Earlier this week Vivaldi browser finally released its first beta version to the public. Disappointed with the choices of available web browsers, ex-CEO of Opera Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner created Vivaldi to fill what he perceived as a gap in the market.
Tetzchner created Vivaldi as an alternative to Opera and the many other household names like Safari and Firefox. Vivaldi is meant to be a browser that works exactly as you’d expect with loads of features for customization.
The current browser market is fairly limited and while HTML5/CSS3 support has improved greatly, there’s still plenty of room for growth.
Vivaldi’s beta 1 release comes with many additional features and bug fixes. You can download Vivaldi for free and get it running on all major OS’ including Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Since this is a brand new release there’s sure to be a few bugs and areas that need fixing. But Vivaldi Beta is already a huge improvement from the Alpha release with a handful of new features.
This beta 1 release has full support for Chrome extensions since the browser runs on top of Chromium. It also includes more detailed features like private browsing and h.264 video support with HTML5 video tags, among many other additions.
Here’s a full list of beta 1 features taken right from the Vivaldi release history:
- Web-panels
- Chromeless UI
- Tabs visual navigation
- Private window
- Page loading progress indicator
- Typed history list
- Smooth scrolling
- Geolocation support
- HTML5 h.264 support
- Full Extensions support
Everything about Vivaldi is meant to promote a trusting atmosphere among users. This is why the beta stage is so important, where fixing bugs and gathering feedback plays a huge role in the final v1 product.
Opera users who download Vivaldi may find the interface comfortably refreshing. It has a quick access panel like the Opera speed dial functionality. Vivaldi also includes tab stacking, website screen previews, and countless interface customization options.
Many of these features were part of Vivaldi’s first technical release back in January 2015. The browser has come a long way in just over half a year thanks to a dedicated team of employees with a focus on making Vivaldi the best upcoming web browser.
You can download Vivaldi completely free from the Vivaldi website and give it a try. If you test it out and run into any bugs you can report issues directly to the team. You can also stay up-to-date with new releases on Twitter @vivaldibrowser.
