Vivaldi 8.0 is my new go-to browser
Hello friends! Welcome to Installer No. 129, your guide to the best and Edge-the most thing in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, come on Gunners, and you can also read all the back issues on the Installer home page.)
This week, I’ve mostly been sick, which meant I had to rewatch almost entirely Parks and Recreation while alternately taking a nap and feeling bad about myself. But I also read articles on Nick Fuentes And clownslistening to old episodes of Brief history ofby testing the NextSense Smart Earbuds while I sleep, I write in the Outer line Beta application of Markdown and looking forward to things to do with it next Pinball One.
Today’s issue is a little short since I was gone, but I didn’t want to leave you completely hanging. Plus, it’s a good week, with my new favorite browser in years, a new Star Wars a movie, two awesome new tech books, a surprisingly awesome set of headphones, and so much more. Let’s do it.
(As always, the best part of Installer these are your ideas and advice. What are you reading/watching/listening to/playing/streaming on a hotspot from the beach this week? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you know anyone else who might enjoy it Installerforward it to them and tell them to subscribe here.)
- Vivaldi 8.0. For the first time in about five years, I have a new default browser on all my devices. (RIP Arc.) I’ve loved Vivaldi for a long time — it’s very fast, incredibly customizable and full of clever organizational tools – but I always found it hopelessly ugly to look at. The new design is much cleaner from the start, to the point where I’m completely happy to use it all the time. You should budget a long time to spend in settings to adjust Vivaldi to your liking, but this browser is a winner.
- Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu. The reviews on this are a bit scattered, as they always seem to be for Star Wars stuff, but I’m just thrilled that these silly space adventures are back on the big screen. Give me everything Grogu as big as possible, for as long as possible, please and thank you.
- Steve Jobs in exile. It is very It’s hard to find new stories to tell about Steve Jobs, but from what I’ve read so far, Geoff Cain’s new book is full of them. This book tells the story of NeXT, Pixar, Jobs’ profound personal changes, and how the man who almost destroyed Apple came back to save it. It’s also a very fun read.
- How to rule the world. Two superb technical books this week! This one comes from a Stanford student, who digs deep into his own world and its bizarre, problematic, and scandalously successful connection to the tech industry. Stanford and Silicon Valley have always been tied together; This is a great overview of what it actually means.
- The Anker Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro. I can’t say I expected to be very excited about a pair of Anker earbuds that cost about the same as the AirPods, but my colleague John Higgins says these are the best phone call earbuds he’s ever used. How am I supposed to not buy them now!
- The Audio Age: The Inside Story of Podcasting. A great history lesson from the people of Twenty thousand hertzwith some great stories from a group of legendary podcasters. Connected to a recent documentary same name as I am now very eager to find a way to see.
- Forza Horizon 6. Beautiful, ultra-realistic cars that you can tinker with and drive endlessly in beautiful, ultra-realistic Japanese landscapes. Yeah, it can be a super intense racing game, but I also came to see Forza like almost… cozy. Sometimes you just need a Sunday drive, you know?
- The MacStories Shortcuts Playground. Federico Viticci and the gang MacStories are real Apple shortcut geeks, and they’ve created something really cool: a way to use Claude Code or Codex to simply describe the shortcut you want and make it magically appear. (They also released a huge set of shortcuts (they’ve created, many of which are extremely cool.) This is how shortcuts are supposed to work!
Here is what Installer the community is active this week. I also want to know what you are doing at the moment! E-mail installer@theverge.com or message me on Signal — @davidpierce.11 — with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here each week. For even more great recommendations, check out the answers to this article on discussions And this post on Bluesky.
“I have a Oculus Go at a thrift store for $10. Most apps are non-existent except for YouTube, and it’s surprisingly…good? I wonder if future AI wearables will be useful for a long time; Apple devices seem to be the only group still usable even after half a decade. -Allen
“My mother gave a sticker box for his 9th birthday. My kids and their friends spent many hours together creating stickers for everything and everyone. I love that it embraces simplicity while still creating a toy with AI and a screen. It’s also great that there’s no subscription! » — Matt
“A man on the Moon by Andrew Chaikin is one of the best non-fiction books I’ve listened to in a long time. I don’t run to the books often anymore, but I kept my running pace up by listening to the section on the Apollo 11 moon landing.” -James
“I’m going to experiment with some alternatives to Google Docs this weekend – Writer And Ellipse – and working on the transition work away from Gmail (I’ve had my account since you needed an invite). — Winter song
“I bought a new pair of headphones this month: the Sony WH-1000XM5. They look amazing and the sound quality is incredibly professional. -Seb
“You recommended a cable last week, and that inspired me to tell you about Vonmahlen Allroundo Eco Cable; a short, coiled USB-C to USB-C cable in a small case. But what makes it special is that it also includes USB-A, microUSB, and Lightning adapters in the case. I don’t know what the speed rating of this cable is for power or data transmission, but it’s such a great package that I’ve used for years now that it’s a moot point for me! -Mitch
“I’m almost done with Bringer of light (Red Rising volume 6) on my XteinkX4! » — Tynan
“I messed up Record cluba European indie band that bills itself as the Letterboxd of music. I wish they had a section for your vinyl/CD/cassette collections, but it’s a really nice site and the new social sharing images are a nice touch. — comically little hat
” Goodbye The reign of the scavengers because it will be released on Netflix at the end of the month! » – Fry
“After a few years of bouncing between multiplayer games, we’d try for about six weeks and then give up, my buddies and I have a stand-up meeting Monday night. Diablo IV date, which was amplified by the new Lord of Hate expansion.” -Luis
It was the final week of Stephen Colbert’s run The late show (and also the end of The late showpolitics, late night television is dying, either way, let’s move on), and for my money, the brightest positive side of the whole saga was that the Strike Force Five the gang got back together. If you don’t remember: Strike Force Five was a podcast started by five late-night hosts during the 2023 writers’ strike, and which produced at least one episode (Strike Force Wives!) which made me laugh so much that I had to stop listening for a while.
Anyway, the guys got back together for one more episode to celebrate Colbert’s race (more a long wait on the Colbert show), and it’s predictably delicious – and made me think I should start wearing a costume for every Edgecast episode. But it might be weird doing it in my basement studio. Lots to think about.
