Category Archives: Vivaldi

Vivaldi 1.5

A new version of alternative web browser Vivaldi fixes a load of bugs, improves reader mode, and adds the ability to control home lighting.

Wait, what? Home lighting control? That’s right, Vivaldi 1.5 sports a feature that’s unlikely to have been on anyone’s wish list for their web browser. From the announcement: “Selecting which lights Vivaldi should control, the browser will synchronize your physical surroundings with the color of the web. This opens the door to a thrilling direction.” Apparently the Vivaldi developers are oblivious to the many serious security issues related to IoT devices, including the Philips Hue light bulbs on which this feature depends.

More usefully, Vivaldi 1.5 makes big improvements to tab and bookmark functionality, which in previous versions were at least partially broken in various, random ways. Version 1.5 seems to have addressed all of the remaining tab and bookmark issues.

Vivaldi 1.5 also includes changes to its update mechanism, and will now only download changes (not the entire browser) when updating itself. Presumably the Vivaldi developers noticed Microsoft was doing this for Windows 10 and decided to follow along. It’s a welcome change, but not exactly groundbreaking.

The official announcement post for Vivaldi 1.5 includes a list of all the changes. None of them seem to be related to security.

Another poorly-documented update for Vivaldi

Another new release of Vivaldi appeared earlier this week, with no announcement or anything resembling release notes on the Vivaldi web site. The announcement blog is full of details on developer snapshots, which are of no interest to regular folks.

As with the previous release, I only became aware of the new version when I ran Vivaldi and an update dialog appeared. According to that dialog, the only change in Vivaldi 1.4.589.38 is a new version of the Chromium engine.

Vivaldi 1.4.589.29

This morning when I fired up Vivaldi (I still use it for social media), it popped up an update message. Luckily, I actually read the change notes in the message, so I can tell you that Vivaldi 1.4.589.29 consists of an engine (Chromium) update, plus a few bugfixes.

I say ‘luckily’, because as I’m writing this, there’s no announcement of the new version on the Vivaldi blog, and no release notes of any kind. Sheesh.

Vivaldi 1.4

A new release of Vivaldi features enhancements to theme support, including theme scheduling. Panels can now be different widths, and middle-clicking the garbage icon now restores the most recently closed tab.

Wait. Theme scheduling? Does anyone really need this? Frankly, I wish the Vivaldi developers would focus on the core issues, like tabs, bookmarks, and link handling, which are still a mess, in my opinion. Why is Vivaldi the only browser that doesn’t highlight the contents of the address bar on right-click?

The Vivaldi 1.4 release announcement has additional details, including a complete list of changes.

Vivaldi 1.3

The people behind the alternative web browser Vivaldi keep hammering away at it, improving features and fixing bugs. With the release of version 1.3, Vivaldi is closer than ever to being a legitimate contender in the current browser war.

Still, Vivaldi has more than its share of problems. Some aspects of the user interface remain visually clunky or difficult to use, including the bookmark editor. There’s still inconsistency in the way links and bookmarks are handled.

I’ve been installing developer snapshot builds of the browser when they become available. In reviewing the change logs for these snapshots, I noticed a surprising number of ‘regression’ bugs being fixed. I understand that developer snapshots are not intended for regular use, and are likely to be rough around the edges, but each of these regressions belies a lack of communication and coherent effort among the developers.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m actually rooting for Vivaldi. I continue to hope that the Vivaldi developers get their act together and produce a version that I can once again consider seriously as a replacement for Firefox.

Vivaldi: not ready to replace Firefox

Well, I tried. I used Vivaldi as my main web browser for a month, and while there’s a lot to like, I found I had to change the way I work to get around its limitations and problems.

The biggest problem is Vivaldi’s inconsistent and confusing handling of links, bookmarks, and tabs. The Vivaldi developers have apparently failed to grasp that links should behave differently, depending on their context.

The bookmark editor is extraordinarily clunky, which is surprising, given that it should be a simple feature to code.

A lot of basic functionality that I take for granted in Firefox and other browsers is still missing from Vivaldi. Dragging and dropping bookmarks (eg. from the address bar to the bookmark sidebar) doesn’t work. Hovering the mouse over a bookmark doesn’t show the full URL. There’s no way to edit bookmarks directly in the bookmark toolbar. The right-click context menu for images doesn’t include a ‘Properties’ option. And so on.

Vivaldi’s developers seem to be aware of these issues, and have been working on them in developer ‘snapshot’ versions of the browser. I started using the snapshot versions in the hope that I’d get some relief from the problems I mentioned, but instead ran into even more problems.

Meanwhile, I’ve switched back to Firefox. I’m still optimistic about Vivaldi, but for now I’m only using it experimentally.

Vivaldi 1.1.453.59

The release notes for Vivaldi 1.1.453.59 aren’t exactly overflowing with information. The current version is only referenced in the page URL, while previous versions are listed below, in a series of rather confusingly-titled and somewhat redundant sections that all look like this:

Changelog since 1.1, the fourth release.

Parsing what information is available, I concluded that this version was released to fix one security vulnerability: [Security] Address bar spoofing using HTTP status code 204/205.

It’s a security update, so if Vivaldi is your browser of choice, you should navigate to Help > Check for Updates... on the Vivaldi menu.

Vivaldi 1.1.453.52

Now that it’s officially released, Vivaldi is seeing frequent updates. The developers appear to be listening to user feedback and are fixing reported issues and enhancing functionality at a steady pace.

Another new version of Vivaldi was released earlier today: 1.1.453.52. This new version updates the Chromium browser engine, which includes several security fixes. Some Linux installation issues were resolved, and the developer tools improved.

Vivaldi: a web browser for power users

I’ve been trying to find an alternative to Firefox for a while now. In my opinion, Firefox is growing increasingly flaky. I’m getting tired of having to start over with a new profile when something goes wrong.

Lately, I’ve concentrated most of my attention on Opera. But that browser still lacks a native bookmark sidebar, and while the functionality can be added via add-ons, subsequent Opera updates often cause problems.

So I’ve turned my attention to Vivaldi, a browser created by an Opera co-founder. After a long beta period, Vivaldi 1.0 was recently released, and so far, I like what I see.

Vivaldi’s design is partly a response to the trend of excessive simplification in the major browsers (and elsewhere, including Windows 10). Simplicity is useful for regular users, but where does it leave IT professionals and power users? The answer is – at least for now – Vivaldi.

At its core, Vivaldi uses the same Chromium engine as Google Chrome and Opera 15+. But that’s where the similarity ends, because Vivaldi is much more configurable that those other browsers. For example, the tab bar can be moved to any edge of the screen, and tabs can be stacked. There’s a native sidebar, in which bookmarks can be displayed in a tree structure. Any site or page can be added to the sidebar. You can add your own notes to the sidebar.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be using Vivaldi as my main web browser. If all goes well, I’ll make the switch permanent, and put Firefox and Opera out to pasture, along with Internet Explorer and Edge. I keep those browsers around for those few remaining sites and services that just don’t work elsewhere, as well as for testing.

I’ll post my conclusions once my evaluation is complete. In the meantime, here’s a review of Vivaldi 1.0 at Ars Technica.

Vivaldi 1.1 is now available.