Vivaldi web browser features , uses , advantages and disadvantages

Vivaldi is free web browser , It is a Chromium-based application & it has similar features to its predecessor , Opera , Vivaldi packs in a number of functions that could be very useful for the kind of users who works with a lot of content , keeps a lot of tabs open & spends a lot of time on the Internet .

Vivaldi browser

Vivaldi Browser is developed by the same people who created Opera , It seeks to return to the lightweight , minimum requirement design that Opera was created to offer , It is a web browser powered by the Blink engine , which is the same core used in Google Chrome .

Vivaldi browser is the latest in the series of web browsers to take the internet by storm , It is based on the open source Chromium browser & it has a mix of Opera in it , The split apparently came when Opera switched to the Blink layout engine from its older Presto engine .

Since most of the internet users use Google Chrome  , You may wonder what you lose in case you are using Vivaldi , The built in user profile option & the automatic syncing of user settings , profiles , passwords that comes with it are missing , But you can use all the plugins & extensions of Google Chrome , You can use Chrome shortcuts as well , Like to get to the Apps page , just type in chrome://apps in the address bar .

Vivaldi browser advantages

Vivaldi browser is very fast , It is running a lot quicker than Chrome or Firefox , Better / quicker response when browsing Add-ons , Vivaldi can use all Chrome’s extensions , you get the same powerful extensions that you are using with Chrome and there is built-in notepad / text editor .

Vivaldi browser can adapt its colour scheme to the sites you are using & indeed the structure of its interface , Web Panel function Pins one or many web-pages so that you can see both the Pinned web-page & your existing web-page in a split view , There is “paste & go” function , It has much better memory management than Chrome or Firefox .

Chrome crashes more often and uses lots of memory until you can’t open new tabs , Vivaldi is very customizable ( Not only styles can be changed , but also the toolbars & controls may be moved and changed ) , It can load the content quickly ,  It supports mouse gestures and it has fairly sleek design .

Vivaldi browser disadvantages

Vivaldi Browser comes with a bar along the left side which reduces the screen space by default , It can be confusing to less knowledgeable users , especially if the mouse gestures are not disabled , The Bookmarks can’t be exported ( as of 5 Nov 2015 ) , ( there is an import function to get your existing bookmarks from Chrome , Firefox or HTML bookmarks file) .

Vivaldi Web Browser can use Chromium’s Blink Engine , like the most of the other browsers , While the engine is fairly good , some seek something else , which this cannot offer , In some rare cases , The websites ( especially those which use DRM software , such as Netflix ) may require one or more module(s) to be updated by the user , This is not difficult , since it can be done with the click of a button after navigating to chrome://components .

Vivaldi browser Features

Vivaldi browser adopts the speed dial function from Opera , If you’re a fan you’ll realize it makes the website navigation so simple , Speed dial allows you to organize the websites based on your interests all on one page such as News , Sports , Health and Tech .

When you have opened too many tabs up in your browser , Vivaldi has a great feature called Tab Stacking , You want to group together tabs from the same site , or tabs that are centered around the same topic , You can keep all your social media tabs in one stack and all your work-related tabs in another stack .

Tab Stack enables you to arrange those messy tabs by adding multiple tabs on a single one , Simply drag & drop the tabs to your desired spot , Tab Stacking enables you to create the folders of tabs ( like folders of apps on your phone’s home screen ) , Just drag one tab on top of another & you have got yourself a tab stack .

You can tile the tabs so that they sit alongside each other , So , if you’re working with reference material and typing into a Google Doc , you can place them both side by side within Vivaldi browser , without having to create a new window for your research material .

Quick Command is another powerful feature for power users , It is an option for keyboard & shortcut users , You can customize & execute various settings such as opening tabs , bookmarks & other features with the keyboard .

Quick Commands box in Vivaldi browser looks like Spotlight on Mac , Hit F2 , start typing & you can quickly search the web , your recent history and your bookmarks , It is similar to the way the Chrome omnibox works , but the F2 keyboard shortcut makes it easier to use .

Quick Commands box is a superb feature that  can be used to search for the keyboard shortcuts & menu items ( like History ) , It is worth mentioning that Vivaldi browser supports customizable keyboard shortcuts if you want to create your own , You can head to the Keyboard tab in Settings to customize your own .

Vivaldi’s note tool is invaluable when you need to write down the ideas on the fly , It is built right into the browser’s sidebar , To get started , click the notes icon , then start typing , Notes can be organized into the folders and you can easily add the screenshots and the attachments by using the icons at the bottom .

This isn’t for annotating the web-pages , The notes stay fixed as you jump from site to site , but you can attach URLs for reference and each note is stamped with a time and date too , A note-taking utility lets you quickly highlight text on the page and add it to a note that , when clicked , will take you to the web page .

Note taking is a superb feature , Taking notes from your favorite website has never been easier , With this function you can easily jot down what’s on your mind while browsing , Notes automatically remember which site you were browsing and allow you to add tags for future reference .

Vivaldi browser supports mouse gesture shortcuts like Opera  , so , You can close the tab with the swipe of the mouse , or open up a new one with a click , If you have never used it , but once you have become accustomed to browsing the web with a few mouse swipes , it is difficult to go back .

There are gesture-based shortcuts which enable you to hold down the right-mouse button or Alt key , and move your cursor to perform dozen tasks including Back , New Tab & Stop , They don’t work well with a touch-pad .

You are able to select Mouse from the Settings dialog & you can enable or disable mouse gestures and see the gestures themselves demonstrated on screen , To close the tab , click and hold the right mouse button , then drag down and to the right , As yet there’s no option to add your own gestures .

Side-by-side browsing is a superb feature , Vivaldi browser helps you view the sites side-by-side in the same browser window , You can select multiple tabs using Ctrl & pick the layout from the Page tiling icon at the bottom , The pages can be tiled horizontally or vertically or in quarters , It works for tab stacks too , So , if you want to get two articles up side-by-side then another click on the same icon gets you back to normal .

Vivaldi browser has got superb features such as tab thumbnails , Rewind button which goes back to the first page in a tab’s history & many customization options , Many keyboard shortcuts can assign to all manner of more advanced functions , including Vivaldi-specific actions , Vivaldi could really do with a “tip of the day” feature that slowly introduces you to its advanced features .

Cooler is the addition of a side bar , that lets you pop out the web pages – called Web Panels , This is handy for web-mail clients such as Gmail , news websites such as the Guardian and Twitter , or any other website that’s responsive to the size of the browser being used .

Vivaldi browser can handle downloads in the sidebar easily , It enables you to pause & retry downloads quickly & easily , The ability to rewind to the start of the domain you’re navigating is brilliant , Vivaldi handles history searching in the address bar better than Google Chrome and it feels faster than Firefox , it is easy to find the page simply by typing a keyword from the page title .