Want a new alternative browser? Vivaldi launches into public beta

By David Curry November 3, 2015

Chrome alternative Vivaldi has announced it is entering beta after an eight month technical preview, which over two million people downloaded. The beta brings with it a ton of new features, expanding on Vivaldi’s promise of being the web browser of choice for the most demanding users.

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Vivaldi wants to make it easy for users to customize their browser experience. Users are able to change where the address bar, tabs bar, and bookmarks are located. Tabs can be stacked into tab folders, and users are able to view a tab folder in tile view. Anytime you want to recover a deleted tab, just check the bin on the upper-right. The address bar changes color to match the webpages’ theme, and Vivaldi has added a sound icon to tabs making noise.

Command gestures are another new feature in the Vivaldi beta, letting users access browser functions with a written command or keyboard shortcut. Mouse shortcuts are also available through gestures, which users can set in the options menu.

Similar to Chrome, Vivaldi offers a list of your most important webpages in Speed Dial, but Vivaldi also allows you to customize the name and placement of the webpages. On the sidebar, Vivaldi has added a program for taking notes. Vivaldi Mail is still unavailable on the sidebar.

Vivaldi will be adding extensions onto the web browser, using the Chrome web store extensions. It is a Chromium-based browser, so it should be compatible with most of the extensions available for Chrome.

“Millions have downloaded our technical previews and many of them have given us the vital feedback we’ve needed to bring out this brand new beta,” said Vivaldi CEO and former Opera CEO Jon Von Tetzchner. “So this beta is our way of saying ‘thanks’. We’re one step closer to building the best browser for people just like us, who want and expect their browser to help them do more on the web.”

Vivaldi is a long way away from reaching the heights of Internet Explorer and Chrome, but passing the two million mark shows a good chunk of professional users are interested in a browser that can offer more than the old guard.

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