Introduction

Vivaldi is a free, open-source Chromium-based browser developed by a number of programmers who used to be involved in the creation Opera. Having said that, it should come as no surprise that the interface of Vivaldi heavily resembles that of Opera with square tab icons and a menu on the top-left side of the screen. However, there are quite a lot of unique traits related to Vivaldi that set this program apart from Opera or any other browser that you might have encountered.

Unique tab management

One thing that should make a lasting impression after starting to use Vivaldi would be the peculiar, yet very convenient tab management. First of all, the user is free to choose where the different tabs would be displayed – they can be listed horizontally at the top as with most other browsers or one could have them vertically at either side of the screen. Also, one could stack browser tabs on top of each other creating groups of tabs for quicker access and for saving screen space. Vivaldi really encourages its user to use all the customization freedom that they are given in order to create a browser that maximally suits one’s needs.

Speed Dial

Similarly to Opera, Vivaldi too has a Speed Dial page that is set as the new tab page by default. The speed dial is basically a page with bookmarks listed as tiles on the screen – it is fully customizable as one would expect. Of course, if you want, you can change the new tab page to something else and not the Speed Dial from the browser’s settings menu.

Transition

One particularly pleasant aspect of Vivaldi is that transitioning to it is very simple, easy and quick. It takes no more than a minute to complete and once you launch the browser, all your bookmarks from your previous default browser would have been transferred to Vivaldi. Therefore, if you are thinking about switching up to those browser, you wouldn’t need to worry about restoring your previous browsing configuration.

Extensions

One other good thing is that, since Vivaldi is build on Chromium, the user is allowed access the Google Web Store and could download and install extensions from there directly to Vivaldi without any effort. There are also a number of pre-installed extensions such as Adobe Flash that come with the browser by default.

Compatibility and performance

There shouldn’t be any issue with compatibility as Vivaldi supports Windows, Mac OS and Linux, however, when it comes to performance, there are a couple of things to be noted. First of all, Vivaldi isn’t the fastest browser out there. Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, IE, Edge and Opera seem to score better when it comes to browsing speed. This likely has to do with the second note we ought to make here and that would be the system resource consumption that comes from Vivaldi – this browser tends to require significant amounts of CPU and RAM which means that if you tend to have a lot of tabs opened all at once, you might experience performance issues with your PC if the machine isn’t very powerful. Therefore, we would advise you to consider the capabilities of your computer before deciding to switch over to Vivaldi. Of course, this doesn’t mean that this browser would make your PC super slow and you wouldn’t be able to normally surf the internet with this program but performance and resource usage is still an important aspect that needs to be taken into consideration.

Conclusion

While Vivaldi might not be the fastest or the best-performing browser out there, it certainly is a good browsing option for users who value customization as this program offers a lot of options and settings aimed towards that. It includes a lot of useful (and some not that useful) features – above we have mentioned only the most notable ones as the rest is for you to explore for yourself. All in all, if you seek a browsing program that is susceptible to heavy customization and you don’t mind a bit slower performance, then Vivaldi might be the option for you.

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Introduction to Opera

Opera is a Chromium-based browser which means that it shares a lot of similar characteristics with other browsers based on Chrome (Google Chrome included). However, there are a couple of things that need to be mentioned here which set apart Opera from other browsing programs which you might have encountered and used. The main thing that Opera is known for is a number of innovations that it has introduced. As you might have heard, Opera is said to be the first browser to use tabbed interface. It is often argued that what Opera did back then wasn’t exactly the tabbed interface that we know now, yet it did similar job before any other browsing program offered such an option. Here, we will go over the most popular and useful of them.

Built-in add-blocker

One neat feature that Opera has is an integrated ad-blocker that can be enabled from the browser’s settings. It works rather well and manages to block nearly all forms of intrusive ads that you might encounter on the Internet. The feature even stops YouTube video adverts that start playing at the beginning or in the middle of the video that you are currently watching. There is even a counter at the top-right which shows you how many ads the browser has blocked so far. If you want to disable the ad-blocker for a specific site, you can easily do so by clicking onto the X button next to the blocked ads counter and turn off the switch that gets displayed. All in all, a useful feature that has the potential to make one’s browsing experience much more pleasant.

Pop Out videos

Another interesting option that you have with Opera is to move the video that you are watching to a separate window which stays above your browser or any other window or program that is currently opened. That way, you can watch a YouTube or Facebook video while doing something else on your PC without the need to have the actual page with the video currently visible on your screen. In order to activate this, you’d simply need to hover your mouse over the specific video and click on a small double-screen icon that gets displayed on the top of it.

Speed dial

This is yet another unique feature that Opera has – the Speed Dial is a separate page which works similarly to a Bookmark Menu. The Speed Dial is the default page that opens each time you open a new tab. The sites displayed in the Speed Dial are organized as tiles making it easier to find the one you are looking for and also making it tab-friendly (for Android users, for example). You can freely organize and customize the Speed Dial page but you cannot change its surf engine which is always Google.

Mouse gestures

In addition to the previous options Opera offers, users are also able to make their browsing faster and more efficient by using mouse gestures in order to navigate through the pages. For example, holding the right mouse button and swiping left or right would enable you to go back and forward between the different pages. Also, if you hold the right mouse button and swipe down, a new tab will open. While some might find it easier to do those actions the regular way or via keyboard combinations, once one gets used to using the mouse gestures, the browsing becomes faster.

Virtual Private Network (VPN)

Opera is the only big browser that offers a VPN feature to help users improve the security of their system when using a public Wi-Fi network. As we all know using public Wi-Fi comes with a number of potential risks as getting your data stolen by hackers, or getting redirected to shady websites. A virtual Private Network helps you avoid that risk. A VPN can also enable you to access content that is unavailable for your geographical location such as certain YouTube videos, for example. Enabling this option is simple, all you need to do is go to Settings, scroll down until you find it and place a tick in the checkbox. After that, a VPN icon will appear left of the website URL and you’d be able to turn it on and off from there.

Lacking features

There are two main things that Opera seems to lack which might annoy some users. The first one is a Reading Mode option which is useful when reading articles on sites with a lot of banners and obstructive content. The other one is a social sharing tool. Also, in some cases, certain websites might fail to recognize the browser which can be rather annoying, though instances of this are rather rare.

Performance

Opera is one of the faster browser, yet it is not the fastest that you can have. Popular browsers that provide greater performance speed are Mozilla, Chrome, Maxthon and Edge. That said, Opera is still a good performer and it also has a Turbo Mode which, when enabled, compresses data that is transferred, effectively increasing the speed and decreasing the size of the loaded data. This is especially useful when the Internet connection isn’t fast or when the data which can be loaded is limited by your Internet provider. Also, there is a Battery Saver feature which reduces the browser’s use of energy – perfect for laptops when they aren’t plugged in to the grid.

Compatibility

Opera is compatible with versions of Windows from XP to 10 and it is one of the few browser which still issues updates for XP. It can also be used on Mac OS and on several of the more popular Linux systems.

Conclusion

All in all, Opera is a neat browser that comes with a number of unique features and options that users some might find highly-beneficial. And while this browser might not be the fastest and the best performing, there are very few things that it lacks which other browsing programs might offer.

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