Farewell, 2025. It was my first full year working at Vivaldi, which will never make me rich but allows me to work with great people, do interesting things, and not worry that my soul is rotting. I only spoke at a couple of conferences: CSS Day in Amsterdam, and was an MC at the excellent Birmingham grassroots TechMids, organised by the newly-enobled Dr Tom Goodman.
Work travel becomes increasingly hellish as I age, but I went to Brussels to bother Regulators about Microsoft a couple of times by train (57 times nicer than flying, even if it takes slightly longer), and went to Oslol to see my chums in Vivaldi HQ. I went to New York for a whole three days (!), which will be my last US trip under the current regime. I also squeezed in a brief holiday in Türkiye.
Work wise, as my friends and erstwhile colleagues wrote in Open Web Advocacy 2025 in Review,
A lot happened in 2025 for browsers and web apps with new investigations, laws, and court cases across the EU, Japan, the US, Australia, and the UK… Apple is now barred from blocking third-party browser engines on iOS in 28 countries, soon likely 30. However, it continues to resist real competition.
I’ve also been helping Vivaldi take the fight to Microsoft as a member of the Browser Choice Alliance, and we’re certainly seeing some success, at least in the European Union.
Personally, I released my third album with the cruellest months, called On the Air, which you should definitely listen to and buy for a mere £5.
In other, very personal, news, I had a colonoscopy, which was unfun (but not painful). You can read all about my colonoscopy fun, should you be facing one of these any time.
2026 will be an “exciting” year, I think. Across Europe, people and organisations are becoming disenchanted with relying on Big Tech. Within just four months between Proof of Concept and rollout, Austria’s Federal Ministry for Economy, Energy and Tourism went live with a secure Nextcloud environment, operated on its own infrastructure in Austria and designed to meet strict transparency and compliance requirements. Germany’s Schleswig-Holstein migrated to Open Source Email Systems. MEPs have written to its President to demand digital sovereignty in the EU Parliament, citing a range of European alternatives, including Vivaldi.
Danmark Skifter [Denmark shifts] is a national campaign from from January 1 to March 20, 2026, in which thousands of Danes will “take back control of their digital lives – not alone, but together”. European alternatives lists “European alternatives for digital service and products, like cloud services and SaaS products”. I moved my 80 year old mum from Windows to Linux.
Most Big Tech happens to be in the USA, and its current administration is unlikely to be delighted by pesky European communists wanting autonomy. The US Government has already sanctioned a former EU commissioner and four Europeans over EU legislation to curb online hate speech. Big Tech firms are affronted that their Manifest Web Destiny is being challenged; expect Apple to become especially litigious.
Of course, I will fight on as I have been doing, both before and during my employment with Vivaldi. I’ll work with other browsers and civil society organisations, to keep the web open, and free,
My personal resolutions: I shall also try to lose some of my middle-aged paunchiness, and drink less beer (I suspect that there might be a link between the two). I shall also try to release my fourth album, and remain utterly gorgeous.