel is part of the bookmarks, so there is a good chance to see the synchronization of this function in the first release. But backgrounds are already Vivaldi's own settings, they will be added later.

Question: How does the Vivaldi synchronization system work? Will it take data from one browser version and replace data in another version, or will all synchronization data be merged from all copies of the browser in one place on the server without deleting the data?
Answer: Vivaldi Sync uses the sync code in Chromium with some changes and uses the same protocol. The data for synchronization is first encrypted, then sent to a remote server, from which it can be transferred to other copies of the same Vivaldi browser. And already in the client browser data will be combined with existing ones.

Question: Are Vivaldi and Chrome synchronization systems compatible? Will it be possible to import data from Google servers?
Answer: No, our sync version will not work with Chrome sync. We are developing our own server part, authorization on which will be carried out through the portal vivaldi.net.

Question: Will it be necessary to create a new login and password to use synchronization or will it be possible to use existing ones?
Answer: The login and password will be the same as for the entrance to vivaldi.net. If you do not have an account on vivaldi.net yet, you will need to create one.

Question: Will it be possible to choose another server for synchronization or will it only be Vivaldi servers?
Answer: At first it will only be Vivaldi servers. All your data will be sent in encrypted form, so we can not read them. In the future, we plan to give users the opportunity to use their own servers. But first, we want to make sure that synchronization works without failures and problems, so we cannot say the exact dates when users can use their own servers.

Question: Will your server code be opened under a free license?
Answer: Yes, we plan that the user version of the server-side synchronization will be released under a free license.

Question: Will the open tabs be synchronized in real time?
Answer: In general, yes. There may be some delay depending on the server load.