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Vivaldi’s Flathub package is not yet official or verified, and the store listing states that the package is “not officially endorsed or supported by Vivaldi Technologies”, despite the fact it is uploaded by and maintained by a Vivaldi employee.
Though it may become official/verified down the line, for now, Vivaldi’s Flathub presence is there to “test the waters”, Vivaldi’s Ruarí Ødegaard tells me, and to help satisfy the “overwhelming demand from users” for the browser to be available on the store.
Vivaldi launched in 2015 with day-one Linux support, and provides official DEB and RPM packages for major Linux distributions through its website. Those packages remain the recommended way to install the app on Linux.
But having it available as a Flatpak on Flathub, even if not official, will help widen its appeal.
We’ve seen a number of “unofficial” packages become official this year, include the Thunderbird e-mail client, and the messaging app Discord which, prior to verification, racked up millions of installs through Flathub.
Other web browsers available from Flathub include official builds of Mozilla Firefox, GNOME Web, and KDE Falkon. But many, including Google Chrome, Chromium, and Brave, are not “official” builds either.
And part of the reason why could be due to uncertainties with how secure Chromium’s sandbox (Vivaldi is a Chromium-based browser) is when run in a Flatpak environment.
Official or not, this arrival will make it easier for users to install Vivaldi on Linux (no need to go fetch installers) and help them receive future updates faster thanks to automatic updates. The browser will also reach a wider audience, potentially growing its user-base.
Should it become official in time, Vivaldi’s backing would signal to other software vendors that Flathub is where it’s at. Increasingly, Flathub it not only where Linux users go to find software but where they expect to find it.
