The concept is really interesting: Our world has no magic because itâs the last stop in a series of realities, each of which has less magic than the next one up (and yes, itâs a series of shadows, like Roger Zelaznyâs Amber). The higher and farther away, the purer the stories and stronger the magic. And theyâve all been cursed. In most of them, adults have been taken out of the picture one way or another, leaving only teenagers and children to pick up the piecesâŠsometimes disastrously.
The main characters are interesting too: Aster is a refugee from the more magical realms, living in our world and trying to get back on a quest. She puts Errolâs consciousness in a wooden body while heâs in a coma, coming to grips with his suicide attempt. Veronica is the kind of ghost who sparks urban legends, brought back somewhere between life and death. They all grow over the course of the series, and they all read as teenagers (including the kinds of mistakes they make!)
ButâŠ
The editing is bad, especially by the third book, which is extremely disjointed. The resolution comes completely out of nowhere, despite having three whole books to set it up. A current of misogyny runs through the first two books, with a constant threat of sexual violence by the villains hanging over everything, which is made worse by the fact that almost everyone is a teenager. That dissipates by the third book, but it makes parts of the others really unpleasant to read.
I picked them all up at once, knowing only that an author I used to keep up with had written a bunch of books that Iâd missed. If Iâd been reading them one at a time, as they came out, I donât think I would have finished. And I rarely leave books unfinished. I really hope the other two books of his that I bought at the same time are better than these.
Iâd absolutely recommend the Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone quadrilogy, Age of Unreason, or The Waterborn and The Blackgod. But not this one.
Iâve found Falkon to be a good balance of features and light weight for low-end hardware like the PineTab2 and virtual machines running Linux. Itâs more capable (and compatible!) than NetSurf or Dillo, and faster than Firefox, Chrome, Vivaldi or Angelfish. It also runs well under LXQT, which I like to use on that low-spec (and virtual) hardware for the same reason.
It does all the basics you expect of a modern browser, and because itâs built on Chromium (via QtWebEngine), itâs less likely to run into actual incompatibilities than sites that think theyâre incompatible.
You can send a page from your phone to your desktop using KDE Connect (which despite its name can also run on Gnome and other desktops), and if Falkon is your default browser, itâll pick it up. I havenât found a good way to send tabs from Falkon to a phone, though.
Problems and Workarounds
It doesnât run Chromium extensions (or Firefox add-ons for that matter), and there are only a few dozen Falkon extensions at this time.
Thereâs no way to connect directly to an external password manager like KeePassXC (or Bitwarden, as OSNewsâ article points out). Iâve worked around this by using KeePassXCâs auto-type feature. Itâs more cumbersome than auto-detecting in the browser, but still faster than copying and pasting â and much faster than typing manually.
Bookmarklets (JavaScript bookmarks) arenât allowed to open new windows by default, which is actually a sensible decision. Thereâs a preference to allow JavaScript to open pop-up windows, which makes things like my Postmarks bookmarklet actually, yâknow, work:
Preferences â Privacy-General â JavaScript Options â Open popup windows
Thereâs no bookmark sync capability, even using extensions. For now Iâve just put the main links for my Nextcloud Bookmarks and Postmarks instances in the toolbar and using them directly, but it would be nice to be able to use the built-in UI. Iâve been contemplating hacking together a script to download from Nextcloud and update the bookmarks file as a one-way sync, but havenât gotten around to it.
It canât install PWAs (portable web applications). Then again, neither can desktop versions of Firefox.
But I can log into Dropbox or Nextcloud (they complain, but let me use it anyway) or any webmail client and it does what I need it to in a reasonable amount of time!
Flatpak Issues
When installed through Flatpak, launchers get confused if Falkon is already running: It opens a new instance of the program, complete with all the windows and tabs you had open the last time you closed it, in addition to the one still running.
On XFCE specifically, I also have trouble setting Falkon as the default browser if itâs been installed through Flatpak: It doesnât show up in the list of applications for setting a default web browser, so you have to manually add the full flatpak run org.kde.falkon "%s" command as a custom browser. Adding that makes it work as the default browser for opening links, but the âWeb Browserâ launcher wonât run it.
Haiku
Falkon also runs on Haiku, an alternative operating system inspired by the late, lamented BeOS. The version in Haiku Depot is a bit out of date, and Iâve only experimented a little with the OS as a whole, so take this with a grain of salt. It seems to handle more websites than WebPositive (Haikuâs native web browser), but itâs not quite as stable. Or as stable as Falkon itself on Linux. A few sites just donât show text. But it mostly works, and I can imagine alternating between the two as needed if I spent more time in Haiku!
Availability on Linux
Fedora and Arch packages seem to be kept reasonably up to date (no surprise), and you donât have to install too much of KDE if youâre running it on another desktop. Debian stable lags behind (also no surprise), but the current Flatpak runs just fine (thereâs also a Snap) unless I try to open way too many tabs. All packages are available for both x86_64 and aarch64, which why itâs even possible for me to run it on my ARM-based Pine tablet!
Iâve been using Vivaldi as my main web browser lately, after several years using Firefox as my primary and Vivaldi as an alternate when something didnât work.
Vivaldi comes from the small-tech side of things (the company is employee-owned, with no outside investors) and was co-founded by Jon von Tetzchner, one of Operaâs co-founders. Itâs basically what Opera would have been today if theyâd kept their focus on making a good browser that works for the person using it instead of working to squeeze out more profit for the conglomerate that owns the company.
What About the Software?
Itâs a power-user ultra-customizable internet suite including web, mail and news, built on the same âBlinkâ engine as Chrome and other Chromium browsers.
Downsides:
The engine still depends on the Google-defined monoculture.
Vivaldiâs own code isnât capital-F Free Software.
Upsides:
Youâre a lot less likely to run into a page that doesnât work than you are with Firefox.
âTopicsâ was actually the last straw for me, and I uninstalled Chrome everywhere I could. (Sadly, I still have one site that I have to use semi-regularly that wonât work in Vivaldi or Firefox, only in Chrome.)
Vivaldi is available on every platform I use regularly between work and home, including macOS, Linux, Windows and Android (plus iOS), and runs natively on both x86_64 and ARM. Yes, on Windows and Linux too (Google still doesnât offer aarch64 packages for Linux as of February 2025!). For Linux they provide DEB, RPM, Flatpak, and Snap packages for both architectures.
Recommended Extensions
KeePassXC-Browser autofills from KeePass when you have a vault open.
The Android app is noticeably faster than Firefox on my phone, and has most of the features of the desktop version. It also supports more capabilities for PWAs (installable web applications). The main thing I miss from Firefox is that Vivaldiâs mobile app doesnât support extensions.
The only real problem Iâve run into is that the browserâs autofill sometimes crowds out the autofill from KeePass2Android (and possibly other password managers). I worked around it once by switching to KP2Aâs keyboard, then deleted the one password I had saved in Vivaldi, but it does the same thing with saved addresses. Sometimes.
Sync
Every browser has a sync service these days. I only recently started using Vivaldi Link, and I turned off bookmark syncing because Iâm using Floccus to sync bookmarks across Vivaldi and Firefox. The nice thing about Vivaldiâs is that you set a second password on your local devices for encrypting your data before it even gets sent to their servers, so Vivaldi couldnât sell your sync data or use it to train AI even if they wanted to!
It took me a while before I noticed that the mobile version does have a âSend to devicesâ option, itâs just in the smaller, text-based list above the icons in the Share action, and the list of devices you can send to is behind that button. (Firefox shows a set of icons, one for each device, so itâs easier to spot.) You can also get a drop-down list of open tabs on other devices from the cloud icon in the tab bar.
Beyond Web Pages
Vivaldi has continued to maintain an actual internet suite, including mail, calendar, and newsfeeds (RSS/Atom). I havenât used these as much as I have used the web browser, though.
Notes: Sync seamlessly between the sidebar on desktop and their own screen on mobile.
Feeds: Even if you donât have the full suite enabled, itâll show a human-readable version of feeds you might click on. If you do, you get a familiar feed reader app similar to NetNewsWire or Liferea.
Mail: Works with any IMAP or POP server, including Gmail. Handles multiple accounts, lets you work with combined inboxesâŠand combined folders, which can get confusing sometimes. Iâve found I like Vivaldiâs mail client for a pass through new messages, but I still prefer Thunderbird overall, especially for organizing my archives.
Calendars/Tasks: Syncs with Vivaldi, Google, Apple, and standard CalDAV servers so it works with Nextcloud.
Contacts: Only syncs with a Vivaldi account, so itâs a non-starter as far as my Nextcloud setup goes.
Online Community / Services
Vivaldi.net started out as a new home for the Opera community (as in the people who used it) when the company shut down the Opera Community (as in the hosted blogs, forums, and other services) back in 2014. It wasnât until later, shortly before Opera (the company) broke up, that Vivaldi launched their own browser. Because of this, they still have some services you might not expect a browser company to provide:
Forums for users to talk about Vivaldi and random stuff, and to interact with developers. This is where youâd make a feature request or report a bug, or share tips with other Vivaldi users.
Blogs: Just general blog hosting, like Operaâs used to be! Runs on multi-site WordPress (the software) with plugins including The SEO Framework, ActivityPub (Fediverse compatibility), Akismet (spam filtering), and the Classic Editor for those of us who [prefer it over blocks]/software/wordpress-block-editor/.
Webmail (yes, webmail!): To cut down on spam and abuse they wait until youâve been active on your account for a while before giving you access to webmail. It runs on Roundcube, the same software DreamHost uses. Itâs got a good set of features and runs well, plus you can also connect to the account with any IMAP mail client (including Vivaldi, of course!)
Vivaldi.Social: A social network site running Mastodon, which interacts with the rest of the Fediverse. Easy to set up and access in the sidebar, making it a good way to check out Mastodon if youâre curious.
A very lightweight social networking server, with a very clean web interface for viewing public posts. Compatible with Mastodon apps and interacts well with Mastodon and other major ActivityPub platforms on the Fediverse.
You can run it as a semi-private server, so your group can interact locally without the posts leaking, and still share public posts with followers on Mastodon etc. And theyâve been building in safety features like local-only posts, controls on who can reply, and so on.
Itâs not meant for handling zillions of users. GoToSocial is more for setting up a server for your group or family or friends (or even just yourself) on a spare Raspberry Pi or cheap VPS host. Itâs not as small as Snac (which is incredibly tiny!), but Iâve got GTS running quite well on a 1GB Linode.
Admin is a lot simpler than Mastodon. You can install a single binary or a single container, and it just uses SQLite instead of running a full DB in a separate container. I still havenât had to add storage or RAM.
Basically the only sysadmin stuff Iâve done aside from setup in over two years has been installing updates, which has just been incrementing the version number in docker-compose.
Beta and Compatibility
Interoperability is a lot better now than it was when I started testing it, and these days it interacts well with varieties of Mastodon, Pleroma, Misskey, Bookwyrm, Pixelfed, Snac, WordPress, etc. Bridgy Fed works with it now, and Iâm able to follow Bluesky accounts (and vice versa) through it. Postmarks patched its compatibility with the broader Fediverse, and works with GTS now.
Not compatible: Threads* still wonât talk to GTS. Lemmy can partially interact, but still has issues.
Post editing has been available since version 0.18. And thereâs a utility to import your old posts from another site, something that even Mastodon still doesnât have!
Right now itâs still in beta. Some of the more noticeable features that havenât been built yet:
link previews
search posts (except your own)
auto-delete (which I could probably hack together as a database script)
But it already handles most of what I need, and Iâve been using a personal server as my primary Fediverse presence since early 2024.
Before we start: Dillo (as in armadillo) is built for the web of documents, not applications. It intentionally doesnât support JavaScript, and while it can work with server-side web apps, you have to jump through a few hoops to enable cookies on a given site.
That saidâŠ
Speed
Dillo is an incredibly fast ultra-minimalist web browser for Linux and other Unix-like systems. This makes it a good first choice on old or low-end hardware, or in a constrained virtual machine. You can keep another browser around as fallback for online apps that need JavaScript, complex styles, or newer features.
The lack of scripting also means that most advertisements and tracking wonât load in the first place, making it even faster (and good for privacy!)
Visuals
CSS support lags behind quite a bit compared to other web browsers, but thatâs partly because development stalled for a decade when one of the project leads passed away.
Depending on how complex a site is, it might display just fine, or a little bit off, or be way off but still readable. Or broken. On sites powered by MediaWiki (Wikipedia, Fandom wikis, etc), for instance, the articles themselves are often readable, but the sidebars, headers or footers may look like theyâve been broken up into pieces.
And I keep having trouble getting it to display emoji consistently under Linux, though it displays them fine on macOS.
So whether Dillo works for you depends heavily on what you want to use it for. If you want to connect to Bluesky or read Gmail or anything like thatâŠthatâs not going to work. At all. Online shopping would be iffy at best. But if youâre searching for information, or hanging out at Metafilter, or actually reading stuff, it might be worth a look.
But a Snac timeline looks good â which makes sense, because Snac is ultra-minimalist itself â and you can even log into a Snac site and post, because Snac only requires baseline HTML and HTTP(s) to work! The UI is a bit clunky because the browser doesnât support the HTML5 Details element (yet?), so all the forms and buttons and fields are visible all the time. But it works!
Small Internet and Other Plugins
There are plugins available to support various âsmall internetâ protocols like Gemini and Gopher. And since even the oldest web browsers already support more formatting than Gemtext, plain text, or Gopher menus, they donât suffer at all. I mean, yeah, Lagrange is prettier, but thatâs all in the defaults, not the site support!
Current packages (3.1 and up) are available in various Linux distributions including Fedora, Arch and Alpine, and in Homebrew for macOS.
Debian is slow to change and still has the old 3.0 release from before the multi-year gap, which is unfortunate because it doesnât handle newer SSL/TLS, and thereâs no Flatpak or Snap as far as I know, but you can still install it from source on Debian or an atomic distribution like Fedora Silverblue.
Apparently it works on Windows with Cygwin again, too! (I wrote up how to compile the old GTK+ version on Cygwin, back when I was maintaining RPM packages for installing Dillo on Fedora and a couple of other distributions, but thatâs been obsolete since the switch to FLTK in 2008, and I eventually deleted it in one site cleanup or another.)