Vivaldi is a freeware, cross-platformweb browser developed by Vivaldi Technologies, a company founded by Opera Software co-founder and former CEOJon Stephenson von Tetzchner and Tatsuki Tomita. It was officially launched on April 6, 2016. Although intended for general users, it is first and foremost targeted towards technically-inclined users as well as former Opera users disgruntled by its transition from the Presto layout engine to a Chromium-based browser that resulted in the loss of many of its iconic features. Despite also being Chromium-based, Vivaldi aims to revive the features of the Presto-based Opera with its own proprietary modifications. As of April 2020, Vivaldi has 1.5 million active monthly users. Vivaldi released a mobile beta version on September 6, 2019 and a regular release on April 22, 2020.
History
Vivaldi began as a virtual community website that replaced My Opera, which was shut down by Opera Software in March 2014. Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner was angered by this decision because he believed that this community helped make the Opera web browser what it was. Tetzchner then launched the Vivaldi Community—a virtual community focused on providing registered users with a discussion forum, blogging service, and numerous other practical web services—to make up for My Opera's closure. Later, on January 27, 2015, Vivaldi Technologies launched the first technical preview of the Vivaldi web browser. Its name comes from the Italian composerAntonio Vivaldi, which, according to one of its creators, is an easy name to be remembered and understood worldwide.
Releases
Features
User interface
Vivaldi has a minimalistic user interface with basic icons and fonts, and a color scheme that changes based on the background and design of the web page being visited. The browser also allows users to customize the appearance of UI elements such as background color, overall theme, address bar and tab positioning, and start pages. According to CEO Jon von Tetzchner, Vivaldi's vast, unique customizability is a huge part of how the browser caters to experienced users. Vivaldi features the ability to "stack" and "tile" tabs, annotate web pages, and add notes to bookmarks. Furthermore, users can place digital bookmarks on a "speed dial" page for quick access and harness "quick commands" to search bookmarks, browsing history, open tabs, and settings. Vivaldi is built around and based on web technologies such as HTML5, Node.js, React.js, and numerous NPM modules. As of Technical Preview 4, Vivaldi also supports numerous mouse gestures for actions like tab switching and keyboard activation. Vivaldi can also be set to a "Chromeless UI", which gives users more screen real-estate and the ability to focus on a single page without distractions. To accommodate users who prefer to use a large number of tabs at the same time, Vivaldi supports hibernation for both individual tabs and for tab stacks, freeing resources while the user does not actively use those tabs.
Extensions
Vivaldi can use many browser extensions developed for Google Chrome and Firefox, users can install extensions directly from the Chrome Web Store. Most of these works properly in Vivaldi, with the exception of user interface customizations, because Vivaldi's interface is quite different from Chrome's.
Future additions
The company hopes to integrate an email client into a future version of the browser, and also plans to release their own extension platform.
Market share
estimates that Vivaldi had a 0.02% market share for desktop browsers in May 2020.
Reception
Ars Technica reviewer Scott Gilbertson wrote about version 1.0 in April 2016. He praised its innovative features, such as its tab handling, while noting that it will most likely remain a niche browser and not see widespread uptake. In October 2018, Gilbertson gave version 2.0 a very positive review and stated that Vivaldi is now his usual browser and that he would be hard put to go back to a browser without its unique features.
