Vivaldi releases second Beta of its Android browser
Vivaldi Technologies, the company behind the Vivaldi web browser, released the second Beta of the upcoming Vivaldi mobile browser for Android on December 5, 2019.
The company released the first, long-awaited, version of its Android browser back in September and has been working on improvements since then.
The new version is already available on Google Play. Users who have installed the previous beta may notice that it is updated automatically eventually; users who don't want to wait can force the update in the Google Play application or the browser's Play Store webpage.
Vivaldi Beta 2 for Android is a big update that introduces new features and changes to the mobile browser. As is the case with most Vivaldi updates, a lot of development time went into improving the browser's usability.
Users of the Android version of Vivaldi find a whole assortment of new features in the Settings:
- Swipe to close tab -- Can be enabled in the Settings to quickly close open tabs in the Tab Switcher by swiping them to the left or right of the screen.
- Show scrollbars on internal pages -- The option displays scrollbars on Vivaldi's internal pages which provides a position indicator.
- Always show desktop site -- When enabled, tries to load the desktop version of visited sites automatically instead of mobile pages.
But there is more. It is now possible to delete all bookmarks and notes marked for deletion with a single tap on the "empty trash" icon.
The browser's Start page received several improvements as well. Vivaldi added drag & drop support to the Speed Dials to allow them to be rearranged by the user. A long-tap displays a context menu with options such as edit or delete, and a tap on the plus icon adds a new Speed Dial to the current folder.
The Vivaldi Search widget may be placed on the home screen to run searches directly from it (without opening Vivaldi first).
Additionally, there is support for running the beta 2 of the browser on Chromebooks, improved stability, and thinner icons in the UI.
Closing Words
It is too early to give a final verdict but if Vivaldi Technologies manages to add as many features and options to the Android version as it has added to the desktop version, it could easily become as successful. Not all Internet users want customizations and options but those who do, may have something to look forward to.
Out of pure curiosity, Martin Brinkmann, what is your main browser for daily internet use? :)
On desktop, I use Brave and Firefox, on mobile Brave.
Are they really going to refuse to put an ad/content blocker on this thing and launch it without an infrastructure that supports third-party extensions?
That’s what I’m wondering. It’s a really nice browser but without those extras it will be prone to all the things that I actively avoid on the internet.
Just install blokada from outside Google Store.
Adding and ad-blocker to a mobile browser is easy, what 99% of them don’t do is adding a popup blocker. So far the only two browsers on Android that have comprehensive ad and popup blocking are Kiwi and Firefox simply because they can install extensions.
With AdGuard’s app in the background, I have not seen a single popup in years.