Vivaldi 1.15 update information

Martin Brinkmann
Apr 25, 2018
Updated • Apr 25, 2018
Internet, Vivaldi
|
23

Vivaldi Technologies released a new version of the company's web browser Vivaldi to the public today.

Vivaldi 1.15 improves several features of the browser; it adds more options to full-screen mode, improves audio playback, and adds even more options to the personalization settings.

Users who run Vivaldi already should get an automatic update notification when they start the web browser. It is possible to speed up the process by selecting Vivaldi > Help > Check for updates; Vivaldi runs a check for updates so that the new version can be downloaded and installed.

The new Vivaldi 1.15 version is also available on the official website where it can be downloaded for all supported operating systems (Windows, Mac, Linux).

Vivaldi 1.15 new and improved features

Vivaldi comes with a good selection of customization options to change the appearance of the web browser. Users of the browser may use unique features such as theme scheduling to display different themes at different times, a useful slider to change the size of the user interface, and even move user interface elements such as tabs around; something that Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers don't support for the most part.

You may set a background image for the window in Vivaldi and use repeating or scale to fit to display it.

Just load vivaldi://settings/appearance/ in the browser's address bar to open the Appearance settings that Vivaldi 1.15 comes with. Scroll down to the Window Background Image section and click on "select image" to load an image that you want displayed in the browser's titlebar.

The image is displayed immediately after you select it; note that you may need to uncheck "blend Window Accent Color with image" to see it in all of its glory. The default option is set to repeat but you can switch to scale to fit instead.

Vivaldi Bookmarks

Vivaldi users who display the menu as a horizontal menu and not the Vivaldi button, may have noticed that the menu features a new Bookmarks entry. While you had plenty of options to access bookmarks in Vivaldi previously, the new addition gives you even more choice when it comes to that.

Tip: go to vivaldi://settings/appearance/ and there to the Menu section to switch between the Vivaldi button and menubar options.

Full screen mode enhancements

Vivaldi 1.15 features several additional enhancements. The browser's full screen mode was enhanced in the new version; it is now possible to display user interface elements such as the address bar or panels while in full screen mode.

The following shortcuts are handy:

  • Ctrl-F11 to toggle the user interface in full screen mode.
  • Ctrl-Shift-S to display the status bar
  • Ctrl-Shift-B to display the Bookmarks Bar

You may also set shortcuts for the Tab Bar and Address Bar individually on vivaldi://settings/keyboard/ under View.

Other improvements in Vivaldi 1.15 include better and improved HTML5 audio support. The changes should improve issues with sound not playing at all or playing at the wrong speed in the browser.

Last but not least, Vivaldi's screen capture functionality remembers the setting that you used even across sessions so that you may reuse it directly.

Closing Words

Vivaldi 1.15 is a usability update for the browser that fixes one major issue (HTML5 audio) and adds more personalization and appearance options to the browser.

Summary
Article Name
Vivaldi 1.15 update information
Description
Vivaldi Technologies released a new version of the company's web browser Vivaldi to the public today. Vivaldi 1.15 improves several features of the browser; it adds more options to full-screen mode, improves audio playback, and adds even more options to the personalization settings.
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Ghacks Technology News
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Comments

  1. Michael Ewing said on November 10, 2018 at 3:08 am
    Reply

    This new update is the stupidist worse thing I’ve seen for browsers. Now I can’t get out of the page without using task manager or turning off the computer. It won’t allow me to access other sites except to lose the one I’m on. Vivalid was pretty good before this disaster was invented.
    I puts a bunch of junk on right side of screen.

  2. Lord Lestat said on May 6, 2018 at 12:11 pm
    Reply

    Not bad. Guess i have to remove my negative opinion about Vivaldi a little bit. It is really feature rich and customizable.

    Thats how Firefox should still be.

    But, the downside is Vivaldi is and stays Chromium, and Chromium is quite bad. Better use Otter-Browser with revieved QTWebkit – fully Open Source and has also a lot of interesting features. And for those who prefer Chromium, Otter is also available as QTWebengine version.

  3. Toni said on April 30, 2018 at 8:19 pm
    Reply

    Given that Xmarks was coming to an end I Google’d and discovered Vivaldi sync. I set it up between Vivaldi on my Windows laptop and Vivaldi on my Macbook. It worked perfectly. I moved a bookmarks on my bookmarks bar and watched it move on the other machine. I have to say – outstanding – great work!

  4. Joe K. said on April 29, 2018 at 11:22 pm
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    I know the Vivaldi team is relatively small and that they are trying to balance general Vivaldi refinements, mobile browser work, and sync/webmail….but I really wish they would prioritize improving the performance of the browser. Maybe there is nothing they can do on this point, that the natural result of offering so many added features and customization options is a decrease in performance, but Vivaldi remains frustratingly behind its Chromium competition when it comes to even “simple” things like initial launch times, rendering pages, etc.

    I want to use Vivaldi as my default, but it’s hard to do when the performance is so poor in relation to its competition.

    1. Richard Allen said on April 30, 2018 at 10:20 am
      Reply

      That’s weird. I have Chrome Stable, Dev and the latest Vivaldi snapshot and my results are opposite of yours.

      With Chrome Stable and Dev the startup time is deceptive because the window is visible very quickly but by the time the extensions are loaded and doing there thing Vivaldi will beat them both every time. I have all of my browsers open one tab to the StartPage search engine. On that page I use uBO to hide some elements to clean up the appearance. I also use No-Script Suite Lite and can see when that is working. I have Chrome Stable, Dev and Vivaldi using the same extensions, flags and command line switches. I use over two dozen flags. Average startup time for Vivaldi is 2.1 seconds. Chrome Stable and Dev are about 2.5 seconds but since the last updates are occasionally not loading the extensions fully at startup.

      Also, right now, Vivaldi beats the others in Kraken, Octane and Speedometer, on my desktop, which has an average four core processor, a small graphics card and an SSD. Memory use is higher in Vivaldi but that is a non-issue for me because my desktop has 16GB of ram.

      Martin has an article here that has some useful tips on reducing memory usage:
      “https://www.ghacks.net/2017/02/13/how-to-speed-up-the-vivaldi-web-browser/”

  5. Clairvaux said on April 26, 2018 at 1:33 am
    Reply

    Does anyone know how to set the scrolling speed of the mouse wheel in Vivaldi ? It’s much quicker than Firefox, too quick in my opinion.

    1. Richard Allen said on April 29, 2018 at 6:56 pm
      Reply

      I agree that the settings can be a little complex. I have the advantage of using something similar in the past, in FF. First, I wish there was a reset button to go back to the default settings. The only way to do so that I can see is to delete the extension folder in AppData\Local\Vivaldi\User Data\Default\Local Extension Settings = “khpcanbeojalbkpgpmjpdkjnkfcgfkhb”. The average user is not going to want to have to do that.

      I went ahead and installed the extension in Vivaldi and it’s working well, for me. In the settings the adjustment bar can of course be changed with a mouse and then I use the UP/DOWN arrows on the keyboard to fine tune the number. When you are done with ‘that’ setting you have to then click outside of the settings box to get the focus away from that specific adjustment, if that makes sense. These are the settings that I’m currently using and the numbers in the brackets are the default:
      Step Size=20 (40)
      Smoothness=86.75 (66.18)
      Acceleration Sensitivity=184 (204)
      Acceleration by Travel Distance=1.20 (1.00)
      Bouncy Edge=OFF (86)

      I rarely open the panels and instead just use the address/location bar to search for bookmarks and history CTRL+L. If I want to look through my bookmark folders I have an extension that I use, “Popup my Bookmarks”.
      “https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/popup-my-bookmarks/mppflflkbbafeopeoeigkbbdjdbeifni”

      1. Clairvaux said on April 30, 2018 at 7:01 pm
        Reply

        Thanks for being so helpful.

    2. Richard Allen said on April 28, 2018 at 8:41 am
      Reply

      Sounds like something that would have to be done with an extension. There is a port of the Firefox addon “Yet Another Smooth Scrolling” that should be able to do what you what. I haven’t used the Chrome version but I did use the FF version back before I figured out how to do most of what it does by making some changes in about:config, might be worth a try. Probably need to use a combination of ‘step size’ and ‘acceleration’.
      “https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chromium-wheel-smooth-scr/khpcanbeojalbkpgpmjpdkjnkfcgfkhb”

      I recently started using an extension, “Font Rendering Enhancer”, for the lighter fonts in Chromium browsers and it works well. The lighter and thinner appearing fonts have always bothered me, the extension helps and is very light on resources. I’m using a setting of 70.
      “https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/font-rendering-enhancer/hmbmmdjlcdediglgfcdkhinjdelkiock”

      1. Clairvaux said on April 28, 2018 at 8:06 pm
        Reply

        It works on Web pages, but apparently not in the bookmarks and history panels (whether on the side or full-page), which is where it would be needed the most.

        Also, all those different smoothness-this and smoothness-that settings are difficult to understand, and what about the two types of acceleration ? Either it’s too complex, or not explained enough.

        Finally, the settings of the extension themselves are too finicky, their step is too small…

      2. Clairvaux said on April 28, 2018 at 7:46 pm
        Reply

        Thanks Richard, I will try that.

  6. James said on April 25, 2018 at 8:49 pm
    Reply

    Love it so far! Vivaldi is my default!

  7. CLM said on April 25, 2018 at 5:09 pm
    Reply

    Im still amazed that there absolutely no one online figured out how to delete the “unique ID”, assuming its a bunch of numbers and letters stored somewhere on your profile!!!

    Also no information how to stop/disable the data collection on this browser!

    Privacy policy is one of the worst i have seen in a while.

    Anyone!

    1. rickmv said on April 27, 2018 at 10:55 pm
      Reply

      “Local State” file in your profile contains very specific data to identify your installation: “vivaldi”:{“unique_user_id”:”…”}, “easy_unlock”:{“device_id”:”…”}, “rappor”:{“cohort_seed”:183,”secret”:”…”}

      The Piwik installed on their server is Analytics data collection. Still, there is no opt out option if you’re using their browser.

      You are one of 255 users from your IP address as only last octet is removed.
      “We anonymize the IP address of Vivaldi users by removing the last octet of the IP address from your Vivaldi client then we store the resolved approximate location after using a local geoip lookup.”

  8. Karol said on April 25, 2018 at 11:20 am
    Reply

    And where is syncing? It’s the 21st century and Vivaldi doesn’t have syncing and an Android app yet. I really like Vivaldi but without these features it’s almost useless…

    1. Weilan said on April 25, 2018 at 2:43 pm
      Reply

      You can clearly see the cloud icon on the bottom status bar in the screenshot.

      1. Karol said on April 25, 2018 at 3:59 pm
        Reply

        After updating, I can’t see any cloud icon, no syncing option in Vivaldi settings. Obviously, the screenshot is of Beta Vivaldi(Snapshot Vivaldi).

      2. Martin Brinkmann said on April 25, 2018 at 4:03 pm
        Reply

        What happens when you load vivaldi://settings/sync/

      3. Karol said on April 25, 2018 at 8:39 pm
        Reply

        My cursor will jump to an address search bar in Vivaldi settings. Sync options is when I type this: vivaldi://experiments/

      4. Martin Brinkmann said on April 25, 2018 at 8:51 pm
        Reply

        Karol, ah, so that is how it landed on my system.

      5. Karol said on April 25, 2018 at 9:06 pm
        Reply

        OK. :) I will try to enable the syncing again. I already tried it but my Vivaldi frozed sometimes.

      6. Karol said on April 25, 2018 at 3:50 pm
        Reply

        Yeah, on the left site. So I will try it. Thx for your advice. :)

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