Vivaldi Browser 2020 - Results of the Year

Hello, Habr!



New Year's holidays are rapidly approaching, Christmas decorations and bright garlands are already ready to leave their boxes to decorate conifers, at family councils there are heated discussions on the composition of salads and the range of drinks - in general, there is normal business preparation for the annual celebrations. But let's digress a little from this pleasant bustle and summarize a little - what has pleased us with the Vivaldi browser over the past year? And above all - this is, of course, the release of the mobile version of Vivaldi for Android .

Vivaldi for Android - programmed success

The release of this version in April this year has become a real holiday for all Vivaldi users - this event has been awaited, the question of the release date of the mobile browser has been the most popular for a long time. And now we have it. The audience of mobile users has grown rapidly to half a million users and continues to grow at a very good pace. And this is not surprising - from the very first stable version, we tried to add popular functions to the browser, the main one of which, of course, was the built-in spy and ad blocker.







Over the months since the release, we have been able to further expand the functionality of the blocker, adding the ability to connect our own block lists, assign individual block rules for websites and block entire web pages. In the new year, we will continue to develop this necessary and useful tool for the modern Internet.



Significant progress can be noted for the Express Panel - we have been actively working to improve the usability of frequently visited resources. Added the ability to customize the size of cells, as well as the option to display them in a list.







Users of the desktop version know that we pay a lot of attention to the customizability of the Vivaldi interface, so the logical step was to add similar functionality to the mobile version - you can move or disable browser panels, use light and dark themes for both the interface and web pages , use color-coded tabs, and that's just the beginning. In the future, the customizability of the browser will only expand - we have big plans for the new year.







Other popular functions include the ability to create notes and screenshots - moreover, a snapshot can be either the visible part of the screen or the entire page.







Synchronization is perhaps the most important feature for those who use the desktop version as well. You can sync passwords, bookmarks, notes, browsing history, and it should be said especially about the function of viewing pages in the mobile version of Vivaldi, opened on the desktop version - and this is also all thanks to synchronization. Once you start reading the news on your home computer, you can continue this exciting activity on the road.







In general, the release of the mobile version was a logical and powerful step towards the continued growth of Vivaldi's popularity. The full list of mobile browser features added since the release of the first version, you can see below:





Now we will look at the progress in the development of the desktop version of Vivaldi.

Vivaldi for PC - quantity becomes quality

It just so happened historically that on desktop computers today, the most popular are several browsers developed by very large companies with powerful resources. Not so long ago, I also had to work for some time in the most popular browser, and I can say that the impression can be conveyed in one word - pain. After Vivaldi, with its powerful and convenient functionality, every action caused a lot of negative emotions, and when I suggested that the owner of this computer simply save all active tabs in the session, so that later open them with one click, I received only a bewildered look in response: the person diligently kept all the important open pages for months, fearing to inadvertently close and lose them. And nothing special - just sessions ...



Yes, Vivaldi on the desktop has no equal in functionality and customization. Of course, some browsers have their own individual advantages, but in terms of the combination of capabilities and convenience, Vivaldi still wins. I understand that many may now be indignant and start protecting their favorite browser, but let's evaluate objectively: Vivaldi is the best browser for today. No other browser will give you so many opportunities to customize and adapt the browser to suit your tasks, and the built-in mail client with an integrated RSS reader, which appeared in one of the recent test builds, simply makes it a leader.



Let's just go through the most notable features coming this year. One of the main ones is the built-in ad blocker. It supports custom listings as well as plugins from other blockers. Given the policy of one well-known company on new restrictions for blocking extensions, the tool built into Vivaldi becomes a must-have option.







Another popular feature is watching videos in a docked window. It appeared at the beginning of the year and has received a lot of improvements during this time:







A full-fledged note manager was a logical development of a popular feature that appeared in earlier versions. But now it's practically a text editor that supports formatting, adding links to original material and screenshots of pages.







The expansion of the browser's customizability functions has led to a logical continuation - now users can themselves change and customize the browser context menus, adding the necessary items to them and removing rarely used ones, and even add their own useful links to have quick access to them. And this is just the beginning - in the new year, the customization options will be significantly expanded.







Auto-update tabs is a small but very useful feature.







And, of course, it is necessary to say separately about the long-awaited built-in mail client Vivaldi - it is still in test mode, but has already received a lot of positive feedback from users.







At the same time, we are testing a new tool for planning our stormy and eventful life - the built-in calendar.







Also in test versions, users can see another noticeable improvement in our favorite area - in working with multiple tabs. We've added a new way to display grouped tabs - in a two-pane version.







And many many others. Below is a complete list of new features added to the stable branch of the browser since Vivaldi 2.11, released in February 2020:





In addition to these new features, the Vivaldi browser for desktops has a lot of other popular features, including a powerful tool for working with browsing history, synchronization, notes, a sidebar with the ability to add your own web panels, viewing in a private window, viewing multiple tabs at the same time in one window , screenshots, reading mode and much more - you can list it for a long time. But it's better to go from words to deeds and try Vivaldi in real daily work - you will definitely find something very necessary and important just for you.



The Vivaldi team wishes everyone a Happy Holidays. Only thanks to you, we were able to implement all those cool things that are listed above this year. Without your support, without your help, without your ideas and fair criticism, we would not have done even a tenth of what we were able to do. It's a great pleasure to build the world's best browser with you, the world's best community. Once again, Happy New Year, we promise to continue to delight you with pleasant surprises and new capabilities of Vivaldi browsers!



Photo by Danil Aksenov