Vivaldi just released version 7.6 of its web browser. While a lot of other browsers are pushing one-size-fits-all interfaces and templates, Vivaldi is letting you decide how your browser looks and where your tabs go.
One of the most important things about this update is the new, fully customizable tab bar. It’s a game-changer for anyone who wants more control over how their browser operates. According to Vivaldi’s CEO, Jon von Tetzchner, “Customization is not just decoration. It is how you turn a browser into YOUR browser. Your browser should help you explore more of the web, not explore it for you. So we’re building Vivaldi to keep you in control and to help you explore more.”
With Vivaldi 7.6, you can make the tab bar as minimalist or as jam-packed with tools as you want. You pick the tools you want, and you decide where to place them. You can even choose to have your tabs on the top, bottom, left, or right side of the screen. This level of personalization is interesting to see, and I’ve yet to see many other browsers get this detailed with a tab’s customizable interface.
Along with the new tab bar, Vivaldi is introducing what it calls “The Tab Button,” and I honestly can’t believe how useful this is. It’s a single, unified spot to find, switch, and recover tabs without having to hunt through different menus. When you click it, you get a focused panel with a search bar at the top, which lets you filter through all your open, synced, and recently closed tabs.
It’s designed to give you a better sense of flow, so you spend less time hunting for a specific tab and more time actually doing things. It’s also great for tab-housekeeping, because it automatically groups duplicate tabs together, so you can close them all with just a single click. No more having the same page open five times because you forgot you already had it up.
Vivaldi 7.6 also comes with a lot of other features that are worth mentioning. The team has cleaned up and reorganized a lot of the context menus, making it faster to get to the core actions you use all the time. The Address Field has also gotten an upgrade; now you can type things like @tabs, @bookmarks, or @history to filter and search through different sections right from the address bar.
The built-in Ad Blocker has also gotten an upgrade, with new support for pop-up rules. This new feature complements the existing pop-up blocker by automatically closing any sneakily opened tabs or windows that are trying to sell you something. It keeps your browsing experience clean and distraction-free, without blocking legitimate site behaviors.
For Windows users, Vivaldi 7.6 now supports swipe gestures. This means you can use your trackpad or touch screen to go back and forth between pages, which is a great addition for anyone who doesn’t like using a mouse. You can download Vivaldi 7.6 starting today on the official website.
Source: Vivaldi