Vivaldi 1.4: Find out what is new
Vivaldi 1.4 is the newest version of the up and coming web browser that aims to conquer the browser world by improving the user experience through customization features.
It has just been a couple of months since Vivaldi released the first stable version of the web browser to the public.
Much has changed since then, and versions 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 all added new functionality to the browser.
Vivaldi 1.3 was released just a month ago, and it is clear right away that you should not expect a truckload of new features in Vivaldi 1.4.
While that is the case, it does ship with Theme Scheduling, a feature that I reviewed just a couple of days ago.
Vivaldi 1.4
I don't want to rehash the whole article and suggest you read it for a detailed look at the feature. Theme scheduling allows you to switch between different themes automatically based on the time of day.
You may add as many "switches" as you like, and the Vivaldi browser will switch between them automatically from that moment on.
It is for instance possible to set a darker theme for night time and early morning hours, and a lighter theme for the rest of the day.
While some users may not find the feature overly useful, it is completely optional and needs to be enabled on vivaldi://settings/themes/ before it becomes available. If you don't need it, ignore it and all is good.
That's one of the strengths of Vivaldi, giving users choice instead of pushing them towards the direction the designers consider optimal.
Theme Scheduling is without doubt the primary new feature of Vivaldi 1.4.
Web Panels
Web Panels allow you to pin any website to Vivaldi's panel listing on the left. You may then open those sites in a sidebar-like area in the browser.
Since sites may require different widths, Vivaldi 1.4 supports different widths for sites displayed as web panels. Just right-click on any web panel to select the "separate width" option.
The context menu holds other features of interest, for instance the ability to load the mobile version of a site if available (or the desktop version if the mobile version is shown).
Another new, minor new feature, is that you may middle-click on the trash can icon to open the last closed tab right away. The trash lists recently closed tabs in the Vivaldi interface, and the middle-click option simply speeds up the restoration of the last closed tab. While I prefer Ctrl-Shift-T for that, others may prefer to use the mouse instead.
You can read the official release announcement on the official Vivaldi blog.
In Firefox I use mouse gestures for things like re-opening last closed tab. Mouse right to open new tab, and mouse left to re-open last closed tab. Mouse down to save a picture or link.
Far more useful and much faster than keyboard shortcuts.
I find Vivaldi to still feel a bit “laggy” at times on lower end hardware. I want to like Vivaldi, Chrome and Opera have become somewhat stagnant, but I’m not sure why they are not putting all of their efforts towards the things that people actually care about like performance and battery life. Theme scheduling is a nice enough feature I suppose, but it’s certainly not a feature that I see “selling” users on why they should use Vivaldi over other Chromium-based browsers.
I’ll leave Palemoon when the Vivaldi get serious about privacy. I had high hopes for it at the start, but they see to be obfuscating the important stuff and as Jeff-FL notes, wasting time on useless fluff.
No further need to watch their development path if that’s what they think is important to the user!!
I like Vivaldi, not yet my default browser which is still Chrome.
The 1.4 breaks other extensions for me like must have Print Edit :-( ScriptSafe does’nt refresh automatically the script modification, Ietab not fully functionnal too…
Always impossible to send an URL with this browser !!! Why… ???
But, interface and ergonomics are very good…. but I’m waiting for the ability to move extension icon, better implementation for chrome extensions
Maybe some releases and it will be my default browser
This is the first time I have to admit to being disappointed with Vivaldi, after I had been very enthusiastic about the new browser ever since I knew about it.
Why ask users to submit features they most desire to be implemented in version 1.4 (and possibly sign up in their forums to do so, if they haven’t already) only to then ignore everything that was asked for? I read through the forum thread of 1.4 suggestions/requests and practically nothing of it was chosen to be worked on, even some of the most simple issues.
I assume, or at least hope, that most of those suggestions will find their way into future versions, but in the meantime version 1.4 of the browser seems to have a rather misguided development focus.
“I assume, or at least hope, that most of those suggestions will find their way into future versions, but in the meantime version 1.4 of the browser seems to have a rather misguided development focus.”
Indeed, they lie when they say they care about what users want.
Seems faster than 1.3 and works like a charm, looks great with some rounded corners, but… Is it just me or the new Chromium and Vivaldi (based on it) use quite a bit more of RAM than before?
I don’t get it. How they think to even get close to the functionality of the old Opera when the base they use is from a diametrically opposite browser/corporation that represents everything Opera and Jon tried not to be?
And, its plain and simple the ugliest interface iv ever seen.
BTW, i still use Opera 12.18 as my main browser and support what Jon and the team are trying to do!
“Theme scheduling”
I struggle to think of a more useless way to spend time and resources.
I agree with you Jeff, a waste of time specially when there are things WAY MORE urgent than that to fix/add.
When they said “a web browser for our friends” I naturally thought the goal was to reintroduce a lot of Opera 12’s best functionality (because what else could that statement mean, coming from Jon S. von Tetzchner?)
Still patiently waiting…
“That’s one of the strengths of Vivaldi, giving users choice instead of pushing them towards the direction the designers consider optimal.” What if you don’t want the Metro theme?
Still the UI lags like hell
Not lagging on my system. What system are you running the browser on?
Lagging for me when video is running. Windows 7 x64, AMD HD 6310M video card.
Not lagging for me either. For me it’s snappier than Firefox or Chrome (except when I open settings).
gHacks has new design for mobile? I like it but the first commenter name overlaps with the ‘show comments’ button. Also I always switch articles/categories without wanting to do so :( (horizontal scroll)
Sorry for offtopic.