Vivaldi Beta 2 is out
Vivaldi Beta 2 has been released a moment ago moving the browser one step closer to a final release. Downloads are available on Vivaldi.com, and via the browser's updater.
The new beta version includes all features and improvements that Vivaldi added to the browser since the launch of the first beta version back in early November 2015.
This is the last Beta release of Vivaldi in 2015, and also the last release of the browser in the year.
Many small and a couple of big changes went into Vivaldi Beta 2. Some highlight that work needs to be done, while others that Vivaldi is not just another browser that jumped on the Chrome-clone bandwagon.
Vivaldi Beta 2 Changes
Tab Closing Improvements
The tab closing behavior was changed in a recent build. The main difference to before is that tabs won't adjust their size automatically anymore while you are clicking on the close button.
This lets you close multiple tabs in succession without having to move the mouse as the close button remains in the same position while you do so. Open tabs are resized once you are done closing tabs.
Extensions
Extension compatibility has improved significantly. Vivaldi, which is based on Chromium/Blink, supports the majority of Chrome extensions, and this update makes sure that even more extensions can be installed without issues in the web browser.
Bookmarks Trash
A trash was added to the bookmarks and notes which allows you to restore bookmarks or notes that you have deleted previously.
Panel Hiding
Vivaldi ships with panels displayed on the left side of the browser. These panels let you access bookmarks, contacts, downloads, notes or mail in the sidebar. In addition to that, you can also add website links there to open those sites in the sidebar.
A right-click on the panel interface displays options to hide some of the existing panels.
Silent Tabs
Vivaldi displays audio indicators in tabs in the latest beta, and a switch to turn off the audio in the selected tab.
All you have to do is click on the audio icon to mute or unmute sound.
Other improvements
What follows is a list of smaller changes that are part of Vivaldi Beta 2:
- Netflix Support.
- Option to move tabs between browser windows.
- HTML5 notifications support.
- Setting a minimum font size.
- Setting default character encoding.
The Future
Vivaldi plans to release the first stable version of the web browser in early 2016. While Vivaldi is pretty stable already, there are still features missing and things that need to be done before it can be released as a final version.
Doing so should give the browser a significant boost.
Now You: Have you tried Vivaldi? What's still missing in your opinion?
Could you close developer tools window ?
Is there a way to have the domain highlighted in the address bar like every other browser out there? My URLs show all one color/shade, and it’s annoying.
Vivaldi is pointless as its foundation is Chrome which is a phone-home and privacy nightmare. PaleMoon and QupZilla are alternatives which are way better (QupZilla for lightning speed and simple browsing, PaleMoon for everything else).
Sure not compatible with the Xmarks extension. Trying to download from server causes it to seize all of my system memory, and I do mean all, and brings my system to a state where nothing responds except ctrl-alt-del to get task manager to kill its process. Showstopper regardless of who is at fault.
Vivaldi have some nice features, but I don’t know about using a closed source browser full-time.
Great Improvement to Vivaldi … Developer Tools is still not able to dock … very sad.
I’m pretty happy with Vivaldi. Sure, it could use some optimization, and I’d like Sync to be sorted out sooner rather than later, but overall, it’s a promising start.
Small thing you didn’t mention: the latest version adds new hotkeys to switch between panel sections mouselessly. You can now move backwards and forwards between Bookmarks, Downloads, Notes and Web Panels, which is handy if you love hotkeys like me. :)
The ability to set hotkeys at will is almost reason enough to switch from Firefox. Such a nice feature. Built-in mouse gestures fall a little short right now, though, since you can’t edit them or selectively disable them; it’s all or nothing. But the devs have already confirmed gesture-editing is coming in a future release, so I’m fine with waiting for now.
I’d like the touchpad swipe gestures on my MacBook to work in Vivaldi – haven’t done so far. Then I may be ready to move across.
I use Vivaldi a fair amount but it won’t be full time until it can sync bookmarks and settings.
Other annoyances are Tabs are stupid-responsive to magic mouse gestures and spaz out some times. Lastpass only mostly works. It can’t do logins that require password re-confirmation.
These things will come though. Vivaldi has shown great promise and done the work to show they plan to deliver on it.
Really, really love it. It still has a few quirks (especially when it comes to extensions handling and small UI glitches) but every new version proves a little better again. Truly promising work indeed. As for how well it does handle all kinds of streaming media setups, I’m not in a position to judge that.
Right now I do not yet use Vivaldi as my primary browser. But if they carry on like this, I can very well imagine this might change next year.
+1
Jon Tetzchner has done more in one year than Maxthon, Firefox and Opera put together!
2016 is looking good!
Not “disabling WebRTC” but ability to disable. I need WebRTC.
I’d like to have page scaling with the mouse wheel rolling when a Ctrl key is pressed.
Try Ctrl + Shift with the mouse wheel …
Still no global page zoom.
I know it’s still in beta, but diabling WebRTC is a red-line issue for me.
Disabling WebRTC would be a significant improvement.
That is how Firefox still should be and Opera still should be. Customizable, fulfilling the needs of power users. Because even if you add complex features a mainstream user can still decided to ignore those and use a very simple layout.
Sadly Opera and Mozilla have not understood that.
I have used Vivaldi & what bugs me most is that the extension icons don’t react properly: you often need to click them twice before you see their full content.
Also, you cannot move the extensions around on the toolbar.
Such a simple thing, but it’s a deal breaker for me. How hard can it be to have the extension icons movable on the toolbar? If Chrome can do it why can’t Vivaldi or Opera?
Vivaldi has a non native UI – Everything has to be implemented first, as it is not using Chrome’s standard non customizable UI. Even adding add-on icons to the bar was quite some heavy task for the Vivaldi developers to pull :D
And it is also one thing to be able to implement the basic feature, a different thing is to make it use like it is possible in Chrome, as all the Vivaldi UI code is javascript or css.
So, to answer your question, it is very hard to do so ;)
I’m still missing click to play for plugins (or at least I couldn’t find it)
With “chrome://settings/content” you get to the settings menu where you can enable click to play.
Not working for HTML5 videos.
>2015
>using plugins