Vivaldi 3.5 includes media playback and usability improvements
Vivaldi Technologies released Vivaldi 3.5 for all supported desktop versions on December 8, 2020. The release comes days after the release of Vivaldi 3.5 for Android.
The new version of the Vivaldi browser improves the browser's media playback in regards to DRM protected media and introduces more usability improvements.
You can check the installed Vivaldi version by selecting Help > About in the interface. Select Help > Check for Updates to run a manual check for updates; the browser should pick up version 3.5 and install it automatically.
Vivaldi 3.5
Vivaldi users who encountered issues playing DRM protected media on certain sites won't run into these issues again after the update to Vivaldi 3.5.
Vivaldi developers added Widevine certificate keys to the web browser to; Widevine is a DRM technology that sites may use to protect media streams. The addition of the certificate keys improves the user experience significantly according to Vivaldi Technologies:
This means media sites using Widevine DRM that previously did not work in Vivaldi will now deliver the content smoothly. For example, if users frequent Amazon Prime HD, Spotify, Netflix, Disney+, and Peacock TV in your browser, they’ll have a better experience than before.
Amazon Prime HD requires the clearing of data after the update to Vivaldi 3.5. Select the lock in the address bar while on Amazon Prime, then Site Settings > Clear Data. It is necessary to sign-in to the account again afterwards.
Tab Management improvements
The browser's tab stacking feature has been improved in the new version. The tab stacks feature allows users to stack tabs on top of each other so that multiple sites occupy a single slot in the browser's tab bar.
When you hover over a tab stack in Vivaldi 3.5, you get a visual list of the open sites in the new version. Each site is listed with a thumbnail, root domain and page title. Sites with media playback display a mute/unmute toggle next to that to quickly change the state of audio playback.
Three additional options have been added to the browser's extensive tab management functionality. Users may configure Vivaldi so that new tabs and cloned tabs are opened in the background by default; last but not least, there is a new option to always display the close button in Vivaldi to improve touch screen device usability.
Other improvements
Vivaldi 3.5 includes a QR code generator that users may use to generate QR codes for website addresses for sharing.
QR code URL sharing needs to be enabled under Settings > Address bar > Address Field Options > QR Code Generator.
A new icon is added to the address bar of the browser that you may activate to display a QR code for the current URL. Options to copy it to the clipboard and to save it are provided.
Vivaldi allows users to customize most menus of the browser. Menu items that have shortcuts displays these shortcuts now when added via Settings > > Appearance > Menus. to better highlight these shortcuts when the menu is selected.
The developers have fixed a long-standing issue in Vivaldi that affected single-key shortcuts. Vivaldi supports so-called single-key shortcuts that are activated with a single-press. These shortcuts don't require the use of additional keys, e.g. Ctrl or Shift. Users could run into issues using these keys when they typed into forms, e.g. when a field required a credit card number and users pressed "1" as 1 is mapped to switching to the first open tab in the browser.
Vivaldi 3.5 includes a new option to add and order multiple languages that websites should be displayed in.
Load vivaldi://settings/languages to open the language settings and use the menu to add or remove languages, and to change the order (ordered from top to bottom priority-wise).
Another new feature in Vivaldi 3.5 brings support for disabling certain Google features in the browser.
Search for Google in the Settings and look under privacy. You find options to disable certain Google Services and Extensions, e.g. Chromecast Media-Router, Cloud Print, or Form Autofill Assist.
Closing Words
Vivaldi Technologies continues to add more customization options and other options to the browser; it is still refreshing to see these being added instead of being removed as most browser makers streamline their browsers instead and that often involves removing features.
Now You: what is your take on Vivaldi?
Doesn’t Windows 8 know that www. or http:// are passe ?
Well it is a bit difficulty to distinguish between name.com domains and files for instance.
I know a service made by google that is similar to Google bookmarks.
http://www.google.com/saved
@Ashwin–Thankful you delighted my comment; who knows how many “gamers” would have disagreed!
@Martin
The comments section under this very article (3 comments) is identical to the comments section found under the following article:
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/15/netflix-is-testing-game-streaming-on-tvs-and-computers/
Not sure what the issue is, but have seen this issue under some other articles recently but did not report it back then.
Omg a badge!!!
Some tangible reward lmao.
It sucks that redditors are going to love the fuck out of it too.
With the cloud, there is no such thing as unlimited storage or privacy. Stop relying on these tech scums. Purchase your own hardware and develop your own solutions.
This is a certified reddit cringe moment. Hilarious how the article’s author tries to dress it up like it’s anything more than a png for doing the reddit corporation’s moderation work for free (or for bribes from companies and political groups)
Almost al unlmited services have a real limit.
And this comment is written on the dropbox article from August 25, 2023.
First comment > @ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm
For the God’s sake, fix the comments soon please! :[
Yes. Please. Fix the comments.
With Google Chrome, it’s only been 1,500 for some time now.
Anyone who wants to force me in such a way into buying something that I can get elsewhere for free will certainly never see a single dime from my side. I don’t even know how stupid their marketing department is to impose these limits on users instead of offering a valuable product to the paying faction. But they don’t. Even if you pay, you get something that is also available for free elsewhere.
The algorithm has also become less and less savvy in terms of e.g. English/German translations. It used to be that the bot could sort of sense what you were trying to say and put it into different colloquialisms, which was even fun because it was like, “I know what you’re trying to say here, how about…” Now it’s in parts too stupid to translate the simplest sentences correctly, and the suggestions it makes are at times as moronic as those made by Google Translations.
If this is a deep-learning AI that learns from users’ translations and the phrases they choose most often – which, by the way, is a valuable, moneys worthwhile contribution of every free user to this project: They invest their time and texts, thereby providing the necessary data for the AI to do the thing as nicely as they brag about it in the first place – alas, the more unprofessional users discovered the translator, the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, the greater the aggregate of linguistically illiterate users has become, and the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, as it now learns the drivel of every Tom, Dick and Harry out there, which is why I now get their Mickey Mouse language as suggestions: the inane language of people who can barely spell the alphabet, it seems.
And as a thank you for our time and effort in helping them and their AI learn, they’ve lowered the limit from what was once 5,000 to now 1,500…? A big “fuck off” from here for that! Not a brass farthing from me for this attitude and behaviour, not in a hundred years.
When will you put an end to the mess in the comments?
Ghacks comments have been broken for too long. What article did you see this comment on? Reply below. If we get to 20 different articles we should all stop using the site in protest.
I posted this on [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/] so please reply if you see it on a different article.
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Article Title: Reddit enforces user activity tracking on site to push advertising revenue
Article URL: https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
No surprises here. This is just the beginning really. I cannot see a valid reason as to why anyone would continue to use the platform anymore when there are enough alternatives fill that void.
I’m not sure if there is a point in commenting given that comments seem to appear under random posts now, but I’ll try… this comment is for https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
My temporary “solution”, if you can call it that, is to use a VPN (Mullvad in my case) to sign up for and access Reddit via a European connection. I’m doing that with pretty much everything now, at least until the rest of the world catches up with GDPR. I don’t think GDPR is a magical privacy solution but it’s at least a first step.