vivaldi Archives - Chipp.in Tech News and Reviews

Vivaldi Browser 7.2: the speed boost it needed

Posted on March 18, 2025March 18, 2025 by Martin Brinkmann

Vivaldi Software has released a new version of its desktop browser today. Vivaldi 7.2 is available already. The company says that it implemented several speed optimizations in the browser as well as the usual mix of usability-enhancing options.

As for speed, Vivaldi has probably not been the fastest leanest browser out there in the past. Part of this comes from the awesome list of customization options that its users get. You can customize many aspects of the browser, including some that no other browser offers by default.

Vivaldi says that it has improved the performance of the web browser in two core areas:

The address bar.
Page loads.

As far as the address bar is concerned, it should deliver “quicker, and more relevant results” now. Vivaldi developers have tweaked suggestions and improved the accuracy of search. All this to help users find what they want faster.

Indeed, typing in Vivaldi’s address bar feels snappier after the upgrade to version 7.2. Mileage may vary though, so please let me know how you’d rate the experience after you have given it a try.

As for page load improvements. Vivaldi says it has optimized the browser’s connection handling and that this can lead in some cases to twice as fast page loads. I never really had issues with page loads in Vivaldi, but it surely feels as if pages load a bit snappier on my trusted HP laptop. Again, give this is a try and let me know how the experience is for you.

Priority shortcuts

Another new feature is the introduction of priority shortcuts. These are designed to take priority over any other shortcut, including those that websites may map when you visit them.

It is a power user’s feature, no doubt about that. Still, if you find the shortcut behavior on a particular site annoying, you may give it a shot.

Here is the list of other notable changes in Vivaldi 7.2:

You can now turn emails into events in Calendar.
There is a new Currency Widget to convert currency in real-time.
Quick Commands support Workspaces now.
Mail accounts can be reordered.

Additional information is available on the Vivaldi website. Existing users should receive the update automatically, but you can also select Vivaldi Menu > Help > Check for updates to get it right away. New users can download Vivaldi 7.2 from the official website to get started.

Now You: have you tried Vivaldi 7.2? What is your take on the new version? Noticed any speed improvements?

Vivaldi Browser’s Tab Renaming feature is an incredibly useful feature

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

So, Vivaldi has released a new stable version of its web browser, which is also called Vivaldi. Vivaldi 6.9 includes a number of new features that improve customization and options for its users, as usual.

Among the batch of 6.9 features is tab renaming. To the best of my knowledge, it is a first in the browser space, but correct me, if I’m wrong.

Update: Arc Browser supports this as well.

The idea is simple: you can use it to rename any open tab in the browser. To do that, you simply right-click on the tab, select rename, and type the new name.

Note that this works better for unpinned tabs, as pinned tabs show only the site’s icon by default. But even here, it is useful. More on that later.

Once you have changed the name of the tab, it stays. Restart the browser, and you still get the custom tab names after the restart.

While some may wonder what this feature is good for, others may have noticed it immediately. It depends a bit on how you use the browser.

Here are a few examples:

Make the titles descriptive. Some sites use titles that do not always reflect their name or purpose. If you visit eBay, you get Electronics, Cars, Fashion, C as the visible title. Change it to eBay, and you do not have to look twice. If you are the romantic type, you could change tabs from your crush so that they read I love you, from Bob, or something similar.
Shorten titles. Many sites use titles that do not display fully. Also, if you open enough tabs, the available space shrinks further. You could assign the letter C to my site for instance or Chip, or whatever, and it is visible for longer.
Use titles as reminders. Don’t feed after midnight, message mom, or CANCEL are all valid.
Disguise names. If you fear that someone could catch a glimpse of the sites that you have open, and you do not want that, you could use the feature to change the title to something else. Maybe change Facebook to TikTok to avoid having to defend you still spending time on the site. The site’s icon may still reveal the real site to some bystanders though.

There is the slight chance that you may get confused and want to restore the title. This is done by selecting rename again and deleting the current title. Press the Enter-key and the original title returns. You may use the same method to alter a modified title.

The new title is also shown when you hover over tabs. This is where the usefulness for pinned tabs comes from.

You can download the latest version of the Vivaldi web browser from the official site. If you like customization options, this might the browser for you.

Tab renaming, is that something that you might use, if your browser supported it? Let me and everyone else know in the comments down below.

Vivaldi 6.7 launches with a massive number of improvements

Posted on April 25, 2024April 25, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

Vivaldi Technologies has released Vivaldi 6.7 for the desktop today. The new version of the web browser improves it in several ways.

Vivaldi is a highly customizable web browser that gives users a lot of options. The new version enables a memory saver feature, improved feed detections on sites like Reddit, password exporting, and more.

Note: the new Privacy Guard feature is still in testing.

How to install or update Vivaldi

New users may download the latest version of the Vivaldi web browser from the official website.

Existing users may select Menu > Help > Check for updates to download and install the new version. A restart of the browser is required to complete the installation.

Memory Saver

Vivaldi 6.7 includes the Memory Saver feature. Its aim is to reduce memory usage of the browser by putting unused tabs into hibernation. The tabs remain open in Vivaldi, but the websites are unloaded.

This frees up memory, which is then available for other tasks on the system. A click on an inactive tab reloads it immediately.

Note that Memory Saver is disabled by default. Here is how you enable the feature in Vivaldi:

Select Vivaldi Menu > Settings to open the preferences.
Switch to the Tabs section of the Settings window.
Change Memory Saver to one of the following states:
- Automatic — this gives the browser full control over the feature.
- After 1,2,3,6 hours idle — This puts a tab into hibernation if it was idle for the selected period.

Note that you may turn off the feature at any point by changing its state to disabled.

Tip: right-click on any tab in Vivaldi to get options to hibernate background tabs. This includes websites open in tab groups.

Better feed detection

Vivaldi includes a feed reader to read RSS feeds. The latest version of the browser improves the discoverability of feeds.

Just visit any page that supports feeds to subscribe to them. A feed icon is displayed by Vivaldi automatically. Click on it to subscribe to any of the listed feeds.

The feed discovery feature works on sites like Reddit, YouTube, or GitHub now.

If you always wanted to follow a channel or user on Reddit, or a publisher on YouTube, it is now easier in Vivaldi using the feed reader.

Other features of Vivaldi 6.7

Here is a quick rundown of other features new or improved in the browser:

New option to export passwords and feeds.
Improved creation of a workspace. Use Ctrl-click to select tabs and then right-click on them to create a new workspace (by selecting the move > Workspace option).
New window split view option on Mac.

You can check out the full Vivaldi 6.7 changelog on the official website.

Do you use Vivaldi? Feel free to share your thoughts on the browser in the comments below.

Vivaldi testing new Privacy Guard feature in browser

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

Privacy Guard is a new feature of the Vivaldi web browser. It is free at the moment and only available in development builds of the browser.

Broken down to its core, it is protecting user privacy through a technology called Multi-Hop Relay. To better understand it, it is necessary to understand how regular connections work in the browser.

When the browser loads a domain, a direct connection to each resource of a webpage is loaded. This means that the server the site is hosted on as well as any third-party resource loaded communicates directly with the IP address of the user’s device.

Multi-Hop Relay changes this by putting servers in-between. In other words, instead of directly connecting to resources, the browser connects through other servers first. This is done to separate the identity of the user’s device from the requested resource.

Vivaldi’s Privacy Guard technology uses two servers for this. The first is operated by INVISV, the startup that developed the Multi-Hop technology. The second is operated by Fastly.

Vivaldi says that INVISV has been founded by Paul Schmitt, University of Hawaii, and Barath Raghavan, University of Southern California. The startup has advisers, including Bruce Schneier and Jon Callas.

The feature in Vivaldi

You need a development version of Vivaldi to use the feature at this time. Another limitation is that Privacy Guard requires a Vivaldi account. Creating an account is free.

A click on the Privacy Guard toggle enables the feature. A public IP address is assigned to the browser. Vivaldi displays the location of the server as well, so that you know about the country you are connected to.

The fastest server is selected by default, which means that you will connect to a server closest to your location usually. You can switch this to random instead, which may further improve privacy.

Websites may be added to the list of exceptions. Direct connections are used for any of these sites.

Initial tests were promising. All tested websites and services, including YouTube, Twitch, online game websites, blogs, and others worked as before. Some sites may display captchas, but this is also the case when other anonymization services are used.

Privacy Guard vs. Tor Browser vs. Multi-Hop VPNs

How does the privacy feature compare to similar technologies?

Privacy Guard — uses two hops. Hops are operated by different companies.
Tor Browser — uses three hops. Hops are (usually) operated by different companies and organizations.
Multi-Hop VPN — uses another hop. Operated by the VPN provider.

Closing Words

The technology is free to try at the moment and Vivaldi says that it uses the current implementation for testing and to find out if this is something that Vivaldi users are interested in. A release in Vivaldi Stable would require a subscription. Details have not been revealed at this point.

Some Vivaldi users will certainly find the option appealing. The main appeal it has over VPNs is that its servers are not operated by the same company. It is also easier to use, but it lacks advanced features that VPN services do offer.

Would you use Privacy Guard? How much would you pay for it?

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 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, 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

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?

10 useful Vivaldi features that hardly anyone has heard of

Posted on December 14, 2023December 14, 2023 by Martin Brinkmann

When it comes to web browsers, Vivaldi has a special place in my heart. The browser is not my main driver, but I use it regularly. What I like most about Vivaldi is that it is feature-rich and probably the browser with the highest amount of native customization options.

Vivaldi is a Chromium-based browser. It offers the same web compatibility as Google Chrome and works really well out of the box.

Users who dive deep into the browser’s settings may find features there that hardly anyone has heard of.

You find ten of those listed below. Please let me know in the comments if you knew about them and whether they are also available in other browsers.

Themes Editor

All browsers come with a selection of themes that you can activate. Additional themes may be available in an add-ons store, but barely any browser includes a theme editor.

Vivaldi does. You may create new themes or edit existing ones. The available options range from changing colors and backgrounds to replacing icons.

Tabs at the bottom or sides

Vivaldi supports four tab bar positions. Besides the default top placement, it also supports placing the tab bar at the bottom or to the sides.

Tab Stacks

Vivaldi supports tab stacks. While the feature may look very similar to the tab grouping feature of other browsers, it is more powerful than that.

Tab stacks can use a compact, two-level or accordion design. Compact comes closest to the tab groups feature of other browsers. Two levels displays a second tab row that contains all tabs of the selected tab.

Accordion collapses and expands tab stacks either manually on activation or automatically, if desired.

Other Tab customizations

You find a wealth of tab customization options in the Settings. Here are my favorites:

Select the new tab position. When you open a new tab, define where it opens.
Select which tab gets activated when you close atab.
Enable double-click to close tabs.
Change the minimum width of the active tab.

Lazy Loading

Vivaldi uses lazy loading when restoring tabs to improve performance. Pinned tabs do get loaded automatically though. Most browsers support the feature.

Vivaldi lets you control it in the Settings. You may disable lazy loading there entirely, or prevent pinned tabs from loading automatically.

Customize what Vivaldi returns when you type in the address bar

Vivaldi has options to prioritize and customize what the browser returns when you type in the address bar. All browsers display a menu when you type. This menu may include items from the browsing history, open tabs or bookmarks.

In Vivaldi, you can enable or disable all data sources individually, and prioritize them. Don’t want search suggestions or typed history results? Want to make bookmarks the highest priority or synced tabs? All of this and more is possible.

Quick Commands

Use the keyboard shortcut F2 or Ctrl-E to display the quick commands window. This window lists most commands that the browser supports. You may select them using the mouse or keyboard. A search field is available to find a command quickly.

To name a few commands: Exit the browser, switch to the next theme, check for updates, open about page and dozens more.

Command Chains

Command Chains allow you to execute multiple actions automatically, e.g. to toggle fullscreen and reader mode, or open multiple links at once. These can be created in the Settings and may be invoked via Quick Commands, keyboard shortcuts or mouse gestures.

Impressive Keyboard shortcuts

Vivaldi’s keyboard shortcut editor gives you (almost) full control over all browser features. You can change keyboards using the keyboard shortcut editor and map shortcuts to new actions to use them.

Menu Customizations

Vivaldi gives you full control over browser menus. You can add, edit, move or remove items from menus. This includes the Vivaldi Menu, right-click context menus, address bar menus, and basically any other menu that you encounter.

Now You: do you find any of these features useful?