Vivaldi 2.6 is out featuring abusive advertisement blocking
Vivaldi Technologies released a new version of the company's Vivaldi web browser on June 20, 2019. The new Vivaldi 2.6 version introduces a native content blocking mechanism and includes new customization options.
Vivaldi 2.6 is available already via the browser's automatic update functionality. Just select Vivaldi Menu > Help > Check for Updates to run a check for updates. The browser should pick up the new version automatically and install it on the system.
The new Vivaldi release is available as a direct download on the official company website as well. You can check the installed version by selecting Vivaldi Menu > Help > About Vivaldi.
Vivaldi 2.6: What is new
The big new feature in Vivaldi 2.6 is support for ad-blocking on abusive sites. The feature is enabled by default; it uses Google's blocklist to determine whether to block advertisement on sites but hosts it on its own server for improved privacy as Vivaldi installations will retrieve the Vivaldi-hosted version when updates are available and not the version hosted by Google.
Abusive experiences that result in blocked advertisement include misleading behavior, site history manipulations, fake messages, auto-redirects, and others.
Vivaldi users may disable the feature under Settings > Privacy > Content Blocking, e.g. when they run a full content blocker already in the browser.
The blocklist takes care of some of the worst experiences related to advertisement on the Internet. It needs to be noted, however, that it won't block all advertisement encountered on the Internet.
Check out our initial coverage of abusive ad blocking in Vivaldi here.
User Profile improvements
Vivaldi introduced support for user profiles in version 2.4 of the browser released in March 2019. Vivaldi 2.6 improves the feature in several ways. It is now possible to create multiple user profiles in a single Vivaldi installation directly.
Vivaldi users who don't sign in to a Vivaldi account get options to update avatars, add and delete profiles in the popup, and to edit the avatar in the popup.
Other improvements in Vivaldi 2.6
Vivaldi 2.6 features other improvements that improve the browser in one way or another. Here is a short list of what is new:
- Performance improvements -- Users who work with a lot of tabs should notice performance improvements in the new release.
- Saved Passwords filter -- Settings > Privacy and filter features an option to filter by account name or website.
- Unread Tabs -- The Window Panel displays the number of unread tabs (opened in background) as a badge.
- Find in Page -- You may use Ctrl-Enter to open any link that the on-page search finds.
- Search favicon in search field -- The favicon of the selected search engine is displayed now in the search field for easier identification.
- Razer Chroma headphone devices support added -- Razer Chroma support was introduced in Vivaldi 2.5.
How about this as a feature: block Google spy servers.
[Editor: please no attacks] They don’t use Google’s spy servers, they host the list on their own servers.
Sounds nice. Especially the profile part.
“it uses Google’s blocklist”
That’s as good as not having one at all, in my opinion, since Google and I greatly disagree about what constitutes abusive advertising.
Then make your own blocklist crybaby which of course is going to be better… and send it to Vivaldi to use it instead.
Well done Vivaldi, you keep getting better and better.
Updating made my current session dissapear …
ctrl+shift+n, opening the latest closed window luckily restored it
Have they fixed the login database transfer? I tried to import my FF logins into Vivaldi recently and it just doesn’t work.
They seem to be really behind on fixing stuff. Last time I checked the browser, it had an issue where on Windows 7 it would launch as a non-maximized window stretched to the free space of the screen. It is an issue that existed for 1.5 years. I have Windows 10 now so I don’t know if they fixed it, but my guess is they haven’t still and probably never will. Now it’s almost 2 years since this bug appeared.
I suggested them to create a download popup like Firefox and Opera or something like in Chrome, this was ignored and the downloads still appear in the sidebar. If you disable the status bar on the bottom, the only way to access the sidebar to see your downloads is to use the keyboard shortcut F4.
Vivaldi is one of THE MOST UNINTUITIVE browser I’ve ever seen. Even Opera 12, the last one with the Presto engine is still miles ahead in terms of design choices compared to Vivaldi.
This issue is still present as of 2.6, it is specially annoying if you have the option of no margins on the tab bar.