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Category: News

Google is shutting down Keen, a platform you may have never heard of

Posted on March 18, 2024March 18, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

It is not uncommon for Google or Microsoft to shut down services or programs. In fact, there are entire websites dedicated to services and products that these companies shut down.

Google’s latest target is Keen. Keen was developed as a competitor to the incredibly popular Pinterest. As you may know, you can join Pinterest to create collections of “things” that you like. From classic game consoles over your favorite recipes to furniture and holiday destinations.

These collections may be explored by others. Add social features to the mix, and you got a highly addictive foundation.

Keen was not Google’s first rodeo. Remember Google Plus? It was another failed attempt by Google to establish a strong social service foothold.

Keen promised to do things just a tad different when compared to Pinterest. The service allowed users to “curate, collaborate & expand everything” that they were into.

The service was available on the web and on Google Play. Registered users could create so-called “Keens” and add links, text, images, or web searches to them.

Keen shutdown

Keen allowed users to collaborate and Google added machine learning to the mix to power recommendations.

Keen launched with some fanfare in 2020. While it did get an initial push, as anything that Google does to a degree, it seemed to underperform. The platform got fewer and fewer updates, and nothing really happened to it since December 2021.

Keen shutdown

When you open the Keen website today, you get a popup that informs you that it is shutting down on March 24, 2024.

Both the Keen website and Keen application won’t be accessible anymore after that date. Google says in the farewell message that Keen “was always intended as an experiment”. Keen users may use a data export tool to export their date before March 24, 2024.

All data, including posts, uploads, like, follows, and comments, will no longer be available after March 24, 2024.

Closing Words

Keen is the latest product in a long list of products that Google killed over the years. While there were lots of duds among them, some are missed by some users even today. This includes Google Reader, Google Specialized Search, or Picasa.

Now You: do you use any social media sites?

Mozilla reassures users that it won’t kill Manifest V2 support in Firefox

Posted on March 17, 2024March 17, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

Mozilla confirmed this week that its Firefox web browser will continue to support the extensions Manifest V2 next to the new version Manifest V3.

Google announced several years ago that it would move Chrome’s extensions manifest to a new version. The manifest defines the capabilities of browser extensions. Google’s initial draft drew the ire from users, privacy advocates, and developers alike. The company’s engineers made several adjustments to Manifest V3, which addressed some criticism but not all of it.

It now plans to end support for Manifest V2 extensions later this year in Chrome. Most Chromium-based browsers will share the fate. In fact, the only option to avoid this is to spend engineering time on reintroducing support for Manifest V2 in the browser engine after removal by Google.

Mozilla is in a better position this time. The organization’s Firefox browser uses its own browser engine, which gives it more control over its set of features. While Mozilla has been pushing Firefox towards improved Chromium compatibility in the past, it has made decisions in the past against this if it thought that it would be in the best interest of the organization.

Firefox Extensions

In the case of Manifest V2 and Manifest V3, Mozilla published a statement about the future of Manifest V2 shortly after Google’s announcement regarding the change. Summed it, it confirmed that Mozilla would not follow Google’s implementation to the letter. Firefox would continue to support Manifest V2, and thus all extensions that relied on it, next to Manifest V3.

In other words, Firefox users would get the best of both worlds. Future compatibility with Manifest V3 extensions and also backwards compatibility to make sure that extensions continued to work.

Not all extensions can be ported to Manifest V3. Some may be ported, but with an impact to the functionality. Especially content blockers and other security tools are on the receiving end in this regard.

Mozilla reiterates its stance

With Google’s deadline to end Manifest V2 support in Chrome coming closer and closer, Mozilla published an update on its stance regarding the change. Mozilla confirmed that it has not changed its strategy at all.

While Firefox is supporting Manifest V3 extensions to a degree already, it will continue to support Manifest V2 extensions as well. Firefox continues to “support MV2 extensions for the foreseeable future” according to Mozilla.

Mozilla keeps a back door open, but you cannot really blame the organization for doing so. The organization promises that it will inform developers and users at least 12 months before making a a change in this regard, if it decides to re-revaluate the decision.

Closing Words

Firefox continues to support Manifest V2 extensions for the foreseeable future at the very least. It is too early to say if the decision will have an impact on the browser’s usage numbers. Once Google launches the change in Chrome, users with Manifest V2 extensions installed will notice that they cannot use these anymore.

These have several options, one of them is migrating to a browser that continues to support them. It will be especially interesting to see how content blockers behave after the changes land.

Now You: What is your take on the Manifest V3 push by Google?

Office

Microsoft Office 2024 and Office LTSC 2024 announced

Posted on March 16, 2024March 16, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

Microsoft announced Microsoft Office 2024 for consumers and Office LTSC 2024 for organizations this week. These will be the latest perpetual Office releases. In other words: customers buy these versions once without any recurring costs.

While that sounds like a good deal, perpetual Office versions are supported for only five years by Microsoft. While they may be used after support ends, it comes with risks as security issues are not fixed anymore by Microsoft.

Another factor plays a role. Whereas Microsoft 365 Office apps get constant feature updates, this is not the case for Office 2024 and any other perpetual version of Office. There is no technical reason for this limitation. Microsoft does so to cut costs and push its subscription-based business.

What we know about Office 2024

Microsoft 365

Microsoft does not reveal much about Microsoft Office 2024 or Microsoft Office LTSC 2024 at this point.

The consumer version will be sold for the same price as Office 2021, the last perpetual version of Office that Microsoft released.

The main edition of Office, Office Home & Student 2024, will therefore retail for $149.99. Microsoft Office Home & Business 2024 will retail for $249.99.

Microsoft 365 Personal is available for $69.99 per year. The business editions of Microsoft 365 start at $6 per month and user, but the cheapest version does not include desktop versions of Office programs. The Microsoft 365 Business Standard plan is available for $12.50 per month and user.

Here is the price overview:

Office 2024 Home & StudentOffice 2024 Home & BusinessMicrosoft 365 HomeMicrosoft 365 Business
1-month$149.99$249.99$69.99$12.50
1-year$149.99$249.99$69.99$150
5-years$149.99$249.99$349.95$750

If you just look at the price, it is cheaper to buy a perpetual version of Office.

The main downside to buying one is that it won’t get any new features after release. Some features are also Microsoft 365 exclusive, especially for business users as Microsoft notes:

While Office LTSC 2024 offers many significant improvements over the previous Office LTSC release, as an on-premises product it will not offer the cloud-based capabilities of Microsoft 365 Apps, like real-time collaboration; AI-driven automation in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint; or cloud-backed security and compliance capabilities that give added confidence in a hybrid world

Microsoft plans to increase the price of Office LTSC editions by 10% according to the announcement. Furthermore, Microsoft Publisher will not be included anymore in the bundle, as it is being retired.

Closing Words

It is good that Microsoft is giving customers the choice between the subscription-based Microsoft 365 and the perpetual version Office 2024. It is not as good that Microsoft is limiting functionality and blocking any new features from landing in Office 2024 editions after release.

Price-wise, perpetual licenses are still cheaper, if you compare the retail prices. Discounts may change this one way or the other.

There is also LibreOffice, which is free and works well in many cases, but not in all.

Now You: do you use Office?

translate

Mozilla adds new languages to Firefox Translations

Posted on March 13, 2024March 13, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

Mozilla’s Firefox web browser supports native language translations since Firefox 118 in desktop and Android versions of the browser. This feature, called Firefox Translations, supports additional languages now.

One of the main distinguishing factors between Mozilla’s implementation of a translate feature in Firefox and that in other browsers is that Firefox’s runs locally.

Translations happen on the local device. All that is required for that is the downloading of a language pack for each language. Google, Microsoft, and other browser makers use cloud-based translation services. The consequence here is that information is submitted to company servers. Google and Microsoft know about the text that gets translated. Not a problem for some, but if you value privacy, you may prefer Mozilla’s implementation.

Firefox Translations improvements

Firefox's translate feature

Firefox Stable supported a good dozen languages up until now. These were Bulgarian, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish and Portuguese.

The Estonian language is added to the list of fully supported languages.

Mozilla added support for additional languages, but these are limited to being translated. In other words, Firefox cannot translate other languages into these languages yet.

The additional languages are Finish, Greek, Hungarian, Russian, Slovenian, Turkish and Ukrainian.

Firefox Translations

Support for these new languages is added remotely to Firefox, an update of the browser is not required. You should see the languages listed already on about:preferences#general under Translations.

Support for additional languages in development

Mozilla is working on adding support for additional languages to Firefox. Users who run development versions of Firefox gain access to additional languages or capabilities.

The focus is on European languages, with Persian (Farsi) being the exception.

Dev users get full access to Czech and Persian (Farsi). Additionally, support for translating Catalan, Icelandic, Lithuanian, Maltese, Norwegian (Bokmål and Nynorsk) are also available. Lastly, support for translating languages into Hungarian, Russian, and Ukrainian is also available.

Closing Words

Firefox’s translation feature supports many European languages already. Several are still missing, including Danish, Swedish, and Croatian among others.

Support for non-European languages is lacking severely at this stage. These still require the use of other translation services at the time of writing and the foreseeable future.

Now You: which translation service do you use? (via Sören Hentzschel)

Speedometer 3.0: new browser benchmark released

Posted on March 12, 2024March 12, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

Speedometer 3.0 is the latest version of the browser benchmark developed in a joint effort by Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Mozilla.

Browser benchmarks were a craze for many years on the Internet, but popularity has gone down significantly in the last years.

When Google launched Chrome, it hammered home the fact that the browser was offering better performance with browser benchmarks. It was true at the time and brilliant marketing.

Mozilla, Microsoft, and other browser makers scrambled, but they had huge troubles closing the gap to Chrome.

Today, browser benchmarks are niche again. Developers and organizations may use them, but they play little role for regular Internet users. One reason for that is that browser makers have stopped using them for marketing for the most part. And the reason for that is that the gap is not as large anymore as it was 15 years ago.

Speedometer 3.0

Speedometer 3.0

Speedometer 3.0 is a browser benchmark by Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla. Visit the benchmark’s website in any browser and hit the “start test” button to run it.

The benchmark runs automatically from that point on. It make take a minute or two to complete the test and a score is displayed in the end. This score depends largely on the performance of the device and the browser that you use.

Speedometer 3.0 replaces the second version of the benchmark. Apple and Google collaborated in 2018 to release it to the public.

The new iteration improves “how Speedometer captures and calculates scores” and it comes with “an even wider variety of workloads”. In essence, the developers of Speedometer have updated the workloads used to test the performance of the browser to take into account changes in the last six years on the Internet.

This means that a different set of frameworks is used in the tests. New browser and JavaScript APIs are tested, and more complex computations are run as well.

You may check out Google’s post on its Chromium blog for the company’s take on the changes. Microsoft published its take on the benchmark update here.

Closing Words

Most web browsers share a common core. This is true for all Chromium-based browsers. Performance, therefore, is nearly identical when it comes to the likes of Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Brave, Vivaldi, or Opera. Mozilla with its Firefox web browser and Apple with its Safari browser use different engines, and results may differ more on the same machine because of that.

Unlike computer benchmarks, which may show tweaking potential, browser benchmarks come with little optimization potential. Apart from installing the latest drivers on the machine, there is little one can do to improve the performance of a browser to get better scores in benchmarks.

With that said, it is still interesting to see how your browser or system performs.

Now You: do you use benchmarks?

Tabs

Exclusive: Mozilla CEO confirms that Tab Groups are coming to Firefox

Posted on March 9, 2024March 9, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

More than eight years after Mozilla decided to remove tab groups from Firefox, the organization confirmed today that tab groups will make a comeback.

When Mozilla launched Firefox’s Panorama feature, which introduced tab groups in Firefox years before Google implemented the feature in Chrome, it was ahead of its time.

Tab groups improve tab manageability by allowing users to put multiple tabs into groups in the tab bar. These groups may be collapsed to free up room on the taskbar.

While Mozilla did introduced Tab Groups before Google, it was Google that made them practicable to use.

Current implementations in Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers are easy to use. It is an elegant solution. Panorama on the other hand showed tabs of the active group only to the user.

Mozilla announced the end of tab groups in Firefox about nine years ago. The organization cited low usage, a lack of quality, and high maintenance costs.

Mozilla CEO confirms Tab Groups

This month, something remarkable happened. Firefox user Belfox published a letter to Mozilla CEO Laura Chambers. In it, they asked Chambers to consider adding a tab grouping feature to the browser.

Firefox lacks proper tab grouping support. All Chromium-based browsers support it, thanks to the shared codebase. Belfox noted that tab groups was the top requested feature on Mozilla’s Connect website.

Nothing happened for about a week, but then, Chambers replied to the user on the Mozilla Discourse website.

She wrote:

Hello! Thanks for reaching out. I have some good news! I checked in with the team, and they have prioritized the work and have a people assigned to work on it.

In other words; Mozilla’s CEO confirmed that a team is working on tab groups and that it is a development priority.

The response is remarkable. Not because of confirming that tab groups will (likely) come to Firefox. It is remarkable because it is the first time in a very long time that Mozilla’s CEO communicates directly with the community.

Not with a letter or blog post, but in a discussion.

Chambers confirmed that Firefox would become a priority at Mozilla again after taking over the reigns from Mitchell Baker. It seems that she is making good on the promise.

This direct interaction with the Firefox base could help bring management, developers, and users closer together again. It gives hopes to a community, of which no small part felt neglected in recent years.

Closing Words

Firefox is getting tab grouping support, which is good news for users of the browser. The CEO partaking in discussions about the browser and responding to user requests is even bigger than that.

Chambers remains CEO for a limited time only. A successor has not been found yet and it remains to be seen if the future Mozilla captain will follow her lead.

Mozilla is also working on bringing tab previews to Firefox.

Now You: do you use tab groups?

Amazon Appstore Windows 11

Microsoft announces retirement of Windows Subsystem for Android

Posted on March 5, 2024March 5, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

Microsoft announced the retirement of the Windows Subsystem for Android today. The subsystem was heralded as one of Windows 11’s upcoming features prior to the launch of the operating system more than 3 years ago.

The store allowed developers and users to run certain Android applications directly on Windows 11 machines. Microsoft partnered with Amazon to bring the Amazon Appstore to Windows 11. This limited availability of apps on Windows 11, as Google Play was not supported.

The announcement on the official Windows Subsystem for Android website offers the following information on the retirement.

Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android™️ (WSA). As a result, the Amazon Appstore on Windows and all applications and games dependent on WSA will no longer be supported beginning March 5, 2025.

Microsoft ends support for the Amazon Appstore and all apps and games that depend on the Windows Subsystem for Android on March 5, 2025. Windows 11 users who installed Android apps or games on their devices will have continued access to these through March 5, 2025.

Installations of the Amazon Appstore are still available at the time of writing. Microsoft Store will prevent installations starting March 6, 2024.

Microsoft offers no reason for the deprecation of the feature. Windows Subsystem for Android was available in a few dozen countries only including the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Japan. The feature had specific system requirements on top of that: a 64-bit processor, virtualization support, 16 GB of RAM and a Solid State Drive. The last two requirements were recommended but not enforced.

The deprecation of the entire Windows Subsystem for Android puts an end to any Microsoft Store application that used it to install Android apps on the Windows device.

The last update of the Windows Subsystem for Android was released less than a year ago. It introduced file sharing capabilities between the subsystem and the Windows 11 host machine.

Alternatives to the Amazon AppStore

One alternative that continues to work for developers and users is BlueStack. It is a third-party solution that focuses on bringing Android games to PC. BlueStack claims that it offers more than 2 million Android games to PC players.

Google launched Google Play Games recently to bring a selection of Android games to PC. The software is still in beta at the time of writing and limits games to a fraction of what is available on Google Play.

Mozilla adds translations support in Firefox for Android

Posted on March 3, 2024March 3, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

Mozilla is porting the private translations feature of the desktop version of its Firefox web browser to the Android version. The organization introduced translations support in Firefox 118. A core difference between Mozilla’s implementation and that in other browsers is that Mozilla’s runs locally.

When you use Google Translate or Bing Translate, data is transferred to Google or Microsoft servers. It is processed there and then returned to the browser.

Firefox translates webpages directly on the device. No data is transferred to Mozilla or elsewhere. In other words, Mozilla does not know the text that you want translated nor the site it is published on.

Firefox for Android: first look at translate feature

Translate is only available if Firefox Nightly for Android at the time. Even there, it is not visible right away but needs to be enabled by users.

Firefox Translations Android

Here is how that is done:

  1. Select Menu > Settings.
  2. Open About Firefox.
  3. Tap five times on the Mozilla logo on the page until you get the notification that debug is enabled.
  4. Go back to the main Settings page.
  5. Locate the Secret Settings menu.
  6. Toggle “Enable Firefox Translations” to turn the translate feature on.

A new translate icon is now displayed in the address bar when you open a foreign language page.

Tap on the icon to get options to translate the content into another language.

Firefox Translate for Android: the options

Firefox Translate Android menus

The main translate menu lists the source and the target language only. You may change those and hit the translate button to get the page translated immediately.

A tap on the settings icon displays translate options. Here you may enable “always” or “never” translate options. These are:

  • Always translate a specific language. When enabled, Firefox will translate the language automatically when it encounters it.
  • Never translate a language. Blocks translate functionality for pages in that specific language.
  • Never translate this site. Blocks translate functionality on the current site, but not on others.

Firefox uses local language pack for its translates. These need to be downloaded once for each language and this happens automatically when you select the translate option the first time for that language.

You may download all languages immediately in the Firefox settings. Note that this version of the translate feature supports only the four languages English, French, Italian, and German. All language packs have a size of about 28 megabytes.

Closing Words

It is unclear when the translate feature is rolling out in Firefox Stable for Android. It is likely that this is going to happen later in 2024, but Mozilla has not announced its plans yet in this regard.

Since translations happen locally, it is privacy-friendly. There is one downside at the moment: language support.

The desktop version of Firefox supports just a few dozen languages at this point. These will all come to Firefox for Android, but it may take a long time before Firefox’s translate feature supports the majority of languages.

Still, Mozilla is bringing another requested feature to Firefox for Android. This helps close the feature gap between Firefox and Chromium-based browsers. Also worth to note is that Firefox supports features that major Chromium-based browsers do not support. Extensions support is a major one.

While Microsoft is working on bringing extensions support to its Edge for Android browser, it is not there yet.

HP

HP’s new All-In Plan gives you a printer and ink, but it is expensive

Posted on March 2, 2024March 2, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

HP All-In Plan is a new subscription plan from HP. The company’s previous subscription plans focused on printer ink subscriptions. Users could sign-up for a plan to get printer ink delivered to their home before they run out of it.

Called HP Instant Ink and starting at $1.49 per month, it assigned a print quota, measured in pages, to the printer. The cheapest plan is good for 10 pages per month with the option to buy more pages if the need arises.

The most expensive plan, called Business, allows users to print 700 pages for $27.99 per month.

HP improved the plans in recent time. It expanded options to laser printers by introducing Toner Plans. The plan starts at $1.99 for 50 pages of printing per month. The most expensive plan is available for $19.99 per month.

HP added options to add paper subscriptions to the plan recently in the United States.

Now comes the HP All-In Plan, which adds the printer to the subscription.

HP All-In Plan: the facts

HP promises “hassle-free printing with the HP All-In Plan”. Basically, what HP is doing is lending subscribers a printer and providing them with ink based on the selected plan.

HP advertises 24/7 Pro live support and an option to upgrade to another printer model after 2 years.

The cheapest option starts at $6.99 for an HP Envy printer and 20 pages of printing per month. HP does not reveal which HP Envy model users get; it is possible that different models may be provided. The price of a base HP Envy printer is about $70 at the time of writing.

Two additional printer models are available. The HP Envy Inspire printer, that starts at $8.99 per month, and the HP OfficeJet Pro printer, which starts at $12.99 per month.

HP Envy Inspire printers start at about $130 and the HP OfficeJet Pro also at around the same price tag. Some models are sold for more though and it is unclear which models subscribers get.

Note that some page options are only available if a more expensive printer is selected.

The maximum price per month at this time is $35.99. This gets subscribers the HP OfficeJet Pro printer and a quota of 700 pages per month.

There is one caveat: HP wants to bind users for at least 24 months. Subscribers have to pay cancellation fees to get out of plans early. These cost almost as much as the plan for the entire 24 month period.

Here they are:

PrinterAfter 30 days and up to 12 monthsAfter 12 months and up to 24 monthsAfter 24 months
HP OfficeJet Pro Plan$270.00$135.00$0.00
HP ENVY Inspire Plan$180.00$90.00$0.00
HP ENVY Plan$120.00$60.00$0.00

If you cancel after the 30-day trial period but in the first year, you pay between $120 to $270 to HP to cancel the subscription.

The fee drops to $60 for the HP Envy plan and $135 for the HP OfficeJet Pro plan in the second year. It becomes free only after the first 24 months of subscription.

Is HP’s All-In Plan worth it?

It is simple math for the most part. How much does it cost to buy one of the listed printers and printer ink, and how does it compare to HP’s subscription service?

Buying a cheap HP Envy printer sets you back about $70. It does come with some ink to get you started right away. If you buy HP printer ink, you pay about $40 for a package with black and color ink. If you buy from third-party suppliers, you pay less or get more ink.

This comes at the risk of HP breaking printing though, unless you block driver updates.

The official ink is good for 200 black pages and 165 tri-color pages, which means 365 pages in total.

The cheapest HP All-In Plan gets you 20 pages per month for $6.99

The math for a 2 year period:

  • Cost of HP subscription plan: 24 x 6.99 per month = $167.76
  • Cost of buying the printer and ink: $70 + 2 x $40 for the ink cartridges = $150

Note that this does not take into account the ink that is included when you buy the printer nor the money you get when you sell the printer after two years of use.

Things to consider

HP’s offer does not look that bad compared to buying the printer and ink directly on first glance. You can reduce the costs to less than $40 for ink if you buy third-party printer ink cartridges, which increases the attractiveness of buying the printer directly.

Some things need to be considered:

  • HP All-In Plan allows you to use color printouts, black printouts or mix and match. The company makes no distinction between black and color printouts when it comes to the monthly ratio.
  • You can get a new printer after 2 years of use. If you buy yourself, you would need to buy another printer, but could potentially sell the old one for a discount.
  • You pay cancellation fees if you want to cancel the subscription between the second month and 24th month.
  • HP subscribers get support when they need it. It is unclear how good support is though.
  • HP subscribers will never run into problems with printer ink drying up and becoming unusable.
  • Only some unused pages of printing carry over into the next month.
  • HP monitors printing on the device and may “transfer information about you to advertising partners”. The partners may use the information to identify devices for targeted advertising. The printer needs to be connected to the Internet all the time.

There is a good chance that HP will raise the subscription price in the coming years. It has done so several times for its Instant Ink subscriptions already.

Closing Words

HP claims that its new All-In plan eliminates “the hassle of owning a printer and running out of ink”. What HP forgets to say is that it is usually not a hassle to own a printer, but to use one.

Lack of printer ink or dried up ink play certainly a role, but there are other factors. One of them is HP trying to block customers from using any ink but the company’s.

Subscriptions are often not the best option for consumers. In this case, it means subscribing for two years and paying more than you would if you would buy the printer and ink directly. It may look less of a hassle, as HP is taking care of sending the printer and ink to you, but it comes at the cost of having printing monitored by HP 24/7 and a loss of flexibility.

Now You: what is your take on HP’s All-In plan?

Vivaldi 6.6 update introduces massive improvements

Posted on February 29, 2024February 29, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

Vivaldi Browser, contender for the world’s most customizable desktop browser, is available as a new version. Vivaldi 6.6 is a major update for the web browser. The update improves web panels, a feature of Vivaldi that allows users to display websites in a sidebar.

A web panel may display websites, e.g., Spotify, YouTube, yours truly Chipp.in, or eBay, next to other sites. One of the main uses for web panels is to control functionality of one site or service while using others.

Other new features include mail search improvements, an interesting new overview of website permissions, and the ability to set a preferred webpage color theme.

Vivaldi 6.6 is available already. Most installations of the web browser should update automatically. Users may also download the latest installer from the official Vivaldi website.

Vivaldi 6.6: web panel improvements

Vivaldi 6.6 Web Panel

Vivaldi includes a few default web panels that you may launch directly from the sidebar. There is the Wikipedia web panel, for instance, which opens Wikipedia in the sidebar. You may add custom webpages and sites as web panels for easy access.

Existing web panel users may notice the new navigation options for web panels. This makes it easier to navigate back and forward, as the browser’s default navigational items are reserved for its main website view.

The second big change in regards to web panels is that extensions work there now. This means that you may install extensions, e.g. content blockers, media players, or other extensions, and use their features there as well.

Last but not least, extension developers may use the new Side Panel extension API to add “entire new Panels” to the browser.

Central Website Permission Management

Vivaldi Custom Permissions Management

Vivaldi, being a Chromium-based web browser, already includes options to manage website permissions. These can be configured globally or individually.

Global permissions apply to all websites except for sites with custom permissions. You could disable JavaScript globally and allow it to run on some sites. Other popular permissions are autoplay of media, sound, location detection, access to the microphone or camera.

Changing custom site permissions is not a straightforward process. You have to open the site in the browser and activate the Shield icon in the address bar and select Site Settings to manage them for the site in question.

This is identical in all Chromium-based browsers. Vivaldi 6.6 introduces a centralized management interface for custom permissions.

Just load vivaldi://settings/privacy/ in the browser’s address bar and scroll down to the Website Permissions section. Note that you may also go there manually by following this path: Settings > Privacy and Security > Website Permissions.

Vivaldi lists all websites with custom permissions. Just select one and you get the option to change permissions for that site right there. Custom permissions are highlighted in color, making it easy to detect them.

Note that there is no option to set permissions for individual sites to their defaults. You may reset all of them to the defaults though using the interface.

Website Color Theme setting

Dark Mode enforced

Another new feature in Vivaldi 6.6 is the option to set the default color theme to dark for websites. This is independent of the theme used by the browser or the operating system’s color preference.

Vivaldi 6.6 includes the option “force a dark theme on all websites” to make sure it is used on sites, even on those that do not support dark mode.

You find the options under Settings > Website Appearance, or by loading vivaldi://settings/appearance/ directly in the address bar.

Other changes in Vivaldi 6.6

The new browser version introduces a number of other updates. Here are the most important ones:

  • Improved the translation quality and performance of Vivaldi’s built-in translation service.
  • Search in Vivaldi Mail, the browser’s built-in mail client, includes advanced search options now. New filters displayed underneath the search field allow users to narrow down results, e.g., by limiting search results to a specific account or the email subject.
  • Import and export data from Vivaldi Notes and Reading List now.

Closing Words

Vivaldi 6.6 is a major update for the browser. It introduces several improvements for users of the browser. Notable are the permissions management interface to control custom permissions from a central page, extensions support in web panels, and the new dark mode option for websites. Vivaldi Mail users get improved search options on top of all that.

Now You: have you tried Vivaldi recently?

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