Vivaldi - the browser with interesting features

Vivaldi is a free cross-platform web browser developed by Vivaldi Technologies, which was founded by Opera Software co-founder and former CEO Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner and Tatsuki Tomita.

Vivaldi is a uniquely fast, flexible and functional browser built on the top of Chromium project, bringing the best of Opera and Google Chrome browsers together in a single browser.

At this stage, it feels like the browser wars have been fought and won. Most of you probably use Chrome or Firefox,and a sad few of you may even use Internet Explorer. But there's a newbrowser in town, and it actually has some features worth sitting up andtake notice of.

Vivaldi squarely aimed at power users around for more than a year. Vivaldi packs innovative features that are useful for both regular as well as power users, like faster navigation, smarter browsing, extensive tab management, clever bookmarking and shortcuts, and a more visual approach to browsing. It is available for all the desktop platforms like Windows, Mac and Linux.

Here is the top cool features of Vivaldi that sets it apart from the other major browsers out there -

1. Tab Stacking

If you are a user who prefers to see a fewer tabs on the tab bar, Vivaldi also lets you stack the tabs you want to open. The feature called Tab Stacks works just like the Windows Taskbar ‘combine buttons’ feature. Just drag one tab on top of another and you’ve got yourself a tab stack.

2. Reposition Tabs

The default position of the tabs is at the top of the browser, or at least that’s what we have been taught by Chrome and Firefox for years now. However, Vivaldi has the guts to bring changes to it. The best thing is that you can even reposition it to bottom, right and on the left edge of the browser, based on your comfort level.

3. Visual Tabs

Vivaldi’s Visual Tabs gives you a glance of the open tabs when you hover over the tab. A small windowed preview will appear and show you a sneak peek of each tab’s content. This will prove useful when one has too many tabs opened. To preview a single tab, simply hover over any tab to have a glance.

4. Tab Tiling

Tab Tiling in Vivaldi lets you view two or more pages simultaneously. You can conveniently display selected stacked tabs or single tabs side-by-side or in a grid layout. The selected web pages are, by default, displayed side by side.

5. Note taking

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

6. Quick Commands

Yet another addition to make navigation even better is Quick Commands which can be invoked by pressing the F2 key while you are browsing. These quick commands help you to navigate to tabs easily and even lets you search for bookmarks and launch them. You can also search for various commands you will be shown respective hotkeys next to it.

7. Mouse gestures

Gestures always make navigation easy and Vivaldi integrates it as one of its default features. Using the feature, you can use mouse gestures to open a new tab, close tab, go back a page and much more. To configure these things, open up Vivaldi Settings and navigate to Mouse Settings. Here, check the option that says Allow Gestures.

8. Web Panels

This is one of most useful feature where you can add an independent web panel to the edge of the browser and have a look at social timeline or emails without having to leave the webpage you are currently working on.

9. Nickname Bookmarks

In Vivaldi, each bookmark can be assigned a nickname for faster access. This nickname can be typed directly into the address bar to quickly load the associated web page. It is something like typing fb for Facebook, rather than typing the whole thing, but applicable to pretty much any other website you are would like to bookmark.

10. Adaptive UI

Another interesting feature of Vivaldi is that its color scheme will adapt to that of the website you are currently browsing. For example, if you are browsing Facebook, then Vivaldi’s tab and controls will turn blue.

11. Navigation

Get to where you're going faster with fully configurable Search options, custom shortcuts and a Bookmark manager fit for power users.

12. Mouse and Keyboard

Use custom Keyboard Shortcuts, Mouse Gestures or the command line control of Quick Commands. The choice is at your fingertips.

13. Privacy & Security

Vivaldi is built with privacy as a priority and gives you full control of settings critical to keeping your data safe.

14. Tools

Built-in tools like Notes, Image Properties and more give you advanced functionality without sacrificing performance.

15. Speed Dial

Speed Dial is similar to a feature found in Opera but in Vivaldi, it is spruced up to help you access your favorite sites via visual bookmarks. You can create and name speed dial folders or groups based on site categories or your interests.

16. Secure Vivaldi Sync

Syncing with other computers will no more be risky. With Vivaldi syncing across the computers will be even more private and secure. You can now sync all your data between multiple computer systems securely. The data includes your autofill information, saved passwords, Speed Dials, browsing history, Bookmarks, extensions, and Notes. All your synced data is safe here because Vivaldi involves no third party server.

17. Capture Tool

There is a new camera icon the status bar of your new Vivaldi web browser. This camera will help you capture the screenshots. You can now take a screenshot right from your web browser with the help of this new tool names Capture. The built-in Capture tool lets you take the screenshots on your own preferences. You can capture the full page or select a definitive screen. You can then choose to save the snap to your disk or to copy it on the clipboard for instant use. You can also add the screenshots in your Vivaldi Notes for the future reference.

18. Downloads Panel

All your downloaded files are kept here in the chronological order. You just need to use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+D, and your files will be downloaded and saved in the ‘downloads panel’.

Conclusion

So, these were the top 10 features of Vivaldi that might convince you to try it out today if you haven't already. However, they are just getting started. The developers have promised to make Vivaldi even better in the future.